The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-04
WOMAN ano !. SOCIETY.
MADE
lINA. .. IT. de COTTRe.

MONT0OMERIAN MADE
 THE SUGGESTION |. The July number of The Confederate Veteran contains many matters of gen. eraI interest and several that are par ticulariy interesting to Montgomerians. |. The report from the Convention at New Orleans contains most complimentary mention of Mrs T. c. Lee, vice president of the Ladies' Memorial Association of Montgomery. who was nominated by Mrs. I. If. F. Ockenden and unanimously elected vice president for Alabama.
 The unveiiing of the monument in Greenville. Ala, bx the Father Ryan Club. U. D. C., is given by Greenville correspondent. who gives the words to "Dixie," written in 1881. which is sung at every reunion in fButSer. This, in com pliment to Mrs. oclxenden. The same article contains glowing mention of the address of Hon. B. H. Screws on the same occasion.
 Apropos of the able report from Gen. A. P. Stewart on the progress of the fund for the erection of a monument to the Women of The South.. as submitted at the New Orleans reunion, 1t is simple justice to Hon. E. P. Morrissett and to The Advertiser to say. that the first suggestion ever made public. to memo rialize women for their part in the war. came from Mir. Morrissette and was pub lishedf in The Montgomery Advertiser. The original manuscript is as follows:
 aThe May offering.n
 :. .The ladies of Montgomery. moved by that noble spirit which is instinctive with their. sex and characteristic of that devotion manifested by them during the late struggle for Southern Independence, to give practical expression to those emo- tions of sympathy and gratitude for the martyred heroes in a cherished. but un- successful cause. purpose giving, on the first day of May next, . grand offering tableaux and concert. the proceeds of which are to be devoted to the removal and decent interment of the remains of Alabama soldiers, who gave their lives for their country and whose bones now lie unburied and neglected on every bat tiefield from the Susquehanna to the Mis- sissippi
 While no political significance is in- tended by this exhibition of veneration for the memory of those who perished in a cause they believed just and holy, still the ladies of Montgomery are not asham- ed or afraid to confess that they do honor the dead, for the cause in which fell their fathers. husbands, brothers lovers, that they never shall believe that these went down to dishonorable. graves, traitors to their country, because for sooth, their efforts for independence were less successful than those which liberated our forefathers from the tyrannical rule of George II. No. it is not desired to gam grene the wounds of the recent conflict, that are not yet healed, by any exhibi- tions that savor of partisan feeling. but to pay the last sad tribute 10 the remains of those whose living relatives are every where among us, and whose patriotic impulses are mingled with the tender and sacred attachments of domestic life. Who can fail to respond to this noble cause of the ladies of Montgomery? Is there one in whose bosom ever throbbed Southern sentiment, who can with hold his encouragement and assistance from this sacred enterprise? Let the re- suit of this exhibition answer. How ap- propriate, how consistent with their past patriotic services, how Illustrative of their appreciation of rvalor, and that chastity of chivalric honor that feels a stain as wound, is it, that the ladies should 'inaugalrate and control this last pious tribute to the mortal remains of our lamented heroic dead! Beholding this sublime spectacle of the beauty of the land, gathering around. 70 preserve from insult, and scatter with flowers the graves of the brave, we are in doubt which most to admire, the heroic sacrf- fees of the one, pr the grateful devotion l06 OlueT.
 And while the ladies of the South are giving thus, still another proof of their grateful appreciation of the sacrifices of the soldiers, cannot their surviving com Eades. fix upon some suitable tribute commemorative of the devotion, constan- cy, patriotic endurance and sublime self sacrificing spirit displayed by the wom- en of the late Revolution? Can we not here in Montgomery, where the spirit of liberty first flashed into a clearly defined plan of resistance, here, where the ladies were first in their smiles to cheer on the brave and last in theIr tears to finger about their graves; can we not, here, erect to the memory of their deeds, a lofty Corinthian monument whose sum init shall pierce the skies and whose graceful shaft shall be covered, not like the .Obelisk of Luxor. with mystic char acters of a forgotten tongue. but upon all its sides, from the base to the capital, let it commemorate in our native lam guage, the names and glorious deeds of the women of our own dear, Southern land" M" , Montgomery, Ala, April, '6e.