The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-06-08


cent address.
After the veterans heard Mr..
Clark's speech they returned to Wash
ington, after viewing the magnificent
monument standing in the Confeder
ate section of Arlington, which
was erected a few years ago to the
women of the south.
Mr. Clark spoke in part as follows:
Commander and members of Camp
No. III of Confederate Veterans.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
| esteem this opportunity to adj
dress you as the proudest privilege OF
my life. This is the birthday of JEFF
ferson Davis, the beloved president
of the Southern Confederacy. and to-
morrow will be the beginning of what
in all human probability will prove to
be the last reunion of the survivors
of those who followed the banner of
what is sometimes called the lost
cause" While it is not the purpose
of the veterans of the Southern Con-
federacy, the Daughters of the Con
federacy. or the Sons of the Confed-
eracy, to keep alive any of the ami
mosities which were engendered dur
ing the four years OF fratricidal strife,
it is our purpose to preserve for pos
terity the truth with reference TO the
motives which actuated the soldiers
of the Southern Confederacy and the
principles for which they cOntended
during that stupendous struggle. The
issues which unhappily divided the
two great sections of our common
country for so many years having cul-
minated in an appeal to arms in
rament of war in 1865, and the people
of the south have no desire to resur-
rect those issues for further disputa-
ton, but having in good faith ac-
copied the result, prefer to contetm-
plate in brotherly love the glories of
a reunited, happy and contented
country, which indulging the fervent
hope that this great republic shall
forever remain an unestimable bless
ing to mankind.
While we love the one country and
the one flag, we of the sOrth do not
need to apologize for the action of
the veterans of the Southern COnfed-
eracy and their comrades of the six
ties" No true son of the south
should apologize and no brave son of
the north would respect him if he did.
1t would serve no good purpose at
this time to enter into any extended
discussion of the causes which plung-
ed our country into the war between
the states in 1861.
When the delegates from the elev-
en- southern states met in convention
to organize the Confederate States of
America, all eyes were turned toward
Jefferson Davis as the one man to
safely pilot the new government at
the beginning of it's career, and he
was chosen as the first, and it proved
to be the last president of the south
ern Confederacy. No man was ever
beset with greater difficulties than
he encountered during his chief mag
istracy of the storm-tossed and battle
rent republic. With no army and no
navy, with no munition plants, with
with an empty treasury, without rec
ognition by any government on earth,
with practically all of our ports
blOckaded from the very beginning,
Jefferson Davis and his associates or
ganiZed a government, and for four
| long years held at bay a rich and
powerful government, with unlimited
supplies. inexhaustible credit, and an
army of five or six times the strength
OF the army of the south. My cOun-
| trymen, the world can show no paral-
lei 10 this amazing achievement. and
when the last vestige of partisan ran
cor, and sectional hate shall have
passed away, and the impartial histo-
rian of the future shall come to re-
cord the story of the war between the
states, he will say that the followers
of Lee, Jackson, Stuart and the other
every battlefield. No battle with a
foreign foe was ever pitched but that
the sons of the south were found