Evening star., 1908-01-25
RELIEF CORPS BITTER.
May Replace the Tablets in Ander-
sonville Park.

SOuVl11c 1dIk.
Mrs Isabel Worrell Ball. president of
the Department Of the Potomac, Woman'S
Relief Corps, says:
I'm my opinion the erection of the
monument to Wirz at Andersonyille is the
crownins infamy of an organization OF
women which does more to keep alive
the fires of sectionalsm than anything
else in the world. I am surprised and
panied at the action of these southern
women for several reasons. / had sup
posed. from association with both men
and women Of the south, that the south
ern woman's ideal of men was a high
one. Since WirZ seems to be the type
they most admire, for to him they have
erected the first monument to men of the
south, I am distinctly disappointed IN
their idea of types of men. 1t is we'll
known fact that Wfrz was an ignorant.
uncouth foreigner, not even naturallzed
citizen of the United States, and that he
was selected for his horrible work just
because he was ignorant and brutal and
able to do his work without much urging.
This Is not my opinion only, but a mat
ter of history. If Wirz was the tool of
those higher up, and chose to suffer igno-
miny for a price, and got it, as Judas
1scariot did, then he should suffer the
penalty at least of the worlds forgetting.
1.-The Woman's Relief Corps auxiliary to
the Grand Army of the Republic owns
Andersonville. and has made a park Of 1t.
bright with roses and enriched with or
chards of fruit trees. 1t has been our en-;
deavor to efface all things that would Of
fend the reconstructed, and those who,
even if they think they were right and the
north wrong In that great war for human
liberty, are willing to let the dead past
bury it's dead. We had a good many
signs put up around the grounds telling
of incidents that happened there when
the prison pen was fullest of suffering SOL
diers, prisoners of war, and we were in
formed by some of the women in the
south that these signs were a source of
great grief to them, and it would promote
peace and better feeling between north
and south if we would take the sign down.
Immediately every offending sign was re-
moved. Not one remains in place today.
when the movement for this monument
was begun we sent committees to the
women who were about to perpetrate
what we believed to be an outrage, not
only on the men, 13, 10 of whom died in
that pen and 991 of whom fill unknown
graves, but we felt that to idealize a man
of the WirtZ type was reflection on the
men Of the south to whom thousands of
us are akin. We appealed to them as
women not to do this thing, and they
sneered at and declared that they
would build it If they had to walk over
us to do it.
'T promise for the Woman's Relief Corps
that if this monument is erected at the
gate of Andersonville prison park. as the
ground purchased by the Georgia wom-
en- would indicate. every placard that we
took from the grounds will be put back
and there will be others more significant
placed there. The Womans Relief Corps
meant to be generous to the southern sis
ters Let me say to them however, that
we shall also be Just to the memories of
the men who died in that loathsome pen,
and I speak for an uncle who fills one of
those unknown graves.