The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1906-09-21

JVsI -
1 been seized by execution. have never COM
planned of the pensions granted for the de-
/ serving old soldiers who wore the blue nor
has any Democrat any Democratic plat
| form.
We have tried out Of our slender means to
take care of few INDECENT Confederates. but
when the Republicans to make their plat
form in Tennessee they refuse to indorse our
| policy.
This not oversight, for our platform
was carefully read. its declarations studied.
and literally appropriated, even to the
language employed
True, the Republicans commended Mr. Nc.
Klnley for the suggestion that the government
| take Of the graves OF the Confederate dead.
and 1t was kindly and gracious thought. but
their affection relates only to the dead.
We will take efof both the living and the
dead. and to n that the modest pensions
the States pay wllFnever be cut of by the Re-
publican party
We will remember and never forget that the
soldier who wore the gray was the bravest
and the truest who ever marshaied in battle
array
Truly did he give of manhood's strength and
vigor for his home and the right as he saw It,
II he fell he paid the debt which all must
pay to fate and none tell the day 1t Will
be due
But for every drop Of blood he shed on every
field OF war, all the way from first Manassas
to the Wilderness tear has fallen from a
Southern eye and prayer has gone from a
Southern heart to Mercys throne
We cannot rear the costly monuments to his
memory which the North has raised to mark
the valor of her who wore the biue--for
we are too poor to make show OF grief and
reverence.
But rich In memory and in honor kings OF
earth, have builded in hearts a temple
of love and fame which will outlive marble and
endure longer than brass. AS the Ivy olings
10 he md Wi ia
green mantle the ruins which time and man
have wrought. do the tendrls OF love
reach back in the mists OF the vanished past
and embrace the fallen cause OF the knight
Hest of who drew sword or
marched beneanth the flag of
This is the land that we and others call the
South, and in its cloth OF honor the loom OF
destiny has and strangely intermingled
the threads of light and shadow.
Its fairer than other roses. it's
soil is not richer. its waters not clearer.
but It is loved as no other land beneath the
dome of God
II is our home, and we are sharers in It's
sorrows and heirs to its imperlshable glory
Its story is yet untold, would have It.
but day the man will come, hight houghted,
loving truth, towering, like Saul
Sometimes tainted with our poverty.
our lack OF thrift, and bid to Join the
swift and mad pursuit OF gain but the South
has trod the way OF unbought honor and shall
unto the end.
They do not say men not brave,
women pure and fair. and had rather live
and die in land where the are brave
and the women pure than have all the wealth
OF all the earth.
And one day, should the crimson banner
oppose the flag, II the law, nay, liberty itself,
shall need defenders, they Will be found. strong.
ready, valiant In the South's untainted man
hood
Men speak of a new South with the smoke
and fire in every valley every mountain Scared
with pick and drill. forests ringing with
the axe, our waters harnessed the earth all
Ieweiled with golden sheaves and covered white
With the SHOWS that In summer.
These are rich rewards, and they are coming
faster than we know, but let them come 70 the
old South not a new. for there Is not, and will
never be- a new South that is not forever rooted
in the heart and memory Of the old.
The song of exultant Joy that comes on the
wings Of the morning. and in glad thanksgiv-
ing uprushes TO the throne OF God, Is the
paean OF the victory Of peace-a sign for us
and all the world that the old which shed
It's rays on the path OF the Southern man and
xlorihed the Southern woman In refugent light.
has come from behind the clouds and points
he way to higher duty and grander destiny
beneath the flag OF a country which was one
n the beginning and shall be for all time from
ocean TO ocean.