The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-10
The Negro Problem Can be
Settled by Evolution
Alone.
WATIERSON so DECLARES
Dual Responsibility Of line North and The South
for African Slavery and the War Of Sc
cession---CIoser Union Of The
Sections Than Ever
(By the Associated Press.)

Before.
(By the Associated Press.)
Chicago, April 9.-Henry Watterson
spoke here tonight as the guest of the
Hamilton Club at the Auditorium. Re-
spending to the toast, peace Between
the Sections" he said:
j want to talk to you tonight, not
as a Democrat to Republicans but as an
American to Americans. / have always
resisted and resented the idea that party
lines are lines of battle; that party is
sues are proclamations of war. Our gov
ernment rests upon the theory that we
are equal shareholders in a common prop
erty. Touching the administration of this
property there will always exist honest
differences of opinion. Good citizenship
imposes upon each of US the duty of
entertaining his own convictions and of
living up to them but he becomes little
other than bigot who thinks more of
himself on this account .and loves his
neighbor less, because that neighbor, ex-
ercising the same right, does the same
thing.
~ i
The 18th OF April, 1861, Sumter fell
The 9Th of April, 1865, Lee surrendered.
The four years intervening between those
dates, marking the beginning and the
end of the most momentous struggle of
modern times, witnessed such an outpour-
ing of blood and treasure, such displays
of courage and endurance, such sacrifices
for opinions sake, as stagger human
credulity and beggar alike the powers
of computation and recaptitulation.
Never in any preceding war was there
so little of public wrong, so much of
private generosity; nor ever were the
results of any war so complete and final.
Elsewhere upon the surface of the earth
traces may yet be seen, sometimes yet
lurking in the hearts of men sensibilities
may be found, of strifes, religious, or
racial, international or civil one, two
and three centuries aSone; IN America
not a vestige except what springs from
associated charities and reciprocal min
istrations of patriotism and benevolence.
Northern men and women mark and deco
rate the last resting place of Southern
soldiers who died in Federal prisons.
Confederate officers sit in both Houses
of Congress and upon the bench of the
national judiciary. and have repeatedly
served in Presidential cabinets and rep
resented the country abroad. At least
two Confederate Generals wear the uni
form of the United States army, glad to
be assured that the flag which waved over
their cradles shall wave over their
graves. The chief magistrate of the Uni
ted States is half Southerner and all a
rebel; God bless him, and may the Lord
keep him in the path of wisdom and
virtue, Already over the fireside of
many a home hang the swords of the
grandfather who were the blue and the
grandfather who wore the gray, placed
there by pious hands as priceless memo
rials of love and valor, crossed at last
in the everlasting peace of a reunited
family.
ALL OF US ARE YANKEES.
To what do we owe these miracles of
enlightened progress? Mainly to the
good sense and good feeling the rich
red blood of American manhood; partly
to the recognition by rejecting and gen
erous minds that neither party to that
great sectional conflict had all the right
OF it, its antagonist all the wrong. On
this point / can speak with tolerabe
assurance. l belonged to that segment
of conservative men in the South who
loved the Union and did not accept either
the gospel of African slavery or the
dogma of Secession. The debate ended
the God of battle invoked to settle what
had indeed proved an irrepressible con-
fict We went with our own side. But
four years later, when in 1865, all that
we had feared in 1861 was actually come
TO pass. we needed no act of Congress
elther Tor our redemption or reconstruc-
tion.
The better to illustrate the situation
let me relate an incident that happened
In tennessee toward the close of the
war The Union General. Roweu Rous-
seau, of Kentucky. found bimsoif on
camped on the farm of Meredith Gentry.
famous orator of the old Whig party.
Gentry had been Rousseau's fle-leader
his political idol. Whig of Whigs a
Union of Unionists; but. swallowed nv
the movements of the time. no had al
lowed his district early in 1862 TO eIect
him to the Confederate Congress He
went to Richmond. found himself ont nj
place there, did not like it, and returned
home, where, among his books, under his
vine and fig-tree he awaited the in
cvitable Rousseau, his heart overflow
ing with unquenched affection, thought
he would have a bit of fun with his