The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1921-10-28


woven the parts in this drama Of a
nations resorationi The same YER of
1889 that saw Grady laid away with
loves laurels on his proud and noble
brow, saw another son of mother of
Georgia and the South entered in the
career of national service. In that
year Theodore Roosevelt, following
his impetuous appeals for better po-
litical morals at the Baltimore civil
service conference, was appointed by
President Harrison to the civil service
commission, and his national career
began. A son of the East and the
South, but already adopted by the
West. he had become a devout admir-
er of that son of the South whom all
the nation had taken to its heart.
Think of them, you Georgians, you
mon 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 country
on which they played their parts
know you would not, and never will.
For geniuses such as these you fur
nish, you must at-least LET US afford a
fitting scene and setting. No "pent-up
Utica" for such as they!
The other day there came into my
hands volume of the letters of a
group of eminent Georgians of the
evil war and reconstruction period
Ia the main, they represented the
correspondence of Alexander H
Stephens, Howell Cobb, Robert
Toombs, and Gov. Joe Brown. Only
recently published, they proved fasci-
mating reading as I turned the pages
and felt myself admitted to the very
inner thoughts which these leaders OF
the Confederacy were thinking in the
years Immediately following the war
Especially was interested in the ex.
tensive correspondence between these
Southern leaders and prominent mer
OF the North, which was carried on al
that period. It was nothing less thar
astonishing to note how little of bit
terness, of resentment, of hatred, anC
recalcitrance was manifested on eithel
side. With almost no exception, the!
breathed the fine spirit of chivalry
tof readiness to accept in whole hear
and good nature the arbitrament O
the war. They held a flavor of some
thing more than resignation, as if al
ready the writers were realizing hov
fortunate it was that union shoulC
have been preserved. They were al
back in the harness, working for tn,
restoration of their state, their peo
pie, their preserved country. The,
wrote thoughtful, earnest counsels a
to the wiser policies in state and ma
tion, seeking always to make thei
friends in the North understand hoy
complete and sincere was the South
acceptance of its place in the restores
Union, how determined it was to con
tribute its utmost to a perfect ma
tional accord. At times they sounde
the note of disappointment that tn
North seemed slow to accept thei
protestations as in complete goo
faith, and be assured that they coul
be dealt with in complete confidence
But they were seldom impatient; the
held their heads high, had no apollo
gies to make for the past, but wer
looking clear-eyed to the future G
indissoluble union.
That was the spirit which made re
construction, despite bungling an
some exceptional manifestations G
acerbity, on the whole so rapid an
. effective process, when measured
like incidents in human history. The
wanted to be taken back into full fe
, ilowship. "We would rather have on
immigrant from the North than fift
from Europe" wrote one, few year
after Appomattox; and he urged h
Northern friend to make the NortI
! lern people understand how welcom
! they would be. Not even the unr,
, lconstIuctible hatred of Old Tha
/ Stevens could maintain an effectiy
front against such appeals as tha
, The North did come to you, with oliy
branch instead of sword: and yo
a went to the North and West, and b,
. lcame full partners in making tn;
new empire which together we carve
: out of the trans Missouri wilderness.
I and now truly there can be descrie
t no sectional division of this land.
] Recently, passing in motor c;
4 tt ush a section where historical i
r lterest has inspired the setting Of Ia
4 lets marking Mason and Dixon's lin
n ] heard group of highly intelligel
: people quarreling about its geogr
: ply. half of them insisting that
t didn't belong there at all, but son
: hundreds of miles farther soutl
y Neither the aliases nor the election r
. turns give US nowadays a dependah
IS basis for judgment of what is Sou
,e kand what North; we have been poll
lically annexing you-when you we