The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-04-08
SECTIONAL BITTERNESS.

John Bach McMaSter's G.. 4. r.
school history is causing more or less
comment by various papers, and when
IL shall be published, as it is almost
certain to be accepted at the annual
encampment of the G.. A R. in August,
no doubt it viii raise a good deal Of a
storm, if what Professor McMaster
says about it is a foretaste of what is
to come. The New York Times, com
menting on what the professor has al
ready said, says:
He says it gives little space to CO.
lonial and revolutionary events and
much TO the origin, progress and re-
| suits of the rebellion. He wants it to
be especially understood that he has
not condoned the course of the south
ern generals because of their military
skill and high personal qualities. Es-
| pecial severity is shown toward the
men who carried a West Point educa-
! ton into the confederate army. AS the
! objects of most ferVent southern adj
miration come in this category, we are
! evidently on the eve of q discussion by
which only bitterness of feeling can be
! produced.
It is quite evident that the American
Macaulay is going to spread himself"
terness he viii probably stir up. To-
day the United States of America are
bound together in an indissoluble
Union. Such being the case it is the
duty of every true patriot to promote
I a union of feeling and fellowship. 1t
is easily possible in a school history
| to so give it, to the south because
! Of the rebellion that such a spirit of
hatred and hostility towards the north
viii be aroused there that generations
will not live it down And a hatred of
/ the south by the north can also be en-
| gendered. Is it wise to SOW the seeds
of such a hatred? Everybody knows
that the feeling of dislike. if not hate,
that most Americans entertain for
Great Britain because of the revolu-
tionary war is very largely the work
Of our school histories. To the average
American school child the word Tory"
conveys the idea of all that is mean
and wicked in man. After a hundred
and twenty years we Americans are
just beginning to realize that after all
the Royalists and British soldiers
of the revolution were not devils in
carnate.
Now is it desirable that we begin to
engender in the minds of the rising
generation in the north and in the
south such ideas of each other that it
will take a hundred and more years to
set their descendants to look at the
rebellion and its causes through I'M
prejudiced eyes? Most decidedly not
Then there is another thing that Pro-
fessor AicMaster and those for whom
he is specially writing his history over
look, and that is the fact that before
the surrender at Appamatox court
house there were two sides to the ques-
ton of the right of a state to secede. |
There is no question now. but there
was then. Evidently Professor Nc |
Master is going to undertake, directly
contrary to the true spirit and method
of history, to read the present into the |
past
This country has plenty of serious
problems to meet and solve plenty of |
within it without rousing old sectional |
bitterness. So far as possible history /
should be the truth, the. whole truth |
and nothing but the truth, but if the |
history of the civil war is to be biased /
al all it is much better that it be BIZ /
ased in the interest of peace and har-
mony among the people of all sections /
of our common country, in the interest /
Of the perpetuity of the Union rather
than in such way that it shall pro-
duce heartburnings. TO he followed by |
hate, among millions of Americans who /
are today as loyal to the flag as were /
Lincoln and Grant. In the name of |
the great general who did so much to
save the Union, Let US have peace"