Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1905-02-03
DAUGHTER OF JEFFERSON
DAVIS ATTACKS PRESIDENT
Defends Her Fathers Memory and Insists
That the President DID Publish a
False and ib eIIous charge.

: Defends Her Fathers Memory and Insist
That the President DID Publish a
False and ib ellous charge.
The New Y York World prints the fol
lowing
In justice to the Southern peOpl
will you kindly have the following ex
tracts from President Roosevelt's bool
printed in the World, and reQues
other newspapers North and South tt
copy this letter?
In Mr. Roosevelt's book, "The Lif,
of Thomas 81. Benton, be- says mos
unjustly of the Southern people or
page 16l:
Slavery is chiefly responsible fol
the streak of coarse and brutal barbar.
ism which. ran through the Southern
character"
Yet be claims to be half Southern.
er. On page 1853 he says:
1.-The moral difference between Ben
edicJ 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 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 dollar Oh election and
asked no man for his vote. He was in
Mississippi but once when elected. He
fought in the flower of his manhood
when men hattled in the field. and
never stood on hill posing as Rough
Rider, an actor in desperate battle
who was, it is said, not in the range of
the enemy's fre--as this fantastic
author of statesmen's history is said
to have done at San Juan.
On page 219 be attacks the honesty
of Van Buren. Tyler and Polk as SER
wants of the public. and speaks Of "the
unblushIng rascality" among the Of
fcials generally.
Again, Oh 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
be had already long been known as one
of the chief repudiators. 1t was not
unnatural that to dishonesty toward
the creditors of the public be should
afterward add treachery toward the
public itself.
This is libel and falsehood. Mr..
Davis was not in political life at the
time the reputation occurred, and he
spert several hundred dollars having
printed and circulated pamphlet-on
the day following that on which be
was to be nominated for congress-an.
nounclDg that he was unalterably op-
posed to reputation. And this be did
because the chairman of the nominal
ing body was repudiator.
I do not hesitate to say that do not
think Mr.. Roosevelt has even tried to
tell the truth, and l venture to say
that the life of Thomas Benton will
not survive the criticism of the gen.
Grafton which will succeed Roosevelt.
MFR. Benton's mind was magnificent
ly equipped for the struggle he made
for the right as he understood 1t but
he was never ignorant or malicious
enough to call Jefferson Davis repu
diator, or to apply to him any of the
other undeserved and veil epithets US
ed by Roosevelt.
When Mr.. Roosevelt was quite a
young man he wrote an article in the
North American Review denouncing
my father as traitor, which so wound
ed my father that he wrote to Ro-
osevelt, telling him his view was one
sided one, and offering data in order
that he might be better informed.
Roosevelt replied through his secret
airy to his mothers old friend, a man
old enough to be bis grandfather:
MIR. Theodore Roosevelt does not
care to have any communication from
Mr.. Davis whatever.
Probably this accounts for his ignc-
rance and one sidedness.
MARGARET H. JEFFERSON DAVIS
HAYES.
Colorado Springs, Col Jan. 3.