The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-24
BY WILL T. sHEEHAN.

| and tradition. and with understanding and sympathy, he has woven them into I a harmonious whole, no less attract i've than 1t Is enduring. He has em. | balmed the memory of the ancestors or Greensboro's people. sketched their | lives and customs and all in such way that his story has become q part oI
 the or the sr ssafe fer afo today for other ages and other times 1 Through his labor the people Of Hale | County of the pioneer period. Of the of the civil war period, so full of l tragedy and of the post-bellum period, | with It's own unhappiness, live m printed pages for the generations which will know newer and greater Ala
 Such is the obligation that he has conferred It will, perhaps not be ac- knowledged for men who do the sort | of work that Mir. Yerby has completed are accustomed to go unrewarded The book will hardly make any money Tor the author. It Is a pity that this IS handsomely gotten up, and while the class of readers who will feel deep 1 interest in the volume is large enough. | the class who are willing to pay money as as valuable as MT. Yerby's. is much
 In a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Champ Clark | should walk through New England. note the monuments, read the inscrip- | tions and study the books in the libra ries he was bound tQ come to the eon- and single-handed started the Revolu- l tionary War, fought 1t to a finish and alone and single-handed established liberty and independenee for the col had furnished the writers and author. And having supplied the people who wrote the books. the books were Ensiand iH ApS people @ Mr. ad Clark I Explored sm the indifference of the South to its l writers and spoke with some feeling of the slight encouragelnent held out the South should occupy place in his l tory out of proportion to it's splendid achievements and that its men and it's 1 deeds should be mtnimized.
 Leading fin the Work.
 Mir. Yerby ia In a sense pioneer. Not that other town and county histo- ries have not been written and there have been some good ones in Alabama. but he has devoted more time and en- ergy to research work and he has as- sernbled his information with more care than has been given to such works boro what many cities anu towns should have done for them. But they lack man who fs not only competent for the work but who Is willing to spend
  scanty hope of it's return.
 But 1t Is hoped with sincerity that there will be found In other parts of Alabama men who are willing to put ideals and the customs of their people should be preserved for the future Much of Alabama's history has been IrretrievabIy lost, It is gone and 1t the old family burial grounds under the weeds and the tangled grounds. It sleeps with 'the forbears of the vIl- unasr tsss eSs Gssy have '0Rss es it 18s forever siienced and the hands that could have written 1t are forever still ed. Each day History is dying in Ala
 There Is story told in the classics of a eybiI who came to one of the Tarquins, offering him twelve volumes, but refusing to let him examine them. demanded. she went Away and return- ed with nine of the volumes, after burning three. For the nine she asked the same price she demanded for the twelve. He again refused to pay her price. She left and burned three more I Again she came and offered the six volumes at the original price. The | kings curiosity was aroused and he parlied. with her, but. she refused to | lower her original price. He let her go out again and she burned three
 more of the volumes. With the res King. who dseniy Interested now in the mysterious books, paid for three what he had refused to pay for twelve. He found them niled with ancient laws
 In much the same way has Alabama | treated its history. Of the pioneer and ante-beilum history we are getting to and perhaps the more valuable parts are gone. But as 1t was with the sybil's books, that which remains has grown to be more highly estiuated than l the larger part which once existed, but which has now disappeared.
 The Authors Equipment.
 MT. Yeroy went into his task splen- people and their traditions. The bent | of his mira was towards history. He | Is the editor of The Greensboro Watch man and his newspaper work, brought | to his notice valuable historical data that was becoming scarcer each year, | His own life had been spent at Greensboro. He knew the older peo- pie. the pioneers who had come down | pleasure to sit in their presence and hear them talk. He was quick enough to realize that what they were say ing vas history. And he put 1t down ture use With this indiscsininate in- formation as a basis. his resolve was formed and he undertook the longer. more difficult task of systematic re- search work, compilation and writing.
 The History of Greensboro is fash. toned on a happy mean between the narrative style" and the record | style" In history writing, especially | If the writer is new to the labor, the temptation Is strong to copy the records alone, to string them out one after the other much Ike books of acts of the legislature of a volume of city ordinances This is an easy style for the writer. but 1t is a hard style for
 On the other hand the writer who fapeies the narrative. inevitably gen. 1 eralizes. too much and he fails too often to overcome the temptation to write a novel instead of a history. Between the narrative Scylla and the record Charyhdis, Mir Yerby safely steered his bark The best in both methods were seized upon and used And so in the history we find records when records are needed and valuable and on other pages we find some ex- cellent literary work. where the time ready writer
 Such an agreeable departure we find | from dry as-dust meth ods" is dis | played in the page that treats of the introduction in Greensboro of the round dance. The French settlers. the rem. nants of that brave. but unfortunate band or Bonapartists who settled a few miles from Greensboro came over and to the pioneers beaux and belles. given to the Virginia reel. illustrated l the graceful waltz and minuet, that eharacterized the drawing rooms of ] Paris.
 It was a rich historical field into which Mir. Yerby entered Not many i local historians could sec before them