The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1894-02-28
He Slandered Southern Men
4 Young Nirginion Proves a Form
;dnble Roland.

New IOrk, EeD. IL. ~ Aat "oo
intended to be celebration tonight
of Washington's birthday on an
elaborate scale had been planned by
the New York Southern Society.
Owing to strange mischance, how.
ever, many Of the guests of honor
expected did not put in their appear
ance at the annual banquet given at
Sherry. She speakers invited includ-
ed such prominent persons as Secre.
tary John G.. Carlisle, Speaker Crisp,
Congressman John Allen, of Mis-
rissippi, and Isador Raynor, Of Mary
land.
At the last moment the officers be-
gan to hustle for speakers to take the
places of the absentees. Congress-
man Isadore Strauss consented to
take the place of Raynor, and Post
master Drayton, of this city, that of
Col. McClelland. The other speakers
were President Charles Deshon, NJ.
j. Verdery, and James and L. Cor
don.
Among the guests were John A.
Mccall, John G. Calhoun, Augustus
Healy, Ellis Fl. Roberts, Elihu Root,
Gustav Schwab, and Charles S. Whit
hey.
While President Deshon was speak
ing ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt en-
tered the banquetting hall. he was
asked to fill the place Of Secretary
Carlisle, and responded to the toast
of "Our National Credit. :" After pre-
facing his remarks with tribute to
Secretary Carlisle he proceeded to
lay out the Southern statesman.
"But the character of Southern
craftsmanship has decreased from the
time before the war and her Senators
and Congressman of today are as
pigmies compared with the intellec-
tual giants of that time. The states
men of today show little signs of hav.
ing studied the great economical
questions affecting the interests Of
our country. The silver question was
at the very foundation of the public
credit. 1t was due to the adoption
of a currency not based upon the
intrinsic value of coin that brought
about the silver crisis. The differ.
ence between the true and false value
of the silver dollar is called the seign-
forage. The South wanted to coin
this seigniorage They might as we'll
try to coin vacuum. 1t was even
worse than that. 1t was trying to coin a
negative quantity on the other side
There is one thing the South wants TO
learn; it is that public credit can moi be
maintained until all concerned realize
that there is no royal road to value
and the Southern Representatives
must rise to the heights of the men
who represented the South in Con-
gress previous to the war.
There are other statesmen from.
the South who have succumbed to the
fallacy that positions in the Supreme
Court Of the United States are local
questions to be settled on demand
of local politicians 1t might be sup
posed that the Supreme Court bench
represented the whole United States
and that everybody had a right to
demand that it be filled without
regard to politics or locality. 1t is
not a matter for ward politicians to
kick about, from one end Of the
United States to the other. Such
men as Calhoun, Benton, Reeves and
Crawford would have resigned their
high positions in the Senate and gone
home in sack cloth and ashes, rather
than obey, on a principle such as this,
man without character or worth and
who had no right to- speak for the
great State of New York"
At this point there was quite SEN
sation among the guests. Of this Mr.
Hewitt took not the slightest notice,
but proceeded to ask /:
care you less brave now than your
fathers were thirty years ago when
they sacrificed everything they pos.
sessed to their convictions, that you
will allow your congressman and SEN
ators to misrepresent both their coun-
try and the South ?''
Proceeding, Mr. Hewitt went on to
praise the Wilson tariff bill, particu-
larly the provisions which place iron
and coal on the free list.
But it was in dealing with the tariff
question, he said, that Southern rep
resentatives had displayed lack of
intelligence away below the standard
of the men who preceded them. 1t
was hard to explain this, he said.
After the war many Southern men
came North. Those who remained
behind with brains devoted them.
selves to business with view of re-
gaining their shattered fortunes.
Possibly the remainder devoted them
selves to politics.