The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-05-09
AN OPEN LETTER
TO Col. George E. War
ing, Jr.

poulpOu anu COHOSltSu uuSin0hVo oHNA
anything that happens to come up, and
entirely without reference as to whether
you actually know aught about it or not.
Out in the Wild and Woody West,
where you were for a season, before you
became rich and aristocratic, you know
they speak very contemptuously Of such
men as "windbags and "blowhards." "
Doubtless these sound very coarse and
harsh to your delicately-refned ears, but
you must admit that they are accurate
and forceful.
You have been giving much aid and
comfort to those who formerly despised
and hated you-who spoke of you as
/" Northern scum" a "Nigger-lover,"
" Abolition bandit" y" hireling," sneak
thief" ETC., by denouncing your former
comrades as "pension bummers," "a
drunken horde" "coddled, pauperized
and emasculated." You are receiving
boundless applause from the men who
once could think of no epithet vile
enough to describe you and your COM
rades.
At the same time the men whose good
opinion you once thought worth more
than anything else in the world are IN
expressibly hurt and exceedingly angry.
Did you desire this? Are you
ashamed of the share you took in the
work of preserving the Union, and Of
the men associated with you in it, and
want to curry favor with those who de-
spised you?
What reason nave you for denounc-
ing the veterans of to-day as lot of
drunken bummers?
Why do you think that the ex-
soldiers generally are morally so vastly
inferior to yourself? Was this always
so? Or has it come about with the
lapse Of years? For example, were
you the only righteous man in your
regiment, and all the rest Of the 4th No.
Cav. a Sodom and Gomorrah Of
abominationf Were you the only true
and just man who served in the Army
Of the Frontier, and did you even then
tower up above your comrades in strik-
ing grandeur, like moral Washington
Monument over boundless Potomac
flats Of obliquity and sin? If so, how
did this fact escape public notice? Why
wasn't il sometime mentioned in General
Orders?
If, on the other hand, the men Of the
4th Mo. Cav and others Immediately
associated with you in the service, were
pretty nearly as decent fellows as you
were, how does it come that they have
degenerated so terribly, and left you
high and dry, solitary and alone on the
exalted moral pinnacle you occupy /?
What charms and phylactcries have
preserved your virginia. purity untainted,
while all your coln AIDES have become
rotten?
Do you not sometimes, when you are
OF public parade, when you are giving
your face and your jaw much-needed
rest, when you are silently communing
with your true SELF do you not then feel
a sickening, nauseating sense of shame
and disgust that you should thus cruelty
malign men whom you know to have
been as true as steel, as patriotic as
Washington, and as self-sacrifcing as
Winkelriedl
We cannot believe that the aristocratic
associations of your later life have so far
deadened all the memories of your earlier
years as to make you really believe that
the men of your own regiment-the 18th
Mo. Cav.-the men in your brigade,
whom YOU knew almost as well-were
then lot Of drunken, characterless bum
ners, or could ever become so. They
may have been men with less advantages
than yourself in wealth, education and
social station, but you must know they
were then your full peers in courage
patriotism, manly integrity and unselfsl
devotion to country, and they are equally
SO to-day.
AS vour regiment and BRIGADE were