The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1911-06-09

At Fisk University commencement
day on June 14th there is this year
to be distinctly unique feature. The
youngest son Of Harriet Beecher
Stowe, rev. DR.. Charles e. Stowe, Of
New York City, is to give the COM
mencement address. Fisk's COM
mencement day happens to be the
hundredth anniversary of Mrs.
Stoves birthday. DR.. Stowe has gen
erously selected Fisk University as
the place which shall have the honor
of his address on that day. The
Southern people look upon Mrs.
Stoves place in history somewhat
differently from the majority of
Northern people. This seems inevita-
BILE, but all unite in paying tribute
to the memory Of one of the most
distinguished literary women in the
worlds history. Some go so far as
to think and say that Mrs. Stoves
book, Uncle Toms Cabin, actually
caused the Civil War. At the other
extreme are those who think and say
that this book had nothing to do
with it. Somewhere between these
two extremes lies the truth. Those
who had the honor of meeting and
knowing Mrs. Stowe somewhat per-
sonally know her to have been a
rarely sweet woman, possessed of
marked intellectual ability, as were
all the Beecher family. She was the
mother of several children, the wife
of a clergyman, experienced in the
vicissitudes of life in the early days
of Ohio when life had its strenuosi-
ties.
In DIR. Stoves letter accepting the
invitation to give this address he
writes as follows:
"I have given much study to the
social, economic and constitutional
causes that led up to the Civil War.
1t is evident to me that from strict
ly legal standpoint the South had
much to justify them both in what
they did and in what they attempt
ed. I have the highest regard for
/ those noble, brave and devoted men
and women that sustained the cause
of the South. They were inspired
by a deeply religious spirit, and
/ fought as the old Crusaders fought
for what they sincerely believed to
be a holy cause. They fought with
a sef-sacrifcing devotion that made
even defeat glorious by the splendor
of their heroism. Yet I firmly be-
lieve that defeat was for them a great
blessing. Slavery was. from an eco
nomic standpoint, a blight and a
curse. When the war broke out the
value Of Northern farm land was on
an average Of $29 per acre, and that
of Southern farm land $3.50 per acre.
Slavery was smothering the life of
the South and the war was a deliver
err"
In a subsequent letter of Dr. Stowe
are these words: "It was Massachu-
setts that sent out the first slave ship
in 1886. 1t was Massachusetts, that
enslaved both the Indian and the
African. 1t was Massachusetts, that
passed the first fugitive slave law"
Then DR.. Stowe adds words to the
effect that it does not lie on the lips
of Massachusetts, people to tell South
ern men how they shall solve their
present-day problems.
''Now let me be as candid on the
other side. Like my grandfather,
father and mother, I am true friend
of the Negro. I believe in his won
derful capacity for improvement.
believe the Negro race is capable OF
great things.
"There is In the making at the South
true Democracy on the ruins of
the old Slave Oligarchy. That de-
mocracy means well towards the col
CONTINUED on Page 2.)