The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-11-22
BILL ARP,S LETTER.
Arp Takes Exceptions to Pages Article In
tho Forum.
atlanta Go,,stitutio1

Arp Takes Exceptions to Page's ArtlcIe IL
tho Forum.
atlanta Constitution.
The Forum, is most excellent mag
| azine. It has ever been fair and lib.
| eral in sentiment towards the South.
It is medium for advanced thought,
conservative educator, and is always
| welcome at my freside. But [ con-
fess that I am not pleased with the
editors article on the "Suthern Bull
ly" in the November number. In
dee;., 1 did not know that we had such
professional institution in all our
borders, and Mr.. Pages's twelve pages
of philosophical anathema against him
have failed to convince me of his ex-
istence or of our danger from his law.
less conduct.
Distance does not always lend en-
chantment to the view. If Mr.. Page
lived here in Gainesville he would be
soon surprised to find that the bully
was not in these parts but was, per-
haps, little lower down where the
mosquitoes aggravate man or some
foul malaria poisons his liver and dis
turbs his serenity. When 7 was q
boy studying my first 6. graphy, j
found there picture of heather
Chinese carrying on pole long
string of rats for sale, and so for forty
years | believed that rats were the
Chinaman national food. Indeed,
was disappointed when I learned that
they did not eat rats. had believed
it so long I wanted to continue in the
faith. In the same book there was a
picture of scene in Florida. It was
dark, Shiny lagoon surrounded by q
tangled growth of trees and vines COW
cred with long moss, venomous snakes
hung from the branches, greedy vul-
lures gerched in the treetops and
wide-mduthed alligators were summing
themselves upon the logs. That hid
eous vision of Florida lasted me for
years.
Just so some of our Northern breth-
rem have grown up with an idea that
the South used to be full of despera-
does, and is even now spotted with
bullies who are clinging to barbarism
and brutality. They want to continue
in that faith.
Mr.. Page says "the bully is an old
acquaintance to those who know
Southern life. He had much to do
with the war, the penalty of which
other men who had nothing to do with
it, had to pay with his oaths and his
honor he has strutted through all the
quiet ways of Southern life calling
himself the South and he leads mobs
to avenge 'our women : 1t
has been left for commerce by infus-
ing it's influence into the body Of local
public sentiment in the South to rid
us at last of this historic red-handed,
deformed and staggering villain"
Well, I am glad he has gone, if he
was ever here, for he must have been
an awful bad man. Strange l did not
come across him in my youth-stran-
ger still that in the induction Of the
war 'sminima pass fui' I did not re-
cognize him, and now in my old age |
do not see him with his last hold upon
the throat of law and order. 1t seems
to me that Mr.. Page has set up the
tenpins just to have the fun of knock
ing them down again.
If he means that those who voted
for secession were the bullies, then |
plead guilty along with many Of our
noblest Christian gentlemen, such as
Howell Cobb and Tom Cobb and Joe
Brown and General Evans and Col
quit and Gordon and Nesbett and q
host of others whom the people of
Georgia have delighted to honor.
Surely he is not making fling at these
men. The right to secede has long
ago been settled, settled when the
North did not dare to try Mr.. Davis
for treason, their greatest lawyers de-
claring that he could not be legally
convicted. The South seceded-that
was all. It was the North that made
war about it. Then who does he mean
by the bully who had much to do with
the war? Maybe he means the com
mon soldiers, the high privates, the
"hoi polloi" who mainly did the
fighting. No, he cannot mean them,
for they were patriots. Patriotism
was their only motive, for they owned
no negroes whose slavery was in peril.
And besides red-handed, staggering
villains do not fight. They are cow
ards. remember hut two or three town
bullies in Rome when we were max
ing up our companies, but they didn't
join us. They lodged the war. They
had no influence in bringing it on and
took no perilous part in the conflict
They never do.
Who the DULLES are that now have
their "last hold," as Mr.. Page says,
we are at loss to know.
If he means the lynchers, we must
defend them from everything but
lynching. They are neither red
handed, deformed nor staggering.
They are not villains. They do not
"pretend to the traditions of the old
Southern gentleman. They are not
class. They are community. You
cannot go into any town or settlement
and pick them out and say this man
will be lyncher when the horrible
crime is committed.
Mr.. Page processes the highest re-
spect for Bishop Haygood, as every
body does who knows him, and yet
does not seem to respect his assertion
that "the Southern people are not
cruel and never were. They are a
kind-hearted people; good to one an:
other and to all men. They are kind
to dumb brutes. Whatever may be
true or false about them, they were
never cruel-hearted. They we're kind
to the negroes when they were slaves
they are kind to them now
If this be true then where are the
bullies that these sweeping reproaches
are hurled at, for it was this same
kind-hearted class of people who
burned the negro at Paris /; the same
Il / - ,oo.o ,,n c& ~ Dor{