The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-14

there Is not one solitary man in the l United States to-day, north or south, who does not feel that he decided right.
 The Army of Northern Virginia, it
 will be remembered, laid down its arms
 at Appomattox on April g.. What
 Johnston might do was still open to
 question, but Lees act decided his. There is vivid description In Pol lards book, I think, of an interview 1 which, immediately after Lees surren- | der, took place between Jefferson Da-
 wis and Johnston at the headquart CTS
 of the latter. The two had met to con ! slider the situation. Davis, stubborn in
 temper and bent on a policy of cont1nu-
 ous irregular resistance, developed his plan with much earnestness. Johnston
 mutely listened to him. Finally the eX-
 president of the Confectionery lapsed
 into silence. Johnston then said: MT.
 President, do you wish my opinion?'
 Davis intimated that he was there for
 the purpose of receiving it. Thereupon Johnston brought the conversation to
 close with these pregnant words:
 ''Mr. President, the south feels that it 1 is whipped, and is tired of the war. WHAT LEES CHOICE MEANT.
 Recalling the circumstances of that time it is fairly appalling to consider what in 1865 must have occurred had Robert E. Lee then been of the same turn of mind as was Jefferson Davis, of as implacable and unyielding in dis position as Kruger and Botha have
 more recently proved. The national government had in arms million men,
 inured to the hardships and accus- toned to the brutalities of war; Lin coin had been freshly assassinated; | the temper of the north was thoroughly aroused, while it's patience was ex-
 hausted An irregular warfare would inevitably have resulted, warfare without quarter. The Confederacy would have been reduced to smolder-
 ing wilderness-to what South Africa is to- day In such a death grapple the
 north, both In morale and In means,
 would have suffered only less than the south. From both sections that fate was averted.
 It is not my purpose to enter into any criticism of the course of events in
 South Africa, or of the policy there on either side pursued. It will be for the future to decide whether the prolonged,
 irregular resistance we are witnessing Is justifable, or, if justifiable whether it is wise. Neither of these questions do I propose to discuss. My purpose simply is to call attention, in view of what is now taking place elsewhere, to the narrow escape we ourselves, thirty six years ago. had from similar aw- full catastrophe. And I again say that, as we look to-day upon Kruger ana Botha and De Wet, and the situation existing in the Transvaal and the Or
 ange Free State, I doubt if one single man in the United States north or south-whether he participated in the civil war or was born since that war ended--would fail to acknowledge an infinite debt of gratitude to the Con- federate leader who, on April 9, 1865, decided as he did decide, that the Uni ted States whether Confederate or Union, was Christian community, and that his duty was to accept the re- sponsibillty which the fate of war had imposed upon him-to deside in favor of new national life, even if slowly and painfully to be built up by his own people under conditions arbitrarily and by force imposed upon them.