The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-10-27
ERASE BIS NAME.

The fuss made over General Lees name
being placed in the New York Univer-
sity's Hall of Fame" is, to our mind, one
Of the most extraordinary and one of the
silliest performances that has occurred
for soma time. An issue of the New York
Times Of a few days past contained sew
eral columns of letters from individuals
protesting against the act with a venom
that could not have been exceeded during
the hottest period of the war, and North
ern newspaper after paper has discussed
it with a heat and fire just as intense.
We know nothing of how General Lees
family views the incident, but we feel sure
that the Southern people at large We're
very much surprised when it occurred,
and that now this intense opposition to it
has been developed in the North, they
would very much prefer that his name
should be erased. There is no honor con-
ferred upon General Lee by placing his
name there. The honor is the other way.
BY all broad-minded, independent and I'M
prejudced men in the world, even those
of them who dwell in the Northern
States. Robert e. Lee is considered the
greatest Americans that ever lived, except
that some of them rank George Washing
ton above him. How can it honor man
thus thought Of by mankind to inscribe his
name in a two-penny show gallery along
with number of nooodies that people
have to ask about to know that they ever
lived? When Cato was asked why his
statue did not appear in the gallery of the
statues of Romans. thought at the time
to be immortal, he answered in substance
that he wished it to be noted that his
pie have that feeling about this incident.
Secure in his immortality, looming up
upon the worlds horizon as a Colossus
around whose knees Grant, Sherman,
Sheridan and Thomas masquerade as pig
mics, how can it be of any consequence,
to General Lees memory whether his
names does or docs not appear in a col
lection of names that will be totally for
gotten when mothers are teaching their
sons at their knees that if they would be
men to command the esteem and rever-
ence of their fellowmen they should set
Robert E. Lee before them as the exam
pie TO initiate?
And it is in order to remark here that
it is not Lee the soldier VINO will continue
to grow, for he has already reached the
largest possible proportions in that char
acter
1t is Lee the man who dwarfs all other
men brought into comparison with him,
and forces the verdict from ages as they
succeed. that he was the most God-like
man that this world has ever seen. The
evidences of that will stand upon the
shape in which he kept his immortal
Army of Northern Virginia during the
last twelve months of the war. Every
where else disaster and confusion reigned
supreme. though the men of the other
armies had as good material in them
Lees army had. But Lees army. bare
footed. ragged, tentless and starving,
stood like 4 granite wall against three
times their number in the spring of 1864, in
one continuous battle of six weeks. Ge-
stroying their adversaries by the thous-
ands, and shatterng their columns and
battling their plans as fast as each new
plan was formed. The thing has no
parallel in the history of The world, and it
was the character of Robert e. Lee that
fused his army into the solid machine that
it was, implicitly obeying in all its parts
the first suggestion of his will that came
to it There is where the grandeur of the
mans character showed. and there is
where he showed himself the master of
all other men who have ever dealt with
men. Chickering'S and jealousies ceased
when Robert e. Lee was in command All
knew that he held the scale Of justice with
an absolutely even hand. and whatever
..Nlarse Rob- said went, because. IN
the face of death and humiliation, every
soldier knew that the order winch sent
him to his fate emanate from mind as
clear as ever gave command, and from
heart as pure and tender as ever sympa-
thized with grief. These are the elements
of Robert E. Lees grandeur, and, in those
clements. no other man has ever meas
ured up 70 his size.
Therefore, say we. for one. strike his
name from the tablets of your Hall of
Fame. There is nothing there to honor
Lee. And II the 1,arrow-minded bisots who
carp at his being there cannot appreciate
the honor which Lees name confers upon
them, let his name be withdrawn that
1t may blaze in the armament with his
own undying light. uninterrupted by the
petty screens which the b.gots would at
tempt to interpose between it and the adj
inirers who dwell all over the civilized
world.