New-York tribune., 1910-02-18
AGAINST LEE STATUE.
Proposition Regarded as a Perversion
of Standards.

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: I have noticed in your recent issues
two illusions to the controversy regarding
the erection of the Lee statue in Statuary
Hall OF the House OF Representatives. Your
washington correspondent speaks of Sena-
tor Heyburn's action in the Senate as re-
viving sectional issues, and ali editorial
item this morning calls it ''incongruous"
from the fact that the Senator did not
serve during the War of the Rebellion and
that his state Udahol was not created until
1896.
Many of the surviving soldiers of the
war feel deeply on the subject, and in
Grand Army posts and communicates of
the Loyal Legion are giving expression to
that feeling. Their position may be put
briefly thus: They believe that there is
an abiding difference between loyalty and
disloyalty to the nation. They believe that
disloyalty should not be commemorated by
statues in the halls of Congress or by
statues In the streets or parks of Wash
ington to men, no matter how eminent in
character or attainmentS, who are sought
to be thus commemorated because they
participated in the effort to destroy the
Union They have no criticism or reproach
to direct toward statues erected by states
within their state limits to fayof1te sons,
but they have an abiding conviction that
the Capitol should not be made West
minister Abbey for the statues of men the
significant part of whose lives was spent
in efforts to destroy the Union
We feel that in the erection of statue
TO General Lee in full Confederate uniform
and insignia in Statuary Hall the state OF
Virginia has taken advantage which
hU Congress IN the
passage of the act of 1854 (when the Confed-
crate States were in rebeIion) regarding
the placing of statues In Statuary Hall
Had the above possibility been contem-
plated in 1854 there is no question but that
the act would have been strictly limited
so as not TO permit the striking commem-
oration of efforts made to destroy the ma
tional government We also feel that the
bill now before the House making an ap-
propriation by Congress TO erect n1onu-
lnent to General Lee similar in character
and in position to the one contemplated 10
General Grant in Washington should be
unsparingly opposed and denounced
The Senator from Mississippi has notified
the Senate that his state purposes to send
to the Capitol a statue OF JeftersoI oaNls-
Nav IT not be followed by that of the Con-
federate Admiral Semmes. who destroyed
our merchant shipping In a manner not
recognized by the rules of internauohal
warfare. and of Wirz, who filled eieVeh
thousand graves with the bodies OF Union
soldiers at Andersonville?
The deliberate purpose now made plain is
to esta blish these men. in the eyes or the
nation and in the national capital, on an
equality with Washington and Lincoln ana
Grant and Farragut, and If objection TO
treir purpose is "sectionalism'' then the
obiectors as Patrick Henry said, may
make the most of it
Those for whom I speak do not so Ie-
gard it. They do not regard the tauhL
often repeated that they DO not hho"
that the war is over" They are not reViV-
ing the issues of that war. Those issues
arc being revived by the men who are
seekine-- TO place the leaders of the seceS-
sion movement on the plane OF the nation ,
na,riots The Union soldiers cherish no
feeling of aninlosity toward their Iorihel
antaeonists. but they insist that the virtual
Endorsement by the national government
sho,;ld not be given to confuse or destroy
in the minds of the comins generations the
nIain line between loyalty ana dlSioSal'S
as it was drawn in 1861.
THOMAS STURGIS,
First lieutenant and aide-de-canp Isl Ia
vision Ninth Army Corps
Neu- York Feb. II, 1910.