Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1908-08-29
PEACE AND THE WIRZ MONUMENT
atlanta Constitution.)

Elsewhere the Constitution pub
fishes a communication from Cap
tain Lemuel NJ. Park, chairman of
the advisory board of the Wirz monu-
ment committee of the Daughters of
the Confederacy, regarding the recent
controversy over the location of the
monument to Major Wirz, comman-
dant of Andersonyille prison.
There is no mistaking the senti-
ments of our correspondent He feels
deeply and his loyalty to the ira
ditions of the confederacy inspires
him to speak with strength and en-
phasis out of a full heart.
Warmly approaching his sincerity
and the self-sacrificing devotion he
has displayed in the labor of love
committed to his charge, it is not in
appropriate to ask if the memory and
the gallant services of Wirz cannot
be lastingly honored in spirit that
breathes more of Cancellation and fra
ternity?
Our correspondent attacks the pro-
position of the ladies of Americas to
place the monument to Wirz in that
city. He contends that the only logi-
cal and sensible site for it is An
Jacksonville, thus sustaining his argu-
ment-
ION the extremely handsome and
very costly monuments erected on
Andersonville prison grounds and
cemetery by number of the northern
states are some very bitter and malig-
nant statements, to mildly term them,
while at different places, all over the
grounds, are signboards with declar-
atoms as black as sheol yillifying
Wirz and the rebel guard.
while thousands Of ugly mouths
have been made at Dixie should she
not be permitted to pucker up her
mouth just little back?"
We are sure that second reflection
will convince our correspondent that
such sentiments are uncharitable and
inadvisable, to say the least. The
northerners have themselves, at this
very Andersonville, set the south an
example in tolerance and forbearance.
Some years ago several of the camps
of the G. A. r. had erected on the
prison grounds monuments with in
scriptions offensive to the southern
sense in the extreme The thing was
done on impulse, growing more out
of thoughtlessness than malice. For
with the slightest breath of resent
ment from confederate survivors in
this state, the unpleasant inscriptions
were chiseled off at the order of their
trainers
The confederate veteran cannot
afford to show a spirit less forgiving
and broad than that of the union
veteran. We are many years past the
day when rancor and intense bitter
ness should actuate our thoughts.
If the wounds of the fratricidal war
were yet acute, if north and south still
glowered at each other in inextin-
guishable hate, there might be excuse
for retaliation such as our correspon-
dent suggests.
Such an unhappy and infaming
condition no longer exists. The an
cient line of demarcation between
the sections is a dim tradition rather
than an actually To fling biting
expressions into the faces of those
with whom we are now on terms of
brotherliness and amity, savors more
of the acrid animosity of reconstruct
ton days than the tolerant spirit of a
reunited America.
1t is legacy of friendship and of
kinship we should bequeath posterity
not one of hatred and recrimination,
sition of the people of Americas points
way to the further naturalization
of the pacifying genius contained in
the immortal epigram-''Let us have
peace"
Should we not follow its guiding
finger?