The Richmond palladium. (Richmond, Ind.) 1906-1907, 1906-08-26
OF The
REAL "OLD DIXIE
Continued From Page One.)

Southerner he told of the amusing
incidents which surrounded the lives
of many of the people, he was ire
sistble. and only one suffering with
chronic .'sourness" could have posi-
bly, overcome the desire 10 laugh.
| Mr.. Ham begun his lecture by say
ing that the Georgia cracker" was
the greatest character on earth, and
that in his travels over Indiana he
could not help but notice the great
likeness between some of the native
Hoosiers and the famous crackers"
In part, Col. Hams address follows;
/ Il am going TO speak to you today
about the South and her people, and
as / am not one of those men who
go around over the country talking
about thing that people are unac-
quainted with. | believe that l can
give you a true picture of the old
times in Dixie; the old South, not the
new; the one which is the pride OF
the true Southerners heart; the one
around which so many fond recollec-
| tions collect, and the one which was
so badly misunderstood, and the one
which today. the people of the
| North and the West are unfamiliar
There are two conceptions n the
| North Of the true Southerner, oue Da
'ng that to be a Southerner man
must 1--we fiorid complexion, a Ions
mustache, a large gun at each hip
and bowie knife at his waist, ready
| to kill white man or 'niggeI be-
fore he can eat breakfast in comfort
| The other idea is that the Southern
er is long. lean ,lank, slab-sided sort
| of a 'son-of-a-gun,' who has not sEf-
| ficient energy TO breath. These are
| the conce ptions drawn by some au-
| thors and some Of the newspaper men
of the North. How does this opinion
| originate, one asks? | will tell you.
| n young Northern man is sent to
| college and is graduated. He takes
| a position on q Northern newspaper,
and is sent south to review the con
ditions there. He takes nice com
Portable chair in a Pullman and goes
sailing through the South, sees these
specimens of humanity hanging about
the railroad stations, goes back North
and sets TO work writing a great treat
Use on the Southerner and his char
acteristics. Having never come in
contact with the true and broad
ed of that sections higher and broad
er principles; the hospitality bestow-
ed on all strangers, and last but not
least, the undetermined women. Many
Northerners have needed the opin-
ions of these men, and thus an eron-
eous opinion has been formed of the
people of the South"
Cause of the Civil War.
Mr.. Ham then touched upon the
Civil War, and stated that it was the
outgrowth of the misunderstanding
of two different peoples living in two
great and different sections of the
country AS an illustration, he refer
red to an incident in a court yard
of certain town in the South. He
said that a certain prominent man
was exhorting his brothers to hurry
and join theranks of a then rapidly
forming company, and said that if
they did not hurry, they would not
have chance to fight as the Yam
KEGS would have fed, fully believing
that the Northerners would not fight
Continuing, Col. Ham said:
1T is my firm opinion that if the
American railroads at that time had
been running North and South, in
stead of East and West, the war
might have been averted as the rail
roads are great medium by which
people are brought together, and mis-
understandings thus are healed over.
The people of the North had been
characterizing the people of the
South as villains, and based their
opinions on nothing more than what
they had read from the pens of the
newspaper men who had formed a
false conclusion of the true South
erner"
The South's Aristocr7cy.
Col. Ham took up the development
of the Southern aristocracy, and
charmed his hearers with the bCauti-
full word picture of the trials Of the
early pioneer who had buiidci him a
home in what was then the outskirts
of civilization, and of the gI,. ( work
he did in founding of the grC~s South
ern commonwealth. The speaker
showed how, after a few years, the
once poor farmer had accumulated
a small amount of money, an amount
sufficient to purchase a slave or two |
and then he began to branch out into |
broader fields of cultivation. Not only |
did these men who occupied the mid |
die position in the development Of |
Southern life, grow in the knowledge |
of agricultural science, but they be- |
gan TO show new intellectual devel- |
opment also, and turned their atten- |
ton to the broader and higher things /
of life.
In a most beautiful word picture, !
Col. Ham next carried his audience |
back two or three generations before |
the outbreak of the Civil War, and /
showed them the lords Of the, South /
ern charlottesville type Of man who I