The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1906-10-04
Slid Defense Of the South.


by Congl man Edwin C. Burleigh,
OF Angus has by a recent utter
ance attracted the attention of the
Washington Post. The latter re-
CARDS it necessary to present a few
items from the biography of the
Journal before commenting on it's
utterances. The paper was estab-
lished 1925, FIVE years after it's State
was admitted into the Union. "Be-
ginning life as II Whig,i it naturally be-
come Republican paper But the
most notable fact in the Journals
career is that during the greater part
of its eighty years it has been owned
aud controlled by Representatives
in congress. Among it's editors be-
fore the middle of the last century
was Luther Severance, who was one
of the seven Wings in the national
House OF Representatives who per-
sistently voted against appropriate
ing money to defray any part of the
cost of our war with Mexico. They
rallied around their leader, Tom Cor
win. of Ohio,and applauded him when
he declared in the House that if he
were a Mexican he would welcome
the invaders with bloody hands to
hospitable graves The most dis
tinguished OF the Journals list of
statesmen-editors was James g..
Blaine" The present editor, says
| the Post, is ga man of brains and
character, as well as of ample finan-
cial resources" The record of the
paper and it's editors ought to be u
guarantee of fairness i'm it's editorial
utterances, but chow cOnspicuOusly
it has failed to meet such a guarantee
may be judged from this extract from
an editorial in a recent ISSUE" says
the Post, which proceeds to quote
from the kennebec Journal:
The new South has been a fruitful
theme for writer's and speakers during
the past generation, and yet every little
while there has been abundant and un-
welcome evidence that the old South has
by no means passed away. The South
needs more capital, more labor, more
enterprise, less demagOguery, less race
prejudice, and race stupidity; but in spite
of it's heavy handicaps it has shared to
no small degree in the bountiful prosper
ity which the whole country has been en-
joying in recent years.
The Post replies:
! Thank God, 1.-The old South" has not
passed away; that while she has ''in
recent years" been accumulating wealth,
there has been no decadence of her man.
hood; that her Democratic representa-
tion in Congress, in both Senate and
House. has, in large degree, been dis
tinguished by the best of the old time
American characteristics; that among
the scores of ex-Confederate statesmen
and soldiers, men who served in the Con-
federate Congress and in the army of the
Confederacy, the CRATER has been con-
spicuOus by reason of his absence. The
Senate OF Fifty ninth Congress furnishes
many illustrations of what the old
South" was and the new South is. Com
pare the venerable ex-Confederates Nor
gan and Pettus, of Alabama. with the
representation in that body OF the En-
pire State and you will not need to 60
further in the investigation.
political stupidity" as the term is
employed by the Journal means Demo
cratic solidity. If that solidity be mis-.
fortune, it is easily accounted for. The
history of reconstruction is it's all suffi
cient explanation. The same kind o
political stupidity" would, under like
conditions, prevail all over the North
The new South is too wise and patriotic
to cut loose from the traditions, habits
and surviving representatives of the
"old South" May it be long before i'm
migration or greed, or both combined, OF
any other cause or causes efface tn,
Americanism of the only section in which
it survives.
Nothing handsomer could be sait
of this section by one of the South''
most devoted sons. The people O
this section are under many obliga
tions to the Washington Post fol
this and similar utterances. 1t hal
apparently adopted the task of see
ing the South is not misrepresentet
} when it can prevent it.