The Progress. (Shreveport, La.) 1892-1900, 1898-11-26

| grievance IN that letter. lnere Is
nothing that an ordinary mind con]d
twist or torture into a reflection on
Virginia's civilization or the kind
heartedness of her people There are nc
injurious statements or anything that
required refutation. Hence, | shall
not apologize or take back. | quoted
Mr.. Hoshour, who lives in Woodstock,
where Mr.. MiIey does. Let him shoot
at him. But there is nothing to shoot
about. Mr. Hoshour was seeking the
Georgia relatives of Colonel Holt, VIII,
died at his mothers house. That's all
And l make some remarks about
people neglecting the graves of thei1
kindred. That's all. did not know
OF the existence of Shenandoah camp
or holly circle. Ionly knew that there
was Colonel Holt of Georgia buried
At Woodstock and that the headboarl
that had marked his grave had gone to
decay. So I sought to find his rela.
hves, for the Hollis are notable and
numerous people in Georgia. recb.
on that headboard is illegible, for the
adlutants list gives him no first name
and has him down rs colonel of the
Eighth Georgia regiment. The fact
is, that he was not colonel of that regi
ment. The Eighth never had Col.
Holt. I ought to know, for ] belong.
cd to it.. Its colonies were Barlow,
Gardner, Cooper, Lamar and last Col.
Towers, who still lives, respected as a
citizen and honored as a soldier.
But this is enough of Adiutant
Miley. His senseless and groundless
charges make ne tired for if there are
a people upon the earth who have my
highest admiration, they are Virgin
ians, and the Old Diminion is not only
the mother Of states and statesmen,
but of patriots, long suffering, patient
and heroic as were her soldiers and
her people during the war, neither
they nor their children have lost any
OF their chivalry or tenderness, for the
bravest are the tenderest. Some
years ago the ladies of Fredericksburg
appealed to mo for help to procure
marble headstones for The graves of
Georgia soldiers and I appealed to our
people and they responded promptly,
and those graves (27D arc all marked.
Now there are only four graves of
Georgia soldiers at Woodstock and
they must he remarked with marble.
The other forty-nine should be re-
marked too with marble by the states
they served, for even yellow locust
will decay in generation. Only
few miles from my home there is q
confederate cemetery that has been
we'll cared for by the ladies, but the
headboards have decayed and our
ladies are now replacing them with
marble. Each headstono costs only
dollar and a half and the marble man,
who was in the federal army, wrote me
saying: II helped to put your brave
boys in those graves and I will help to
mark them at less than the marble
costs me-"
And now let us have peace-peace
at home and peace abroad. Maybe we
can have it with Spain if we will pull
away from the Philippines; nobody in
these parts wants them, and every
body is tired of the war. It hasn't
done our people down south any good.
1t is all a job-an octopus with thou.
sand tentacles that draw in the spoils
from the public treasury; but the
spoils don't come here. A treasury is
thing to be plundered. Here is our
state treasury that has been prayed
upon until the state is nearly bank
rupt, and so are the people. I reckon
it will be considered treason to say so,
but We are too poor to keep up the
cost of the present school system or
tho pension rolls. Why should Geor-
gis pay five times as much for pensions
as any other southern state? Why
should she pension men at all who are
in good financial circumstances? The
system is wrong, radically wrong. I
can name men worth over $4,000
who draw 500 year, while poor SOL
diers in the same community are strug-
CLING for a meager living and draw
nothing, because they did not lose
limb or contract some chronic malady.
Seven hundred thousand dollars for
pensions. Just think of it! A sum
greater than is paid by all the other
southern states combined. I remem-
Der when the tax on real estate was
only 10 cents on the hundred dollars,
and now if we include both state and
county, it is over ten times that sum.
Excuse me, Mr.. Edisor, for saying that
no plan suggested will draw much of
the tax dodgers property from its hid
ing places. Making notes non collect
ible has been tried before the war, and