The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1906-03-28
CALUOUN'S MEMORY
SHOULD BE
Time for the Commonwealth to Erect
Fitting Memorial to a Great
Carolinians Name.


To the Editor of the State: Now that
in South Carolina we are beginning to
enter once again into an era of moral
idealism and of a broad, just and fun
damental mode of thinking among the
masses, and now that as b. o. Fowler,
editor of the Arena, Boston, puts it,
"the soul of the nation is awakening"
it is most fit that John c.. Calhoun, the
moral and good man, the pure and hon
est statesman, and the ~passionless and
profound philosopher, should once more
be made the object of investigation, the
subject of study and the pattern for re-
plication. When such true, intelligent
and respected citizens as the principal
of the General Sumter Memorial Acad-
envy; James IL. Carlisle, of Wofford
College,; Gustayus Memminger Pinck-
ney, of Charleston; the editor of the
Florence Daily Times and others are
beginning to keep Mr.. Calhoun in print
before the public, we can begin to
hope South Carolina and the Federal
nation will redeem themselves and rem
der unto Calhoun the bonors that are
Calhoun's.
In all the range of History no man has
heretofore been so generally misunder-
stood as that great and good man. 1t is
more than notifying, it is criminal
neglect, that, outside Of Charleston,
South Carolina possesses no fitting me-
mortal to his name. The City by the
Sea has named a broad and handsome
avenue in his honor, and the women of
the State, ever loyal, have set to watch
over it a splendid granite and bronze
monument, but what has the State, as
a Commonwealth done for the m
of the man who ever guarded her
honor, studied and fought for her inter
est and lived for her glory? One poor
little postoffice called Calhoun. The
United States Government did him that
honor! Shame, South Carolina! Why
do you not give his name to a county?
Have you not your Beauforts, Collie
tons, Berkeleys, C%larendons, Marlbo-
ros, Lancasters and Yorks? High
sounding and illustrious names of the
great British Empire. Is he not as il
lustrious as they? 1t would be sacrilee-
ious to say he was not morally and in
tellectually their superior. Have you
not your Pickenses, Sumters, Marions,
Andersons, Laurenses, Kershaws, Ak
ems, Barnwels, Hamptons and Horrys?
Who would deny that the members who
bore those names do not lend lustre to
the personality of our Commonwealth
by the heroic and high stand they took
IN helping to make her history? But
who would have the temerity to say
that John G. Calhoun did not stand
amidst these giants a Titan? Gen. Grant
has over him tons of granite fashioned
into the most perfect forms of art by
the most cunning and skillful of hands,
yet before the modest, recumbent i'm
age of the sleeping Lee, at Lexington,
Virginia, the whole world and
bows in awe as before a shrine dedi-
Gated to a deity of a fulness of heart
THAT knows no wrong and of a mind
void of guile of subtlety, and upon
whose countenance rests that peace
which passeth all understanding? Is
not Calhoun the peer of that sacred
chieftain? You have honored Lee, men
OF Carolina, in naming your counties,
will you forget Calhoun? Or do you
think that you must reserve your soil
and your catalogue of honors for lesser
lights who have no other chance, as the
name of Calhoun, like the name of
Calhoun and Caesar, is honor and title
inself and needs no accoutrements?
Perhaps you liken him unto Hammer
abb and Moses as a ~propounder of law!
Unto Scion and Lycurgus as a states
man, and unto Socrates, Aristotle and
Plato as a philosopher after whom no
local habitations are named, but by
whose names systems, schools and fun
damental principles are designated. =
Who made South Carolina powerful and