The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-06-15
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BILLY WILSON'S LETTER TO
HARPER.

While a portion or the virginia press
had but little or nothing in criticism Of
Billy Wilson's letter to Harper's Week
Iy and his gratuitous, il-bred, untrue,
insolent fling at Virginia, and the south
ON Of the newspapers handled him
with ungloved hands. The able o
folk Pilot was faithful here as in other
Things and gave the West Virginian
sIanderer Of better people a proper
castigatiOn. In a recent issue Of the
Richmond State Captain =. NJ. Parham
administered a rebuke to that preten-
tious, but ignorant scholar, (see Colo
mel Waddclrs recent comment in The
Messenger upon his opening sentence
in his Chapel Hi speech) and he de-
serves no fOrDearance or consideration
ut the hands # any fairly educated,
self-respectinG southern born man.
Never was tn re 50 mal-apropos, so in
decent, so inaultir~ a criticism ever
made upon any pie as that of Billy
Wilson, when all the circumstances are
considered. Just elected president of a
Virginia university, he improves the
opportunity to insult and malign the
V~irginians, and thr0ugh them the
south. II he were really a gentleman
ne would never have thought for a-mO-
ment Of indulging the strain he did in
tickling Harper's Weekly and through
ii YankeedOOdledOm. Writing to that
old, fierce, implacable enemy of the
south, This Mr.. Billy Wilson said that
captivated by this laudable ambition,
ne was induced to accept the presiden-
cy of the university with the hope of
being able to rescue us from our pres
ent distressing condition and to estab-
fish among us an institution Of sound
learning and sound citizenship and to
make it a W to reproduce in the
south some of that high thinking which
made her leadership in past genera
tons so conservative and yet NATIONAL.
81 am sure that the SEED has not run
out, but it needs strong and wholesome
culture"
Take it in please. Billy had just
been most undeservedly hOnored with
an election as president of Washing
ton and Lee university, succeeding
General Lee, son of the great leader,
who had succeeded the illustrious Cen
eral Robert f. Lee. And yet he writes
the above poor stuff to the chiefest en-
envy in the north-the paper that had
iampooned and ~caricatured with it's
vile cartoons the south weekly n
from year to year. Mr.. Parham in his
comment says well:
He does not tell us the period of
these past generations in which those
great leaders flOurished, and in which
was gathered such an abundant har-
vest of sound learning and sound Cit
izenship. y We have been cherish
ing the fond belief that this generation
had been the golden era for Washing
ION and Lee; thai it had acquired fresh
yigor and energy and like a strong
MAJ to run a race, had taken on new
life, and was accomplishing a great
and beneficent work for this state and
for the whole country.
We had likewise thought that the
southern states during his same period
mad given indubitable and unmistaka-
BILE evidences of their capacity and
power; that their evidences in times OF
peace had been no less illustrious than
IhoSe of war;
In ridicule of Billy's great pretentions
flourish of what he proposed doing. Mr..
Parham suggests that this mighty
Goliath of Gas (our naming) shall be
appointed sole dictator of the univer-
sity, and Harper's Weekly be adopted
as the only text book"
In nearly forty years of editing and
with large opportunities for ~acquain-
lance with public men and scholars
extending through more than half a
century we do not recall any such
unmannerly display, such intense egot-
ISM, such inflated vanity, such superla-
tive pretentiOn, such an indecency or
personal display as marks this letter Of
Billy's to the Harper Scorpion. Here's
a large mouth indeed who talks so
glibly of what he will do while derid-
ing and insulting the very people who
so unfortunately crowned him. He
indeed the great reformer and leader
who will revive true learning in the
ignorant, unlettered south! He re-
minds us of ~Shakespeare's fellow of
'Iusty blood" who spoke so bravely
and gave the bastinado with his
tongue" He will bless with his mighty
presence the stupid, groveling Vir-
xinians, and bring back to hem educa-
4ion and civilization? This great man
of the mountain-this Billy the Wise
who is a
Miracle of learning,
To point out faults and show his own
d~iscerning,'
will throw a halo of enown over poor,
benighted Virginia 50 sterile in great
men, so low in education, SO inferior to
Harper Scorpion section. Out upon
the humbug!
When the scalp is a~trophied or shiny
bald, no preparation will restore the
hair; i'm all other cases, Halls Hair
Remover will start a growth.