The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1914-08-20

Bradley Beach, New Jersey, Aug 5th, 1914
Dear Mr.. Hilland: Answering your inquiry of
August 1st, | beg to say that it is true that The
Atlanta Journal, Senator >Hoke Smiths Georgia
organ, levied on and sold the ring which General
Longstreet placed my hand in token of his
love- on happy day which remains to me only
a sacred memory.
The patriotic article which the Journal sold my
ring to pay for publishing, was an appeal for the
preservation of Tallulah Falls. There never was
any money in the treasury of the Tauah Falls
Conservation Association. Before the Journal
sold my ring, had already paid into their Golfers
about $780, Gas we'll as can recalD drawn from
my own slender resources for similar advertising
During the long and desperate struggle for Tai
lulah Falls involved myself to the extent of
more than twenty thousand dollars, which was
more than I was worth. Less than 800 con-
tributed to the Tallulah Falls Conservation Asso-
citation, and of this amount Mr.. Thos. E. Watson
sent $50
To make the brutality of selling my ring all the
more profound, it sold the week I was ousted
from the Gainesville office, and when I was i'll at
DR.. DoWney's Sanitarium at Gainesville. [ knew
nothing of the sale until several days later. I do
not now know who bought the ring. But do know
that the retribution of ayenging God awaits the
person who today has my ring, we'll the At
lanta Journal and Hoke Smith In the unclouded
reflections OF that ring, l had seen the happiness
of all the women who have lived and loved since
God called a WORLD into existence. And after the
grave had closed over the gray warrior who had
placed it my hand, in it's shining, had read
the long roll call of the women Who through
suffering, have struggled upward to nobler
service.
I explained to Senator Smith before he had me
ousted from the Gainesville Office that had spent
every dollar I worth in the fight to Tai
1ulah I appealed to him in the name of my
widowed mother who aged and infirm and
charge upon my care. | wanted to spend the last
years of her life with her. and please God, when
the summons came, to close her eyes in death.
Senator Smith advised that I would have to
leave Georgia, If he had removed from the
Gainesville Office. Journalism the only thing
/ knew how to take hold Of. | had no capital
with which to launch a paper There was
opening for the dominant dailes of Geor-
ga. Senator Smith Informed that if I
kicked out of the little post Office in the
tains of Georgia where General Longstreet lived
for forty years, and where he is buried, I would
be forced to come East to seek the opportunity
to earn living in journalism.
Perhaps nothing in history quite equals the
brutal manner in which l set upon by the
Hoke Smith gang in Georgia politics and literally
driven out of Georgia
Taluah Falls not more to me than it was
to three million Georgans or a hundred million
Americans I was born very Tallulah. My
life had been a part of the common life of the
mountain people of Georgia. Their welfare will
always be close to my heart. I am glad | made
the struggle for them. l willing to bear the
hardship and the suffering incident thereto, in
the knowledge that no struggle for great cause
is made in vain.
Made unwelcome in Georgia by the first South
ern Democratic administration the Nation has had
since the Civil War, | write these lines a thous-
and miles from the land whose battle-hagS General
Longstreet bore from Manassas to Appomattox.
The Georgians who my friends the Geor-
gians who followed General Lon ,treet and who