New Britain herald., 1916-09-15
PLAYING WITH FIRE.
Dangerous To Revive Sectional Hatred Between North and South.

Springfield Republican) The attempt to revive sectional ha- tred between north and south for po- lttical purposes seems to be in accord | anee with carefully-laid plans Sena- tor Lodges secttonaIism talk in Maine
 was not the result simply of his own inspiration. We have received from the national republican congressional committee at Washington, flor i'm
 mediate release" an attack on the southern states, which opens as fol-
 lows:
 "The irony of fate was never so ap-
 parent as in the workings of the
 democratic party. Had any one been
 found so bold as to have ventured a
 prophecy that the time would come
 when the Union soldier would see the
 entire government which he saved, un-
 der full control of the states which at
 tempted to destroy it, he would have
 been regarded a candidate for the
 asylum,' declared Representative Si-
 neon D. Tess of Ohio, chairman of the
 publicity committee of the national re-
 publican congressional committee in
 statement here today. That time is
 now reached. The south rides at the
 head of the procession. The presi-
 dent and his family are southern in
 birth and sym pathtes."
 The appeal to the Union veteran to begin hating again the Confederate guage of Congressman Simeon M. Tess of Ohio. On the one hand, the reference to the Union soldier, savior of the country; on the other hand, the reference to the states which attempt eed to destroy the Union-these con- stitute a most direct and deliberate excitatfon of sectional passion. The reference to "the president and his family as "southern in birth and sympathtes" is placed before the pub lie within a week after the president had delivered one of the most sympa- thetic eulogies of Abraham Lincoln ever spoken.
 What the surviving Union and Con- federate veterans will think of this sort of campaigning fifty years after the end of the civil war should not be In doubt. Already arrangements have been made for a joint reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic and the united Confederate veterans in Wash Ington next summer. A political cam pa1gn with a sectional hate issue wi11 aot be glorious preparation for "that of the blue and the gray" Confederate veterans, after the literature put into circula- ion by the national republican con- sressional committee, and after read ng MT. Lodges speeches, may feel lit .1e disposed to travel to the nations capital next summer to hear beautiful orations on a reunited country and l "common patriotism .''
 "Americanism'' was to have been one of the supreme issues of this con- est for the control of the govern nent. We have been warned by the 'acial and nationa1fstic passions gen. rated by the European conflict among ,ur population of today to strive new for national unity in order that he disruptive forces of alien1sm may sot blast the republic. Yet here comes rom one of our great political parties m organized effort to restore an at nosphere of sectional aninosity in which the nation experienced the su- preme agony of its history. The engineers of this partisan movement have 8 singular conception of Amer icanism and the wholesome processes of national unif1cation upon which true Amer1canism must depend