The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-19
Letter Received Here Gives
Details of Failure to Get
Gainesville POst0ffice
RESENTS CHARGES
OF INCOMPETENCE
Intimates That Water Power Trust
Is Behinds Her Failure Again to
Become Post at
Gainesville, Ga.


Mrs. Helen D. Longstreet, wife OF the
famous Confederate general, who recent
ly failed to receive reappointment as
postmaster at Gainesville Ca. has writ
ten to friends in Birmingham a bitter
arraignment of the Wilson admnistra-
ton. Mrs. Longstreet will appear before
a special subcommittee of the Senate In
Washington today to state her case. Mrs,
Longstreet in her letter says in part:
81 have no desire to serve in the
Gainesville postoffice under an admin
istration which does not wish to retain
me. But the administration which is
dismissing me, should not be permitted
to blacken my record In naming my
successor, the Postmaster General made
announcement, which was carried by the
Associated Press from She Atlantic to
the Pacific and from the great lakes to
the Gulf of Mexico, that my office was
poorly managed. I respectfully submit
that the people whom I have been serv-
ing for eight years, are more competent
witnesses than a Postmaster General
who has occupied his chair for GO days
and who is seeking justification for an
unworthy deed, in displacing me for
political reasons of which he is no doubt
ashamed; else he would not try to ex-
plain.
Il appeal from the verdict of Pres-
dent Wilson's 60-day Postmaster General,
to the accolade placed upon my should
ers by the first statesman OF the world.
When Theodore Roosevelt sent my name
to the Senate four years ago, he said
that he recommissioned me on my record
in office. In tribute to that record the
Senate paused in reading the President 8
message and confirmed me without refer
ence to a committee.
The surviving veterans of the civil
war, both Union and Confederate, and
patriotic organizations all over the con-
tinent OF North America, united with the
patrons of the Gainesville postoffice in
appealing to President Wilson for my
retention The Endorsements which have
been filed for me by the patrons of my
office and by the American people, would
make a good sized volume. Over against
this tremendous uprising OF the people
VI tiilS udllDil, oloou liit tOiBld spOliS-
men who sit at the head of the pie coun-
ter today, and the sinister and invisible
influences Of dangerous water power
trust. / had to be kicked out of the
Gainesville postofflce to give the Georgia
Railway and Power company advantage
In the suit to recover Tallulah Falls.
which they have managed to have called
up for special term trial four months
ahead of time, and before the lawyers
employed by me under direction of the
Georgia legislature. could be ready for
trial. This water power trust should be
advised that the struggle to rescue Tai
lulah Falls does not end with driving
me from the Gainesville postoffice: it
does not end with a dummy law suit
That struggle is just beginning and 1t
will never end until Georgia rights are
maintained the red old hills OF the
lapd of my best affection
Blazened as Carpetbaggers
Those seeking my official head being
short of campaign material. have bla-
zoned my people as carpetbaggers. Recent
ly stories of my carpetbag unfitness have
been ringing through the press, as a suit
able reason why | could not be trusted
with the commission of Il Virginia Presi-
dent in little town in the mountains of
sonal reasons may have been confided to
the Postmaster General or to President
Wilson, | am unable to know, since the
methods of the henchmen of the '.invis-
ibe government are the methods of
the midnight assassin who spares neither
the living nor the dead-are the methods
of the ghoul who opens the grave to prey
upon dead bodies.
MY people came to Georgia with Ogle-
thorpe and on the bluffs at Savannah they
unfurled white banner on whhh was
inscribed: Not for ourselves but fol
others. In the days when Pulaski and
Jasper and Newton were becoming classic
names in the. lexicon of liberty. my he
roic ancestry with hundreds of brave pa
triots whom the power of Great Britain
could not awe into submission, perished
upon the sacred soil of Georgia. that the
immortal principles of the Declaration OF
American Independence might Hover into
an ark of freedom for mankind | was
born on a great plantation in the noun
tains of Georgia, ceeded to my great
grandfather for service in the revolution
ary war. / learn from the romantic his
tory of the young colony that one of my
knightly ancestors surrendered his life
in an encounter with hostil Indians on
the stately acres where I was born, be-
fore he could strike down q squaw.
commend him to the democratic spoils-
men who are in the saddle in Georgia
today.
Georgia" Across Her Heart
MY people cleared the tall timbers OF
the colony; they built their cabins on
its hilsides: their ashes rest in soldiers
graves in every valley and by every low
murmuring stream. Georgia Is lettered
across my heart. / was not fighting fer
the commission of the Gainesville post
office. | was fighting for the privilege
| Of residence in the land of my fathers.
II did not wish to be driven from
Georgia BY commercial pirates and buc-