Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-08-27

and good things the North has so gen
erously bestowed on them. Occasionally
men like Mr.. Dickinson, who associate
only with wealth and corporations,
and get federal Office from Republican
administrations, undertake to speak
for the Southern people. These efforts
as in the case of Mr.. Dickinson's Get
tysburg speech, are not made in the in
terest of truth, but in the hope of APP
plause from new found friends. This
they get, as in the present instance,
from the North, and from the North
only. Mr.. Dickinson, nor indeed
would any Southerner, make that
speech in the presence of a typical
Southern audience. 1t was safely made
at Gettysburg and as safely printed in
a Northern magazine, but it could no
more have been made before Confed
crate reunion than could fire be safely
placed in powder When Mr.. Dickin-
son said that slime has brought clear
er vision of the tremendous evils to all
the States, which would certainly and
Immediately have followed upon the
establishment of the Southern Confed
eracy," he uttered an insult to the peo-
an insult to the loins that bore him.
How could defeat beget love? And on
| what could he base statement that
we are incapable of self government :?
| There were more States working to-
gether for the establishment of the
Confederacy than founded this Nation,
there were many more white people
within those States than in the whole
United States in 1875, and unless they
had deteriorated in manhood, in mind,
body, and morality, they were as able
to establish nation then as their
fathers hundred years before, and
likewise to maintain it.
Mr.. Dickinson should also remem Der
that since the war ended which he SO
much adores for its results, the South
has had little to thank it's old enemies
for, and could as easily have lived as
an independent nation, as under the
government its conquerors gave it. A
people who could live through the Re
construction period, after the devasta-
ton of war such as they had just en-
dured, and who have ever since endur-
ed contemptuous reference, belittling
epithet, melting to rapine and lawless-
ness of the negro by enemies, I'M
just taxation, denial of equal rights
in the government, who are branded
even now as traitors, and referred to
always as rebels, and who are today
singled out by reason of Northern ha-
tired as the especial objects of taxation
in the new tariff law, and complain as
little as they, have No fear that had
their cause succeeded they would have
established a nation in which even Mr..
Dickinson might find some virtue.
Mr.. Dickinson further said at Get
tysburg:
There are in the South but few, if
any, who would not turn swiftly, with
sentiments of abhorance, from any
suggestion that 1t would have been bet
ter for the South if it had succeeded in
establishing an independent govern
| ment.
Mr.. Thos. E. Watson of Ga, thus
characterizes this statement, and we
quote him with approval:
| Secretary Dickinson's statement is
utterly false. We Southern people have
accepted the results of the war in good
| faith because we had to; but, at the
bottom, we don't love the North much
better than France does Germany.
How well does France love England
Get that measure of effectlOn and you
will be mighty close to the feeling of
the North for the South.
The New York Globe of the 18th inst.
editorially speaking of Mr.. Watson in
the absence of respectable argument,
says:
Thos. f. Watson of Ga, formerly
member of congress, and leader of the
remnant of Southern Populists, malig
nantly attacks Mr.. Dickinson for the
foregoing utterance. Tom Watson is
of 'cracker" extraction. What has
given to him his opportunity to rise
was the triumph of "Old Glory"
Every loyal Southener who does not
believe i'll state of society in which a
few lordly planters fout slaves and
almost equally servile slaveless "white
trash" will echo, in his heart at least,
the words of Secretary Dickinson, and
quietly rejoice that the time has arriv
ed when a Southern man can thus
speak out.
Let any representative of the Centu-
ry Magazine, which gives that speech
place, the New York Globe or any
other benighted journal, benighted we
mean as to Southern sentiment on this
question, undertake to make that or
any other similar speech before a
Southern audience, and let him be even
so high and mighty person as Mr..
John McGavock Dickinson, Secretary
OF War, Democrat in Republican cab
met, Southern emigrant to a North
ern cline, and He, even He, will be
Kissed from the stage.
Mr.. Watson may be of "cracker"
origin, or any other not in favor with
the n. Y. Globe, but we thank God
that he is not of that "Renegade" stock
or origin so nauseating to Southern
people, which has become enslaved to
new masters, and must, and does lick
the hand that smote them. The South
ern people generally are not dogs.
They lick no hands The only
Southerners in whom Mr.. Dickinson's
speech finds favor or response, are those
like him who have Joined the Repub-