The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-04-06
CHAPTER XXXVI..
ANOTHER DECLARATION OF IN
DEPENDENCE.


DEEPEN
Another year of struggle and suffering,
hope and fear, CASTOR had passed, and
still he was no nearer the dream of real
Used love. If anything had changed, the
Generals pride had added new force to
his determination that his daughter
should not marry the man who had de-
fed him.
His chief reliance for GastCn's defeat
was in time and the broadening of Sallie' s
mind by extended travel. He had sent
her abroad twice and this year he sent
her to spend another three months in
Europe.
These absences seemed only to intensi-
fy her longing for her lover! On her re-
turn the General would burst into a
storm CT rage at her persistence. She
had ceased to give him any bitter an
swers, only smiling quietly and maintain
ing an ominous silence.
He had a new cause now, of dislike
for the man of her choice CASTOR had
become man of acknowledged power in
politics and was the leader of a group of
radical young men who demanded the
complete reorganization of the Demo-
cratic party, the shelving of the old tim
ers, among whom he was numbered, and
the announcement of radical program
upon the negro issue.
He tried in a clumsy way to put Gas
ton off the State Executive Committee,
but failed. He saw CASTOR quietly laugh
ing at him. Then he opened his pocket
book and worked up a State machine
within the machine to oppose any pro-
gram CASTOR might advocate. 1t was
a formidable power and CASTOR feared
its influence in the coming convention.
While this fight ives in progress, and
Sallie was in Europe the destruction of
the Maine in Havana barbor stilled the
world into silence with the echo of its
sullen roar. There was a moments pause
and the ration lifted its great silk battle
flags from the capitol at Washington
and called for volunteers to wipe the
empire of Spain from the map of the
Western world.
The war lasted but hundred days,
but in those hundred days was packed
the harvest of centuries.
We were afraid that our nation still
lacked unity. The world said we were a
mob of moneygrabhers, and lad lost our
grasp of principle. The resident called
for 125 900 men to die for their flag, and
next morning 1000 We're struggling for
place in the-line
The world walked that morning to firG
for tbes first tirle in our history the
dream of Union a living fact There was
no North nc South-but from the James
to the Rio Grande the children of the
(Confederacy rushed with eager flushed
faces to defend the flag their fathers had
once fought.
And God reserved in this hour for the
South, land of ashes and tombs and tears
the pain and the glory of the first offering
of life on the altar of the new nation.
Our first and only officer who fell dead
on the deck of a warship, with the flag
above him, was Worth Bagley, of North
Carolina, the son of a Confederate SOL
dier. The. gallant youngster who stood
on the bridge of the Merrirnac. and be-
tween two towering mountains of fam
ing cannon, in the darkness OF night blew
up his ship and set a new standard of
Anglo Saxon daring, was the son of a
Confederate soldier of North Carolina.
When the regiment of which the Ham
bright Company was member was mus
tered cut at independence, Castor was
invited to deliver the address of well
come home to the soldiers, and a crowd
of five thousand people was present, one
half of whom were negroes.
While CASTOR was speaking in the
square, negro trooper passing along the
street refused to give an inch of the
sidewalk to young lady and her escort
who met him. He ran into the girl, iost-
ling her roughly, and the young white
man Knocked him down instantly and
No arly beat him to death. His injury
was not fatal but the widest passions