Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-05-23
Judge Emory Speer, General
A, J, West and Others Speak
at Ceremony Marking Be-
ginning of Great Work
BY WARD GREENE.


the foot of the steepest side,
the sons and daughters of the
south, Saturday afternoon, formally
dedicated Stone mountain as an eter-
nal memorial to the heroes of the
Lost Cause"
Eulogies were spoken of the dead,
tributes were paid the living. The
band played Dixie" Old men
cheered with cracked voices. And
over all the great face of the noun
tain brooded like mighty sentinel.
Every now and then a speaker
would turn and point at the face
and tell how men will chisel and
carve it and make of the face q
silent panorama of silent armies,
charging into silent battle.
They described how the forms of
General Lee, monnted on old TRAY
eler;" of Stonewall Jackson, General
Forrest, of the ragged legions of Bit
ter yesterdays, will stand out on the
face of the mountain photograph
in stone that will last as long as the
solid rock.
But it was hard for the crowd to
see. 1t was hard to conceive how
men could swarm over that gray
face, cutting, chiseling, carving,
lowered from precipices, clinging like
ants to the sheer stone, risking death
until they have wrought work that
will belittle the Sphinx and make the
Pyramids the feat of pygmies.
1t was hard for the crowd to re-
alize that they were the pioneers in
the construction of a master monu-
ment, that they were launching a
miracle on the spot where hundreds
and thousands of years hence the
people of unborn generations will
stand and gaze in awe.
ELOQUENT CREATIONS;
IMPRESSIVE EXERCISES.
And so the crowd listened to the
speeches and heard the band play and
watched while the cornerstone was laid,
and went home dusty and tired and a
little disappointed, perhaps, that they
had not been stunned and amazed by
something-just what, they could not
say. SO must Columbus have felt when
he set foot on a new world that was
one day to become a great republic.
There were less than a thousand peo-
pie at the dedication, but they were peo-
ple-most of them-who were imbued
with the spirit of this gigantic under
taking and in their enthusiasm cared
little for the heat and the dust.
Many Of them had come on street
cars from Atlanta, some by automobiles,
more from the rural districts near Stone
Mountain, driving in with mules and
oxen, pichicking on the granite slope,
making a holiday of it,
Stone Mountain had donned carnival
dress for the day. Little Confederate
Init
porches of homes. Red, white and blue
bunting waved from the caves. The
Stars and Stripes hung side by side
with the Stars and Bars.
II was terrifically hot and terrific
ally dusty at 2:30 o'clock, when the eX-
ercises started. Dust lay like white
blanket on the green blackberry bushes
and shumach shrubs by the roadside,
scattered there by jitney buses and mo-
tor cars that ploughed back and forth
from the town to the foot of the noun
tain, a mile away. Dust hung in a white
cloud over the dusty road. Dust was
thick in the threats and eyes of the
people tramping out the railroad tracks
because IL was too dusty to ride.
SPECTATORS IN GROVE
AROUND THE PLATFORM.
A rude platform of pine boards had
been knocked together in the little
of the Confederacy had seats, and the
SPEAKERS and other prominent person
ages: while the people were scattered
out in front, sitting on the rocks and
pIre needles, seeking spots shaded from
the glare of the sun that beat down
from = glaring blue sky
On the platform was Forrest Adair.
master of ceremonies. Seated near the
table on which a pitcher of water and
a glass stood. were Judge Emory Speer,
os the United States cour5, clad in Con
federate gray; General Az ]. West, Gut
ION Borglum, the sculptor, and his little
hoy. Lincoln Borglum, and Mrs. Helen
FlGne, head of the Daughters.
other we'll known men and women
were there. In one corner sat the Ma
sons, all in creamy palm beach, n. n.
Ballard, the grand master; George NJ.
Narier, Thomas Jeffries, o. V. Radforo,
V. o. Kimsey. w. II. Terrell and others.
Francis Winston. the former lieuten-
ant governor of North Carolina, wore a
siIk hat and a froclx coat With him
were p. c. McDuf1e and Walter p. An
drews Colonel Lem Park sat beside
them in his uniform of gray. There
were other veterans, Colonel Cotton
Lynes, General Felix H. Robertson, com-
maIIder of the Texas veterans, and Gen
eraI r. S. Parks. of Virginia.
Hooper Alexander, United States dis
trict attorney, was noticeable on the
platform. William NJ. Slaton, former
superintendent of Atlantas public
schools, was there
JACK SMITH WAS THERE
WITHOUT HIS NECKTIE.
Jack Smith came all the way out from
Atlanta to the ceremony, without neck
tie as usual, and clasping the silk hat
and cana which ALWAYS accomDanV him
in his daily walks.
An old battle-flag floated from one
post the legend, "Repel the Invader"
scarcely distinguishable on the frayed
silk Near it sat a Confederate veteran