Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-29
GREAT rail STRIKE CALLED OFF BY union LEADERS
GOSPEL OF UNDERSTANDING
IS PREACHED BY PRESIDENT

service. In that year Theodore
Roosevelt, following his impetuous
appeals for better political morals
at the Baltimore civil service con-
ference, was appointed by President
Harrison to the civil service COM
mission, and his national career be-
gan. A son of thei east and the
south, but already adopted by the
west, he had become a devout ad-
nairer of that son of the south whom
all the nation had taken to it's heart.
Think of them, you Georgians, you
men and women of the whole south
think of their services and careers
and tell me, for such sons as these
would you wish to provide a lesser
stage than that of the united coun-
try on which they played their
parts? I know you would not, and
never will. For geniuses such as
these you furnish, you must at least
let us afford a fitting scene and set
ting. No 'pent-up Utica for such
as they!
Correspondence Quoted
1.-THE other day there came into
my hands a volume of the letters
OF a group of eminent Georgians of
the Civil war and reconstruction pc
riod. In the main, they represented
the correspondence of Alexander H.
Stephens, Howell Cobb, Robert
Toombs, and Governor Joe Brown.
Only recently published, they proved
Fascinating reading as l turned the
pages and felt myself admitted to
the very inner thoughts which these
leaders of the Confederacy were
thinking in the years Immediately
P11 in1l &C
l interested in the extensive cores
pondence between these southern
leaders and prominent men of the
north, which was carried on at that
period. 1t was nothing less than
astonishing to note how little of bit
terness, of resentment, of hatredj
and recalcitrance was manifested on
either side. With almost no excep-
ton, they breathed the fine spirit
of chivalry; of readiness to accept
in whole heart and good nature the
arbitrament of the war. They held
a flavor of something more than
resignation, as if already the
writer's were realizing how fortu-
nate it was that union should have
been preserved. They were all back
in the harness, working for the res
toration of their state, their people,
their preserved country. They wrote
thoughtful, earnest counsels as to
the wiser policies in state and ma
ton, seeking always to make their
friends in the north understand how
complete and sincere was the
south's acceptance of its place in
the restored union, how determined
it was to contribute it's utmost to q
~"nct national accord. At times
they sounded the note Of disappoint-
=. LAT the north seemed slow to
accept their protestations as in COM
plete good faith, and be assured that
they could be dealt with in complete
confidence. But they were seldom
impatient; they held their heads
high, had no apologies to make for
the past, but were looking clear
eyed to the future OF indissoluble
union.
THAT was the spirit which made
reconstruction, despite bungling and
some exceptional manifestations of
acerbity, on the whole so rapid and
effective process, when measured
by like incidents in human history.
They wanted to be taken back into
full fellowship. we would rather
have one immigrant from the north
than fifty from Europe wrote one,
a few years after Appomattox; and
he urged his northern friend to
make the northern people under
stand how welcome they would be.
Not even the unreconstructible
hatred of Old Thad Stevens could
maintain an effective front against
such appeals as that. The north
did come to- you, with olive branch
instead of sword; and you went to
the north and west, and became full
partners in making that new en-
pire which together we carved out
of the trans-Missouri Wilderness;
and now truly there can be deserted
no sectional division Of this land.
Line Is Uncertain
Recently, passing in a motor car
through a section where historical
interest has inspired the setting of
tablets marking Mason and Dixon's
line, heard group Of highly IN
telligent people quarreling about its
geography, half of them insisting
that it didn't belong there at all,
but some hundreds Of miles fur
Their south! Neither the aliases nor
the election returns give us nova
days a dependable basis for judg-
ment of what is south and what is
north; we have been politically an
nexing you-when you were not po-
Iitically taking us into camp-and
we have been socially, industrially,
economically invading and Selling
as much of your imperial oppor-
tunities as we could get our hands
on. We have been pooling our CAPT
tai with your brains and resources,
and both sides earning good -divi-
dends on the transaction, and all the
time jointly making a greater re-
public. "
sit would be hard to find a mora
fitting platform from which to
preach a gospel of confidence, cour-
age and determination than is af-
forded here in your wonderful city
of Atlanta. In one of his speeches
L think it was the one at the New
England society dinner-Henry Ora
dy, turning to General Sherman,
who sat near him, observed that Gen.
eral Sherman was considered an
able man in our parts, though some
people think he is a kind of care
less man about fire" That grim
joke contained the spirit of the
south, the courage of Atlanta, the
eternal vision of the brighter side
that is SO natural to you people of
the land of sunshine. One who comes
to your metropolis Of today can not
but realize how useless to attempt,
with fire and sword, to discourage
such people as this, to extinguish
their enthusiasm, to daune their
matchIess courage. What chance is
there to keep down a people who,
when you burn their house, rear in
it's place palace of marble; and
when amid the passions of war you
drive them in thousands from their
home, return in tens Of thousands
to build it into a metropolis? The