The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1901-05-29

The Courier-Journal is neither rad
icaI, nor an extremist. We follow not
Senator Tillman any more than we
follow Senator McLaurin. But we
believe. in honest politics, in fair-sail-
ing and, square dealing, in a word, in
all things. open and above board. Nay,
we believe in moral obligations in
public no less than in private life.
We cannot expect a newspaper con-
Quoted as our Philadelphia contempo-.
rary is conducted and environed as it
is environed to comprehend the sensi-
bilities which prompt man like
Wade Hampton. The Press is not
alone among Republican organs IN be
ing a notable example of imperfect
sympathy. It is case-hardened to any
other than party influences. 1t is iron
clad against external pressure that
does not emanate from Washington
and Harrisburg. But still in Penn
sylvania they pretend to have some
standards of honesty, and even, IN,
keep an eye both upon the demands of
respectability and the doors of the pen
itentiary, so that the Press may be
credited with a certain perspective:
and, addressing ourselves to this, Let
Us ask, what it would have had Gen..
Hampton do?
+ He is very old man. Little suffces
him. The worst of it is over. What
matter to him the difference between
his shabby old suit and a smart frock
coat, purchased with equivocal, we will.
not say with dirty money? How would
he look in a shiny shirt front and new,
slick silk hat, got as the price OF
helping, or of seeming to help, a trad
ing politician out of hole? Imagine
this spotless and venerable old man, the.
weight of two wars upon his grand
old shoulders, and a great and famous
career waiting upon his tottering foot
steps to find an honorable grave and
an untarnished monument, lading out
letters to rag-tag and bobtail for pit
tance allowed him by persons not fit
to tie his shoe string. Is 1t possible
that even Philadelphia, accustomed
to swallow the knives and forks of
political servitude, used to partisan
monstrosities, with Characteristic lack
of the graciousness which sometimes
abides in the bosoms of the least emo
tional-which sometimes for moment
illumines the warped nature Of the
most intolerant-cannot see that the
attitude of Senator McLaurin has
nothing in common with enlightened
politics, the course of Gen. Wade
Hampton nothing to do with what>lt
calls "Southern prejudice, and that,
from first to last, his creed is an uh-
patriotic and defamatory assault upon
millions of his country?
We end where we began: How could
newspaper such as the Press be expect
ed to take any view of any affair of life
except grovelling, party view, except
a neither, moneygrubbing view, except
malign, sectional, unpatriotlc view?
Itasprings from the school of which
-Thaddeus Stevens was the oracle. 1t
had devoted itself to the propagation
of the ideas of athat school. It would
if it could re-establish its malign
teaching and proscriptive spirit 1t
has learned nothing, forgetting, moth
ing, these six and thirty years. .Nel-
ther the honor of man, nor the virtue
Of woman, seems to have any place in
itsssmoral repository: it's color blind
TO everything upholstered by the party
label: and it could no more under
stand man like Wade Hampton than
Hottentot could understand the
works of Shakespeare, al Indian say
age the words of the. Holy Writ. >, 1t
is related that some one asked Pauline
Bonaparte, who had sat naked as
model for Canova' s famous statue,
whether during the sitting she did not
feel uncomfortable and that she
promptly answered, Not the least in
the world. I had plenty to eat and
drink and the room was perfectly
warmed.