The San Francisco call., 1898-12-19

cussien of the civil war have led to many delicate situations that were only saved from becoming irritating dllem- mas by the tact of President who fought against Southern troops. or by the graceful utterances of the Confea- crate who years ago opposed nm on the battlefield. The marvellous scenes of an audience in the old Confederate capital cheering the stars and stripes until they grew hoarse. Of Confederate veterans struggling to grasp the hand of a Northern Republican President: or General Wheeler leading the people of his State in cheers for William Mc-
 Kinley in the place where Jefferson Davis once urged the South to fight for separation, are all redeemed from the suspicion of fulSomeneSS or the faint praise of politicians by the blunt truthfulness of the men who led Tn
 these new and tremendously ferVent declarations of loyalty. Governor John- ston of Alabama said at Montgomery:
 We of the South have nothing to re- gret, except our dead" but he at once
 went on to say that he rejoIced III the
 United States. With a strong accent on United" and if any man now said.
 "Is Alabama loyal to the UniOn?" he asked an absurd question, because Ala
 bamas loyalty had been proven by
 Wheeler and Hobson, and there werG
 hundreds of other Wheelers and Hob-
 sons in Alabama ready to give equal
 proof of Alabama's glad fealty to the
 Union.
 Such utterances as these have marked
 the trip with more frequency than 1t
 has been possible to report. On the
 part of the former Confederates who
 have made addresses of welcome to
 President Mckinley there has been no
 eleventh hour confession of sin. In
 substance they have all said that they
 fought for what they then thought was
 right; that they neither blame them selves nor their dead fathers or sons
 for enlisting in the cause or the Con
 federacy; but that they accept to-day
 the changed conditions with a gladness
 and sincerity they never felt until the
 war with Spain knit the nation into a common cause and, until a Republican President urged the people of the North and South to honor the Confederate dead In the latter reason lies the main incentive to the intense and almost un- expected enthusiasm with which the
 Presidential party had been greeted since MT. McKinley's first speech in At lanta. Scarcely a speaker or a paper in Alabama or Georgia has made refer ence to the President without mention ing on every occasion his tribute to the i Confederate dead A distinguished Southerner said to a correspondent:
 There have been many reunions of North and South on paper and in speeches. These were well meant. but they signified little, because neither side had given in to the other on the
 principles that they fought over. This suggestion of the President to care foI our dead is the first practicable evil dence given to the South that the North really means what it says. and i it has touched our hearts more than
 we can say. Coming as it does upon ] the heels of the war with Spain. which gave to the South the chance to prove l her loyalty. this utterance of the Presi- ] dent enables us to say not only that WIG ! are true to the Union, but for the first
 time that we love it.
 i This utterance represents host ot 1 public and private speeches that have ! been made since the arrival of the Presidential party in the South. It is 1 the consensus of various opinions eX- ; pressed to the correspondent by State 1 officers and citizens of Georgia and 1 Alabama, nearly all of whom are op- l posed to the President in politics. but l who have welcomed him right gladly ! in his capacity of chief executive anC ] who have given vent to wild enthuSi-
 asm over his utteranCes regarding the 1 Confederate dead. Tn this way what 1 was planned to be a celebration of the 1 peace with Spain has become almost 1 entirely a genuine practical ratification 1 of the peace between North and South 1 epoch-making in it's significance. thrill 1 ing i'll it's details and pathetic in tht l countless memories that it awakens.