The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-01-22

of Thomas H. Benton" he says, most
uniustly of the Southern people, on
page 161:
slavery is chiefly responsible for
the streak of coarse and brutal bdrDaf-
ism which ran through the Southern
character"
Yet he claims to be half South
erner. on page 1853 he says:
THE moral difference between Ben
edict Arnold on the one hand and
Aaron Burr or Jefferson Davis on the
other is precisely the difference that
obtains between a politician who sells
his vote for money and one who sup
ports a bad measure in consideration
of being given some high political
position.
AS a matter of fact, Mr.. Davis was
very Indifferent to political position,
unlike Mr.. Roosevelt; so much so that
he never spent a dollar on election
and asked no man for his vote. He
was in Mississippi but once when
elected He fought in the flower OF
mis- manhood when men battied in the
field, and never stood on a hill posing
as a Rough Rider, an actor in a des-
perate battle, who was, it is said, not
in the range of the enemy's fire-as
history is said to have done at San
Juan
On page 219. he attacks the honesty
of Van buren,, Tyler, and Polk as ser
wants of the public, and speaks Of
the unblushing rascality" among the
officials generally.
Again. on page 220. he attacks the
one and only President of the Confed-
eracy, the representative of the South
ern people, whose liberation he wishes.
He says:
Before Jefferson Davis took his
place among the arch-traitorS in our
annals he had already long been
known. as one of the chief regulators.
1t was not unnatural that to dishon-
esty toward the creditors Of the pub
lie he should afterward add treachery
toward the public itself"
This is q libel and falsehood. MI.
Davis was not in political life at the
time the reputation occurred, and he
spent several hundred dollars having
printed and circulated Il pamphlet
on the day following that on which
he was to be nominated for Congress
announcing that he was unalterably
opposed to reputation. And this he
did because the chairman Of the NOM
mating body was a repudiator
| do not hesitate to say that | do not
think Mr. Roosevelt has even tried to
tel the truth and J venture 10 say
tIidl TIC Lie Oh IlOtfldS 1CIllOli
will not survive the criticism of the
generation which Will succeed Roose-
welt.
Mr.. Bentons mind was magnificent
~ equipped for the struggle he made
for the right as he understood it; but
he was never Ignorant or malicious
enough to call etferSon Davis q repu-
diator or to apply TO him any of the
other undeserved and vile epithets
used by Roosevelt.
When Mr.. Roosevelt was quite q
young man he wrote an article in the
North American Review denouncing
my father as a traitor. which so
wounded my father that he wrote to
Roosevelt telling him his view was
a one-sided one, and offering data in
order that he might be better in
formed
Roosevelt replied thu ough his sec
rotary to his mothers old friend. a
| man old enough to be his grandfather:
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt does not
care 10 have any communications from
| Mr.. Davis whatever.
Probably this accounts for his ignor-
ance and -SidedeoneSS.
MARGARET H. JEFFERSON DAVIS
HAYES.
Colorado Springs, Col. Jan s.