The National tribune., 1910-05-19
NEVER LEE IN THE CAPITOL.
More Grand Army Posts Vigorously
Protest Against the Statue-One Vet
cram Would Erect Some Statues Him.


| HeFc ARMY fOStS Vigorously
, Protest Against the Statue-One Vet
cram Would Erect Some Statues Him.
self
Lee may have been a gentleman but
) he was also traitor to his country"
declares James G. Temple, of Bos-
ton. Mass, who objects to the Lee
| statue in the Hall of Horrors in the
/ Capitol, and then he adds: II don't
know how man can be n gentleman
and forswear his country and her Flag
but let 1t go at that. He was gentle
man.. say they. He was also q traitor.
say /, and being traitor who sulked in
his tent to the end, why perpetuate the
memory of his treason by clothing him
as a traitor, rather than as n gentle
man" 1t is useless to laud Lees sol
diership before the war of the rebellion,
because he had displayed very little.
He was yet Colonel at 55, and that
was mighty little official title for man
who had grown up in the barracks, SO
to speak.
They. Lees friends urge that Lee
was picked and urged for Commander
of the Union army by Gen. Scott I
give to Gen. Scott all the honors that he
won, and they were many, but I also
submit that the dear old hero was even
then in his dotage. and was early re-
tired because he was bent on making
.nuss of things. He even wanted to let
the erring sisters go in peace and the
man who held that attitude toward the
South was not in a mental condition to
select Commanders for, the defense of
the Flag.
NO, my comrades and my friends
the old enemy in gray-look at it as
you VIII, Lee was a traitor, and he died
unreconstructed. Gen. Grant was the
gentleman at Appomattox He returned
to Gen. Lee his sword, and he gave to
their horses and told them to go home
and till their lands.
| How did Lee reQuite this magnan-'
unity, and the same which has been
shown to the South by the North from
the hour of the surrender? Did he lift
his new gray sombrero and swear to
support the Union and the Flag against
all enemies. foreign and domestic, now
and forever?
Find such oath, you who can, More
than 40 years of unremtting search has
not revealed it to me, and 1 here and
now declare that such an oath does not
exist. because Robert E. Lee never took
it. He was a bad example for the peo-
pie of the South to follow, for he re-
garded not the laws of the land.
And so what possible pretense can
the people of Virginia have for placing
this traitor to liberty and justice under
the dome of Il building erected as a
temple to both?
Here are some things L would like
to do.
Il would like to place in the Capitol
at Richmond bronze statue of Maj
Gen. George n Thomas. Of Virginia,
the Rock Of Chickamauga.
Il would like to hang on the walls of
the Capitol at Atlanta q huge bronze
tablet bearing the words of Marching
Thru Georgia
Il would like to hang on the walls of
the Capitol at Jackson painting of
Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves.
Il would like to hang on the walls of
the Capitol at Eaton Rouge a portrait
of Gen. Ben Butler
Il would like to hang on the walls of
every Southern State Capitol a copy ver-
batiTa al lteratirn of .Andersonvilfe,'
huge paint Hg in oils that | have seen
on the walls of The National Tribune
Office, which depicts in horrid realism
| the suffering, the torture that my two
uncles suffered in that helIhole, and un-
derneath that picture | would like to
place picture of that white-livered,
Weazen-faced, unkempt, illiterate, ig-
norant beast, WirZ, the keeper
Now, my comrades, suppose I had
i tCarnegfeS s millions. and could command
these various pictures and statues and
tablets at the hands of Millet or
| Michael Angelo. How and when would
! ] get permission from these various
State Capitols south of Mason and Dix
on's line to place these chef-deuvres
upon their walls?
Not while grass grows or rain falls.
The men | have mentioned are traitors
in the eyes of these 'loyalists' of the
South. And Andersonyille2 Anderson
| vile is a myth, my comrades, a Mid
summer nights dream.
! Salisbury was a Summer picnic
Blackshear, Belle Isle, Libbey, Column
bia and all the other pens where our
| comrades rntta6 and died hty for
inches were as spirits and are melted
into air, into thin air, and like the base
less fabric of this vision, faded and
leave not a wrack behind
And WirZ-God, how L hate him yet
Yet he, too, is the hero of the South,
the pet of it's women. Ah my COM
rades, it may have been Summer pic
nc for some. but not for me, not for
you, nor for my Captain, nor yours nor
our Major or Colonel, and the only
myth about 1t is when we try to con-
vince ourselves that weak hearts, shat
tered nerves. missing legs and arms,
blinded eyes, deafened ears, scurvy-
| Scared hands and feet and faces are
fictions of the brain, cobweb myths that
we can brush away with the breath
| Lest we forget
| Robert f. Lee was the man who
more than any other in the rebeIlious
South was responsible for all this suf-
| terlng, anguish, death. He knew better
| Well, boys, let us remember this he
had to die to get under the dome of
the Nations Capitol, and he had first to
kill about million of you and me to
earn the kind of fame which in the eyes
Of the people of the South would render
him sufficiently notorious to entitle him
to this need of recognition"
Lamont Post, ia. Lamont. Okla, has
passed strong resolutions against the
placing of the statue of Lee in the
UNITED States Capitol. and has forward
led q petition to the Senate and House
,of Representatives earnestly requesting
them to refuse to accept the statue of
Robert E Lee as a gift to the United
.States. to be placed among the statues
tof our 'honored dead. While Lee led
great armies of brave but deluded men
thru fields of slaughter to their untime-
ly death, he was guilty of treason; he
was educated, honored and trusted by
our Government, and at the time when
our country's danger was greatest he