The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-29
A NOBLE WORK.

We do not hear as much said as we could wish about the proposition or move ment to build monument to the Women of the Confederacy. The Southern Wo- mems Monument Committee has under taken the work of raising subscriptions and We presume there are or will be committees appointed all over the South to assist in what should be labor of love to every Southern man. The various Confederate camps will be supplied with blanks ito be placed in, the hands Of members and their sons and daughters, that the work of securing contributions may be pushed with all the zeal possible" As we understand it, no subscription of less than twenty-five cents or over one dollar will be received from any person, but clubs, business firms, camps, etc. may subscribe as much as they like. The object of limiting individual subscriptions is that all the people of the South may feel an interest in the work.
 All over the South there are monu- ments to the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy. and who illustrated by a courage and devotion unequaled in the worlds history their love of coun- try and their loyalty to principle. In all the cities and in the cemeteries shafts of marble and granite bear to future ages the names and deeds of the men in gray who died for the right or lived to cherish the memory of a cause lost but never dis graced.
 All this is right and proper. The sol diers of the Confectionery. whether they died on the field of glory or lived to build LID their ruined homes, deserve all that may be said of them. But those who donned the grey and marched forth to conquer or die are not the only ones to whom monuments should be erected. In every nook and corner of those Confeder- ate States there were the mothers and daughters, the wives and sweethearts of soldiers who were doomed to the more trying duty of inaction. With the devo- ton and fortitude of the Spartan mothers they saw their loved ones go forth in the pride of their manhood to uphold the glorious Stars and Bars till their flag went down in irremediablc defeat, but to the men action and endeavor and endur- ance were life and hope and sustenance There was for them no time for stagna- ton and waiting,
 But to those who were left at home those glorious women whose lot it was to wait with hope deferred longing yet threading to hear from the fied-to them was the hard task of bearing and suffer ing in silence To some it was given to work for their loved ones at the lFont' and to some fell the duty of nursing and caring for the sick and wounded and cheering the worn and disheartened. But to others those four years were a life of silent and waiting dread and of such suffcrings and privations as none but their God could ever know, and the pen of poet or historian can never tell to the world. They watched and waited, hoping for the best yet dreading the worst, and happy if they could but do something for the cause they loved and for those who upheld it.
 Is it not time that the sons and daugh- ters of the Confederacy were building a monument which shall In some measure testify to mankind and to posterity the love and reverence which true men every where feel for a womanhood never sur- passed by any on Gods green earth? Not that any monument erected by hu- man hands can tell all the truth about them. If it were as broad and high as the Pyramid of Cheops. it would lack room for the deeds of performance and endurance that might be written, for to do that is impossible. but work may be erected which will teach mankind that the people of this later south have not forgotten the women of the Confectionery. and that they bear in their hearts and their memories the names and deeds of those who yet live as well as of those who have laid down the cares and burdens of ufc leaving b hind them tac sweet mem