Martinsburg statesman. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1869-1906, 1905-02-24
DAUGHTER OF JEFFERSON DA-
Wis EXCORIATES ROOSE-
WELT.

! NlllyOu klUuiy nave lhC lOllOWibS N
tracts from President Roosevelt's book
printed in the World. and request
other newspapers North and South 10
copy this letter?
In Mr.. Roosevelt's book, The
Lille of Thomas II. Benton" he says
most unjustly of the Southern people
on page I6I:
Slavery is chiefly responsible for
the streak of coarse and brutal bar
barism which ran through the South :
ern character.
Yet he claims to be half Southern
er. On page 163 he says;
The moral difference between Ben
edict Arnold, on the one hand, aud
Aaron BUR- 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 conside ration
of being given some high political p. :
sition. F."
AS matter of fact, Mr. Davis was
very Indifferent to political position,
unlike Mr.. Roosevelt; SO much that
he never spent dollar on elections
and asked no man for bis vote. He
was in Miss. but once when elect
ed. He fought in the flower OF his
manhood when battled in the field !,
and never stood on a hill posing as
Rough Rider. an actor in a desperate
battle who was, it is said, not in the
range of the enemy's iite-as this fam
tastic author of stateSmen's history is
said to have done a; San Tuan.
On page 2I9 he attacks the honesty
of Van Buren,, Tyler and Polk as ser
wants OF the public, and speaks OF
'the unblushiug rascality'' among
the officials generally,
Again, on page 22o, he attacks the
one and only president of the Con-
tederacy, the representative of the
Southern 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 ,epudiators
1t was not unnatural that to dishon-
esty toward the creditors of the pub
lie he shold afterward add tretchery
toward the public itself"
This is libel and a falsehood. Mr..
Davis was not in political life at the
time the population occurred, and he
spent several hundred dollars having
printed and circulated a pamphlet
on the day following that on which
he was to be nominated for congress
announcing that he was uualtera-
bly, opposed to reputation. And this
he did because the chairman ofthe
nominating body was repudiator.
lido not hesitate to say that | d.
not think Mr.. Roosevelt has been
tried to tell the truth. and | venture
to say that the lie of Thomas Benton
will not survive the criticism of tie
generation which will succeed Roose-
Welt
Mr.. Benton's mind was magnlfi-
Gently equipped for the struggle he
made for the right as he an lerstood
it; and he was never so ignorant or
malicious asito call Mr., sDavis a repu-
diator, or TO apply to him any of the
other undeserved aud vile epithcts
used by Roosevelt.
When Mr.. Roosevelt was quite a
young man he wrote an article tn the
North American Review denouocing
my father as a traitor, which 30
wounded my father that he wrote to
Roosevelt, telling him his view was
a one sided one, and Offering data in
or Ter that he might be better inform
ed.
Roosevelt replied through his sec
rotary to his mothers old friend, a
ma old enough to be his grandfa,h-
er:
"Mr. Theaoore Roosevelt does not
care to have anylcommunicatioa from
Mcr Davis whatever"
Probably this accounts for his igno
IA ice and one sidedness.
NJ 1rgaret H. jefferson Davis Hayes.
Colorado Springs Col Jan 3.
BETTER THAN GOLD.