The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1901-01-24
SCORES MRS. STOVES BOOK.
+. HOpkinSOn Smith Declares "Cncle
Toms Cabin" Vicious

BoSroN, January l0.-"Unclc Toms
Cabin" said F. Hopkinson Smith. the
author, in an address before the Newton
Club last night. lis the most vicious book
that ever appeared. 1t compares with
kennan's first book ON Russia. | could
90 into the prisons of the North to-day
and write Il similar book. The book pre-
cipitated the war and made the North
believe nothing but the worst Of the
South. We are not all inhuman people;
we are alike; we are Americans. 1t WAS
an outrage to raise the North against the
South The book was an appalling, aw-
full and criminal mistake"
His attitude in regard to the famous
old book was 50 novel in this part of the
country that he was asked at his rooms
in the Hotel Touraine this afternoon to
explain how he came to take it.
SAYS MRS. STOWE WAS PREJUDICED.
We'll, Mrs. Stowe went down there
into the South" he said, with the avow-
ed intention of finding the conditions
which she described in her book. She
staid there only three months, and she
told her story as if it was all there was
to tell. But there were hundreds of
Southern people who believed that slav-
cry was wrong. My father believed it
and gave his slaves their freedom in 1885.
And he was Virginian, a man who be-
lieved in State rights"
Mr.. Smith added with some vehemence,
and one who would have fought for
them, too, when there was need. For
Mrs. Stowe to write the book was as if |
should come here and go through your
state prison, listen to all the tales of
hardship could gather there, then come
out and write story, based on these
tales, as if they were of the sort to give
fair idea of the kind of treatment your
prisoners received.
BOOK PRECIPITATED THE WAR.
Your people would be aroused by that
kind of thing. And I say the publica-
ton of Mrs. Stoves book, taken in con-
junction with the presence of hot-headed
Southerners in Congress, precipitated
the war. 1t was al outrage to draw Il
line acrose the country and say that peo-
ple on one side were kind-hearted and
that the people on the other side were
cruel. But that is what the book did.
Do you wonder that the Southerners in
Congress were not much inclined toward
compromise after that!
When the book appeared it was use
less to reply to it. No Northern maya
zine was open for a reply. Most of the
learning was in the North, as we'll as all
the influential publications, and South
ern reply could do little good in the col
umns of country newspaper.
Il have tried to tell about this because
l know the conditions. l lived in the
South as boy, was brought up among
the slaves, loved my 'old nanny and
hugged andskissed her as if she were
white; know that she loved me as much
or more than she did her own children
and would do so as long as she lived.
But since the war have lived in New
York and know how Northern people
feel. know that the feeling has chang
ed in the years and that people see
things differently now.
NEGROES MUST BEGIN AGAIN.
why, that man. Booker Washington"
said Mr.. Smith, impulsively, "and the
only one of the whole lot who under
stands what the negro people really need,
knows that they've got to go way back
and begin all over again where they
started their in freedom"