The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-23
rhe outlook.

The Outlook.
 If any man had predicted forty years 1 ago that the one hundredth anniversary
 of the birth of General Lee would be
 observed In all sections of the soun
 try. he would have been regarded as an 1 unpatriotic lunhtlc. It is only gen. 1 eration since the passion that hamed l into desolatlng war died down Into
 glowing coals. and these 'n turn have l grown cold and gray. Hatred and bit- 1 terness have gone because knowledge
 and sympathy have made them incredl ble and inpossibie. It is not strange
 that men who once fought one another l have become friends: that has happen | ed many times In the history of the l world. The strange thing Is that It should have happened in so short 3 | time. Indeed. the time in which thls l revolution of feeling has been accom- l piished has been so brief that Dr. Glad | den was well within bounds when he
 called it a moral mgEacie.
 Love always works miracles; Is, Inc decd. the only power that works mira
 cies, because 1t Is the one supreme 1 manifestation of the Infinite It Is also | the only interpreter of man to man | Hate thrives on ignorance and bears It's | hideous fruitage in the air of misun- i derstanding: when the light of love I breaks through the murky clouds. the
 
 I Lee has long been the idol of a sec i ton: he was never hated h the North I as some rof his contemporaries were I hated: his spirit, his bearing, the evl- | dent chivalry of his nature, made ha- tred ImpossIbie: but he was q leader of an attack on the government, and l he was far and away the ablest ser-
 want of the Confectionery. There could be little hatred of such a man. but there were deep and widespread ani- mostly and bitterness of feeling. There has come a great and benefl- cent change of attitude toward the ! Southern leader because the North has come to understand both the cause and i the man. The fnists Of ignorance and Misunderstanding have dissolved in air. and the fundamental issue has become clear. Intelligent men no longer speak of the rebeilion: they speak of the civil war; if they wish to be exact, they speak of the war between the States. From the very beginning there 1 were two versions or interpretations Of the ideal of liberty held in common. by the North and the south; one ae- cepted the Federal Union and the oth- sr the State as the unit of govern ment. A strong feeling of loyalty to the State had been developed before the Union was called mo being. There is very. little doubt that the majority or tne men WNOE ugGW np tAG GUNi&t&- ton of Independence. of the men who framed the Articles of Confederation. and of the men who adopted the Con stitution held more or less stronsi the view that they were organizing conederacy of States rather than d nation The formal logic of this posi- tion Is unanswerable: 1t was the logic of national development Sf irresist- bic historical tendencies that prevail ed against 1t. The passion for liberty was alike in all parts of the country, in the North that passion found ex- pression In devotion to the Union, m l the South in devotion to i'te, State The l war between the States was conh, st | between these opposing ideFs of the 1 nature, of the government; it was fought by men who were equally sin- cere, devoted. self-sacriicing. passion ateiy loyal to their ideals 9f State and of liberty.
 The great conflict was not funda- mentally economic, though economic conditions made the Issue more defir- ite; it was not primarily dinerencs of conviction about slavery. though slavery brought 1t on and generated its bitterest passions: it was one or those tragedies of which history Is full of conflicting ideas which cannot be solved except by an appeal to force And. as in the case of all great trage- QleS, aIIef Lne" StOTtn pt pdb5iou thS~N came great peace; the bewiiderirg clouds dissolved in clear air. through which the field. lately hidden by smoke, lay in ull view; and Che. sequel IS not the obliteratlon of one or other of the two forces, but the sreadjustmeht- os what was true and enduring In both forces: the birth of ia. new era of larger sympathies and of broader movement of life After Shakespeare had written Hamlet" 'othA'io," Mac beth," "King Lear'--those great traG- edles in which the plummet is drop- ped into the deeps of human expert ence--he wrote "Cymbeline, the ''Ylnter's Tale" The Fem Jest -those beautiful Romanees of Reconciliation, In which compassion, sympathy. self sacrifice and the divine Insight of love bridge the chasms that hate has opened and heal the wounds of war To the great Tragedy of .he Civil way has succeeded the greater drama Of Reconciliation and Reunion; the heroes begin to change places, the victories cease to be the triumphs of sections. the Nation opens it's eyes and finds itself enriched for all time by q chap ter iu It's history which # may cal in the future 'grhe War of Ideas and the Birth of Heroes"
 Tn this transformation, this accep- tance by all of the men who were once heroes of sections, thare IS noun ing strange: what Is strange Is that the heroic on each side should so soon find recognition by the other side. Two hundred and sixty years ago England was rent asunder by devastating civil strife; and the country was abiaze with hatred and anger. The Puritan thought Prince Rupert goddess Row aIlst enlisted in an unholy war against