The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1909-09-02
IN DEFENSE OF
GENERAL LEE
A Writer in the st. Louis Repub-
lie Recalls History Not Gen.
orally Known.

and Enthusiastically Bourbon edi-
torial in morning Republican news
paper in regard to placing a statue Of
General Robert E. Lee in the Federal
capitol, calls for an answer.
The writer of that editorial would
exclude the statue because, forsooth,
to his malignant and narrow brain,
General Lee led the Southern army
in the late war between the states and
is not next to Washington, Virginia.
greatest son.
AS to the latter reason, il is suffi-
cient to say that the people Of Vir.
GINA have decided that question fol-
themselves, once and forever, and
they will not brook the interference
of small-minded Intermediates full
of rattlesnake venom toward the
Southern people.
II is true that the Old Dominion is
the teeming mother of great men,
but for genius coupled with charac.
ter, and as the heroic defender of a
plundered and conquered people, they
have preferred Lee. No pen can de.
scribe the agony of his great heart
for the unparalleled suffering of his
people. They love him in return with
deathless love.
Roosevelt has written that Robert
E. Lee was the greatest soldier of the
English speaking people-greater
than Marlborough, greater than Well
ington and greater than Grant, and
the verdict of the great soldiers OF
the world confirms this estimate.
Lord Wolseley, commander-in-chiei
of the British forces, said that he had
met Bismarck, Won Moltke, Glad.
stone, Cavour and all the other great
men of his day, but that General Lee
impressed him more than anyone he
had ever met, and that he was over.
awed by the nobleness of his charac.
ter, and the simple majesty and dig.
nifty of his demeanor.
Soon after the close of the Civil
war, when General Lee was penni
less, and Virginia was a smoking
ruin, he was offered a position by g
New York insurance company, at q
salary of SOS, 600 year. He declined
it on the ground that he had had nc
experience in the insurance business,
and therefore could not earn such a
salary. When he was told that all
the insurance company wanted was
his. influence with the Southern peo-
pie, he replied with these memorable
words: 'My influence with the South
ern people is not for sale," and he
accepted a position as president OF
Washington college, at salary of
So, 900 a year, and until his death de-
voted his splendid talents and valu-
able experience towards rebuilding
the fortunes of his devastated and
bleeding country.
Would to God that the United States
Senate had in the place of Aldrich,
Depew, Plat, Penrose, ''et id alind
genus scaleratorum," decoy ducks
and stool pigeons for the beneficiarieS
OF the criminal trusts and monopolieS,
men of the exquisitely honorable in
stincts of Robert E. Lee!
AS to his having esposed the South
ern cause, General Lee, as well as
Stonewall Jackson, Joseph E. Johns
ton, Albert Sidney Johnston, Jeffer-
son Davis, j. E. B. Stuart, Longstreet
and many others, while cadets at
West Point were taught constitutional
law from book on that subject writ
ten by Mr.. Rawle, an eminent Phila-
delphia lawyer, and in this book the
right Of secession was distinctly rec
ognized and admitted. Furthermore,
General Lee simply put into practice
the right of secession expressly as
serted by the legislature of Massa-
chusetts when they passed a resolu-
ton in 1911 declaring that the Con-
gress of the United States had no
constitutional power or authority to