Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-27
JOHN M. PALMER.
LET SOUTHERNERS LOOK ON THIS
 PICTURE,
And Then Vote for Him if They Can-A Damning Extract From the
 Page of History.

To the Editor of the State Herald.
 In 1872 the undisfranchised white people
 of the south voted for Horace Greeley,
 life long ardent union man and abolition
 ist, for president of the United States. A
 few years later the south advocated the
 nomination for the presidency of Win
 field Scott Hancock, one of the foremost
 soldiers of the union army in the war
 against secession, and gave him her en-
 tire electoral vote. Yet few years later.
 in the persons of her representative men
 her leaders in that war-the south stood
 with the north by the grave of Grant and
 paid sincere and willing tribute to his
 memory, for she honored him as mag
 unanimous soldier, who did not wantonly
 devastate her homes, who warred not
 upon on-combatants-upon old men,
 women and children-and who, when the
 strife of arms was over sheathed his
 sword and sought to extinguish rather
 than to keep alive the animosities of that
 strife; and she earnestly joined in his
 dying wish, for the obiteration of the
 bitter memories of the past-for cessa-
 tion of elimination and recrimination,
 and the restoration of fraternal feeling
 between the once warning sections of
 their common country.
 And during all these years down to the
 present time, through her representatives
 in congress, the south, impoverished as
 she has been and Is, and grievously bur dened by taxation, has voted to be still further taxed that liberal pensions might be paid to soldiers of the union armies, and for every measure calculated to pro- mote the glory and welfare of the union. In every way in which she honorably could, from 1865 to this hour, the south has striven for the extinction of malig- nant, unpatriotic sectionalism. There fore, it was hoped (by the south) that the presidential campaign of 1896 would be conducted without an attempt to becloud reason and the real, vital issues of the hour by calling up the painful memories and relSindling the expiring passions of a war that was fought more than thirty years ago, over an issue in no wise in volved in this campaign.
 The hope was vain one. The wish and confidently expressed expectation of the dying Grant were not yet to be realized. The partizan papers, politicians and preachers of the north have willed it otherwise, and
 THE SECTIONAL WAR CRY is on again, and the bloody shirt is again waved, to influence the northern vote against a candidate because he Is sup ported by the people of the south. From no quarter has that cry come in more venomous and offensive tone than from | the cabinet of the man who has been twice elected president by the vote of the south (given to him under the mistaken | belief that he was a democraD. From | that cabinet comes a voice proclaiming | that the candidate of the democratic par | ty should be defeaed because he Is SUD- ported by those who were Confederate | soldiers in the war of thirty-five years | ago, who still harbor traitorous designs | against the government, which they seek l to accomplish by the election of William | J. Bryan. It is the voice of J. Sterling | Morton of Nebraska, who would not be in | the official position he now holds but for l,a O of 10 | to defeat MT. Bryan and thwart the in- l famous designs of ex-Confederate | traitors he is supporting Gen. John M. | Palmer of Illinois, candidate who has
 recently made vote-seeking tour | through some of the southern states. fot- 1 getful of his own record in them, or l thinking that 1t had been forgotten by | their people.
 l As I have said, it was earnestly hoped | by the people of the south that the day l for raising the war cry in presidential | contests--that the day for making mems recordsin war that occurred third of | century ago an issue in presidential elections-had passed. They wish to let | bygones be bygones, and to settle the | questions of the present time without ap- | peals to the passions engendered in a de- | plorable fratricidal strife, most of the | participants in which have passed--and | all of whom will soon have passed--from l the scene of that strife to appear before
 the only. tribunal competent to render | impartial and unerring judgment as to | the deeds and motives of men. Brt since | Mir Morton and his allies above named | will not have it so-sinee they insist on l resurrecting and waving the boody shirt and dragging mems war records into this l campaign for the purpose of influencing 1 votes against the candidate of the dem I ocratie party-and since MT. Morton ! candidate has come to the south to se-