The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-22

leyerSDlT commercial people "a
England, New York and the West 1t Is
not. therefore, remarkable that the war 70
the South continues today to De .
deeper and longer memory, an event
of more overpowering sentimental IN
terest and importance than II does
TO the North. The Norths soh
suffered little by the bosom OF hre ana
sword; there were no violent changes tnas
stood for tremendous social suffering ana
the ruin Of property interests Inc war
swept away vast property interests IN the
South and dropped thousands from the
dignity of wealth to the distress OF poT-
erty; 1t rudeiy tore up the deeply-pianted
social institution of slavery by the roots,
so that compared with the North the
bosom of the South was dotted with scars
War cut a black swa:h in the fields OF
Virginia. Georgia and the Carolinas; 1t
wrought material ruin and social revolu-
ton for thousands who could not easily
forget it. Ali these facts go far to explain
why the war has been a passionate and a
proud regret at the South, a longer and
more absorbing memory than at the
North.
In time the South as she grows busy
and rich will learn to put the war behind
and the peace of the present that makes
for increasing prosperity and happiness to
the front, but it will still be long time
before the South will learn to direct her
political course without reference to the
memories of the war. as recently attested
by the solid vote of the ex-Confederate
Democracy against a congressional APP
preparation for the G. A E. celebration in
Washington City. This is not pleasant,
but it is honest and manly hostility and
prejudice compared with the ''blue and
gray" blatherskite that nauseates every
true soldier on either side. 1t is not hu-
man nature for an honest Confederate to
decorate Union grave; it is not honest
human nature for Union soldier to deco
rate Confederate grave. It was q brave
fight on both sides, but both sides were
not right, and the quiet common sense
that accepts the arbitrament of the sword
is worth thousand years of insincere
sentimentalism. There are enough of Us
left on both sides to do our own honest
mourning. Let each side do it like men,
and let Us be honest at the funeral.
The manly way to treat this great
quarrel is not the sentimental way. To
Southern valor we all take off our hats;
but to take off your hat to mans pluck is
one thing; to take off your hat to his prin-
cip.e is another, and no manly veteran on
either side wants to mingle the "blue and
the gray as if the war was nothing but
bloody, gigantic frolic, with no more
principle at stake than two brave boys who
dared each other to knock a chip off the
shoulder and fought like bull dogs about
this silly cause of quarrel. Sincere
patriots and thoughtful statesmen rise
above the mood of the sentimental boobies,
or cheap demagogues whether clad in blue
or gray, who go to Gettysburg field annu-
ally to hold a drunken barbecue or
frivolous camp fire over the tumulus of
heroes. The wantons of both Greece and
Rome can caper over the graves of Paris
and Helen, but earnest men on either side
have deeper and sublimer thoughts when
they stand over the tombs of Hector and
Achilles and think how gushed the life
blood of the brave of both sections before
the Confederate Troy fell. Alcoholic
antics at military picnic is about all
that these Union and Confederate reunions
amount to. At Boston more than once
the military snobs of both sections have
uttered the speech of drunken fools who
pledge each other out of the skulls of the
Union and Confederate dead until they
forget what the war achieved that must
and shall be preserved in order to lift it
above a mere bloody laundering battle
between the DULLES of both sections.
There is no objection to an enthusiastic
Irishman declaining 1.-THE Irish Brigade
at Fontenoy." England can afford to
smile. admit the valor of the Irish and the
loss of the battle, because she knows that
her defeat at Fontenoy did not free Ire
land" The North can afford to smile at
the Confederate parade, to. concede the
valor of the South, because victory came
at last, and the South, like Ireland, recites
"Fontenoy" under the shelter of the flag
that "Fontenoy" did not conquer.