The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1894-03-07
CLEMENT A. EVANS.
A SKETCH.

SAID great philosopher LULU w O
selves the people may be trusted to do
the right. That love of virtue and re-
spect for courage natural to the human
heart eravitates toward grand men, and
upon this rock is founded the hope OF
nations.
Weary of fractional tends and the pet
tv iealousies of wireworkers, the people
of this commonwealth have called to
their leadership with a united voice
General Clement A. Evans.
He is pre-eminently pe9cemaker.
Walking amidst the dead and dying on
the BATTLEFIELD where his valor had earn
ed his epaulets, his sympathetic heart
was touched, and his steadfast resolve
fixed his future. To use his own words:
81 determined to enter the ministry
when the war should end, for it was
better to save men than to destroy them
At eighteen a lawyer, at twenty-five
Judge. at twenty-five a state senator, and
at thirty-one major; all these he hum
bly, laid aside to become servant OF
| God and his felloWman. In the vigor CT
Young manhood he willingly renounced
crown of civic and military laurels
never before attained by Georgian so
early in life, to become an itinerant
preacher in the rugged hills of Barlow
county. While other leaders of the Con
federacy copied and enjoyed the emGl-
uments of public office conferred upon
them by an adhiring people, he event
about doing good" 1t is no wonder
the people love him.
Twenty-one years after Appomattox
General Evans was invited to preach at
a great meeting at Johannah's Heights
in Pennsylvania, near one Of the old
battlefelds. Five thousand Northern
people focked to hear the great South
ern soldier of the cross proclaim peace
on earth, and with streaming eyes they
crowded about him to shake his hand.
1t was a glorious day for the reunited
union.
A few years since when the
strike of the cotton factory opera
tives in Augusta threatened a prolonged
and disastrous conflict between capital
and labor in that city, General Evans
threw himself into the breach. By pa
: tienceSnd kindness his efforts resulted
in a compromise and the operatives
went back to their work. Thus great
loss was saved to the mill owners, and
the people were spared from want anc
suffering. While pastor of church in
the same city, the Savannah river over
flowed it's banks and many were depriv
ed of work, and their homes and lives
were imperiled by the flood. Although
i'll and advised to keep his bed, and for
hidden by his physicians to leave
his room, General Evans dressed him
self took a canoe filled with provisions
and worked day after day in feeding the
needy and rescuing those IL. danger. Out
of grateful hearts the fifty thousand
people of that city join common call
for him to take the reins of govern
m6nt.
Some months ago, shortly after Gen
eral Evans name was suggested for the
governorship a wealthy man of Georgia
wrote to HIM at length suggesting GER
tain lines of policy favorable to The
wealthy classes. The answer was char
acteristic. General Evans did not pre-
| cipitate controversy on the points rails
ed by the gentleman, nor did he make
any effort to avoid uttering his convic-
tons, but simply said that he General
Evans) had spent SO much of his life in
ministering to the wants and comforting
the sorrows of peoples less fortunate than
his correspondent, that it would be un-
natural if his sympathies were not with
them, Neither of these gentlemen have
consented to the publication of that cor
pondence, and what is here written is in
simple justice to General Evans.
General Evans was a Stewart county
farmers son. Reared among pioneers,
brought into daily contact with the
rough and rugged toll of rural life of fff-
ty years ago, he has never forgotten the
class from which he sprung. Bis ances-
try on his mothers side was irish, the
organs of Ulster, a family famed
throughout the green hills Of Erin. His
| great-grandfather on the paternal side
was an officer in the Revolutionary war,
and his grandfather was wounded while
serving under Andrew jackson against