The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-04
"DIxIE."

The Reformer should Not Touch the Words
 of the 'sMarselllaise of the South" Burlington Hawk-Eye.
 The reformer Is abroad in the land. He looks upon everything that exists and finds 1t wanting and capable of improvement. and gest reforms. Among many other things he has turned his attention to Dixie" and he wants to reform the "Marseillaise" of the South. Whereupon loud and practically unanimous protests have been voiced alike in the Southland and in the North. For has become the common property of the Nation
 There may be some justice In the claim that "Dixie'' has simply come home. for it is generally accepted history that the song originated in the North. And the familiar strains turn the thoughts of many back to the city of New York. to the time when burnt cork art was in the prime and when the the kings of negro minstreisy delighted thousands upon thousands in the Eastern metropolis There one night Dixie" was sung by the king of all the minstrels of his time, and instantly 1t became a favorite. Soon 1t found it's way down South. where instead of being the song of grotesque en- tertainer 1t became the air of the States. It would have been the national air If the South had succeeded and had been able to maintain place among the Nations of the earth.
 But those whom Dixie" carries back to the minstrel stage are but small minority. To millions the stirring air brings pictures of bitterly contested fields; of battles that will live in history untll the last or the race wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams; of defeats that were glorious as any victory of a cause that was defended by men as intrepid any that ever trod the earth and who were defeated only by men equal ly brave and equally determined but strong CT in the fact that their cause was right and just. It carries the memory of the nearer back to the long thin line that swept up the hill at Gettysburg as If on parade. and to the gallant thousands who had lived for Dixie and who died for Dixie that Virginia was swept down and the last hope of the South wrecked in the charge at the sleepy Pennsylvania town which that battle has made famous. It carries the mem day when the noble women of the South decked the resting places of friend and foe with the flowers of spring and watered them with their tears. And 1t conJures up before the inner eye the glorious picture of the reunited country. of peace and happt- ness and prosperity undreamt of in the old en times, when Dixie" entered the South land.
 It has not been proposed to change the air but simply the text, but even that must not be touched From the graves of hun dreds of thousands of our brothers who died for pixie there comes protest against the change of a single syllable. That text. has been hallowed by the blood of a whole generation of fighting men and It should Teuain as they knew 1t, and as they sang tt around their camp fires and as they chant l ed it as they marched into conflict. And | yet the words are of minor importance | to the text of a song. though Koaehats | ssVerlassen' viii move them % tears when Ahs words are given in a foreign language. | and when compositions like sealaizlaan'A a