The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1911-05-18

birth OF Harriet Beecher Stowe
will be widely celebrated. A new
life of the little woman who
made the great war" as Lincoln called
her, is about to come from the press,
written by her son. Charles Edward
Stowe, and her grandson, Lyman Bee
cher Stowe.
Among the most interesting Of the
facts 1t brings out is that 1t never
occurred to the little woman that
there was anything about Uncle
Toms Cabin" in the least likely to
p~recipitate a war. She wrote the
book with the kindliest feelings to-
ward h south, and her aim was to
be nc only just but generous.
To begin with, Mrs. Stowe was not
or the extreme abolitionist type. 1t
was her firm belief that the better
element In the south hated slavery,
and hat this element was much larger
h was commonly supposed. Then,
too, while she loathed the system with
all her heart she was willing to be-
lleVe that 1t took more often than not
the kindly patriarchal form.
She gave Uncle Tom three masters,
and two of them were kind. She made
one OF her plantation owners detest
slavery and free his slaves. She want
ed to make the north understand that
the best southerners would cooperate
with them in a reasonable attempt
to do away with the evil.
Never was a little lady more sur
prised to find herself e~xecrated. Her
feeling had been when she first wrote
the book that it would displease the
abolitionists and bring sympathetic re-
sponse from the south-that Is. If
anybody ever read 1t at all, which she
had doubted.
When the book appeared the world
turned topsy-turvy for her. Garrison.
with whom she quite agreed.
wrote her that she was no longer
abused-she had drawn It all on her
self. People In the south who had
not e the book, or who had cad II
with their minds made up beforehand,
thought her some sort of a monster.
A cousin who lived in Georgia did
not dare put the name of Mrs. Stowe
on the envelope when she wrote to
her.
Mrs. Stowe found herself, in short.
put In a class of agitators with whom
she had never belonged, and the poor
little dove Of peace she had sent out
came back with it's feathers rufled be-
yond recognition.
The question of slavery came into
her life at an early period. 1t is not
true that she knew nothing of the
peculiar institution" at first hand.
She lived long In Cincinnati and met
there many southerners, and 1t was
on plantations where she visited that
she got the color for the book she
was TO write many years after.
She was hardly more than a girl
when she visited the Kentucky planta-
ton which became afterward the home
OF Uncle Tom and Eliza, and about
the same time she met Topsy. Topsy
came to Cincinnati in the company of
a wealthy Louisiana family which had
liberated Its slaves and it was In try.
ing to teach her religion that the
famous conversation occurred: do
you know who made your" Nobody
as on; | 'spect / growed."
In 1886 Cincinnati became the hot.
bed of anti-slayery talk. Mr.. Theodore
Weld of Lane Theological seminary led
the movement. He had spent much
of his life in the midst of slavery and
was dedicating the remainder of his
life to its overthrow. His ablest as.
s~istant, the editor of an abolitionist
paper, was DR.. Birney, a slave owner
from Alabama. who had freed his
slaves, and come away to fight the
system.
1t was natural that with these
friends Mrs. Stowe should have had
kindly feelings toward the south
should have thought that it was rapid.
ly Weakening to the horror of slavery.
and that the majority of its citizens
we're anxiously trying to put an end
TO it. AS far as the cause" was cor.
cerned her associations were with
anti-slavery southerners rather than
the northern ab%olitionists. .
Henry Ward Beecher edited in Gin.
cinnati a small daily paper, his sister.
now Mrs. Stowe. helping him. She
records an incident of the agitation
in Cincinnati that shows the ightirz
blood Of the young man who was to
become the great preacher.
DR.. Birney's abo,itionist paper was
wrecked by a moi. and she writes:
Many respectable citizens are In.
clined to wink at the outrage In con
sideration of its moving In the line
VI their p~rejudices." Henry Ward
ieecher did not wink. He feared an