The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-01-24
NORTH CAROLINA DERIDED IN VIR-
GINA.

It is astonishing that fairly Intelligent
people with eyes and ears and a spirit
not hostile should in 1902 speak and
write CT North Carolina as we have
heard some of them speak of it fifty
1870. we were standing on the steps Of
a hotel in a Virginia town when a
young man addressed US in his wise.
You are from North Carolina" We
assented. You folks did not do much
in the war, but 1 have heard that you
had some soldiers that fought we'll
enough" Yesterday we glanced at the
14th page of the Richmond Times. A
literary article opened in the following
enlightened and pleasant way:
North Carolina has the reputation,
even in her neighbor states, of being a
remote and rustic province, the calm and
ven tenor Of whose way has been COM
~pa"ativc.y uIdislurbed from generation
to generation. since Walter Raleigh'S
followers landed on her coasts. To such
an extent does the impression prevail
that even Virginia is filled with it,"
We regret the statement. 1t is not
creditable to the people who live in the
state called Virginia. They are vain,
boastful. self-contained and very 'su-
p~erior," but they should not be so ig-
norant of their neighbors and so un-
friendly in their judgments. A Virginia
editor some years e was in Whining
ton. He told us he had spent two
months in North Carolina. mainly from
Raleigh west as far as Salem and
Winston. He said he generally liked the
country, was enamored of the people,
a DUN their hospitality beyond ali
he had known. and really preferred
them to his own people. He was a mar
of good parts. of education. of means.
We suppose. as he was prospecting, OF
candor and sincereity. He had not
known North Carolina and her people
before. The writer in the article copied
from made in a reluctant way some
amends. He writes:
1T rs a most difficult thing, for in
stance. for us to realize that the record
In the confederate museum is true,
which states that the Old North State
put more men in the field to fight for
the cause than any other state in the
c~onfederacy. 1t is a glorious fact,
nevertheless. which the army records
NSIlly DIS they Wlll6SS, 100, IHdI the
brave North C~arolinians stood so firm,
ly in the roar of battle and the shock
of arms that IN the jocose camp gos-
sip of regiments and rmies it was said
that the Carolinians had tar on their
heels. Many times did eneral Lee
ave OCCASION to eXclaim: God bless
my Tar Heel boys"
That will do for the war part, but
there is no excuse for the harsh. in
sular, stupid opinion of North Carolina
people in 1902, or for that matter at any {
time. The late DR.. Thomas P. Atkin-
son, a man of parts, of education, of
high breeding. a gentleman. who was
born in Virginia near Petersburg, said
to us at his home in Danville, Va, tina
after having lived in North Carolina for
years and most of his life near
North Carolina, for Danville is but two
we believe from the state line,
that he had never been able to see any
difference in the character, manhood
and worth of the people of the two
states who lived in the counties border
ing each state. He was a gentleman
Of large experience and observations,
had been in the general assembly, had
been president of the Medical Society
nf Virginia. had been mayor of Dan
Vile, president of its bank, forty years
ruling elder in the Presbyterian
church, and such was his judgment or
two peoples. But now our people are
from Virginia civilization,
l