New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-07-03
Lincoln Slur Laid
To Book Trust bv
Mrs. Longstreet
Widow Of Confederate Cen
eral 1ntimates Action of
Southern Veterans Was
to Exploit School Book

W LA PAOlL CCIIOOI DOOk
WASHINGTON, July 2.-The action
OF the Confederate veterans reunion
in seeking to place on Lincoln the re-
sponslbility for beginning the Civil
War is strongly condemned by Mrs.
Helen Dortch Longstreet. widow of
Lieutenant General Longstreet. Of the
Confederate army, who sees therein
the "fangs Of the school book trust"
A strange action, she calls it, and adds
that "the South never had kniphtlicr
friend than Lincoln and that his as
sassination was her cruelest blow dur
ing the reconstruction period" Mrs.
Longstreet sad
as an American I must give voice
to indignant protest against the reso-
lutions passed at Richmond. Perhaps
! may speak with better grace than
Northerners. Every drop Of nv blood
is Southern. In his twilight Years
found myself wooed to the tent Of
Lees old War Horse Longstreet,
who was first at Manassas and last at
Appomattox. Americans must accent
him as an unprecedented witness for
the South at least. He always told
me that there never would have been
a civil way in America had it not been
for the institution of slavery and that
the verdict Of IMPARTIAL history would
nave to rest the blame for the war be-
tween the states upon the crime of
slavery. All other differences. he said,
could have been adjusted without the
q 10
told me that the war could have been
brought to close much sooner but
for the ambitions Of certain Confeder-
ate leaders to head a new government.
| would not wound their surviving rel
atives by mentioning their names.
at is Immediately evident that even
an unreconstructed rebel Of the TYNE
which Lady Aston proclaimed herself
on her recent visit to this side of the
sea could not charge slavery against
Lincoln. While men read history, re-
sponsibility for that institution must
be jointly shared by the New England
and Southern states.
Sees Book Trusts Fangs
an the effort to open a bloody rift
over which the white flowers of fra
ternity and peace have blossomed for
more than fifty years I discern the
fangs Of the school BOOK trust. If this
trust has been dissolved have not
been informed of it. To exploit the
sales of book in the South somebody
is willing to blacken the fame of low
ly man born in our own Southern
lead the list Of those who loved their
fellowmen. Capitalzing hate is not
virtue. The same craven spirit would
open the tomb at Mount Vernon. at
Lexington, on Riverside Drive and on
the red, old hills of Georgia, and sell the
noble ashes of Washington and Grant
and Lee and Longstreet for paving
material if fair profit could be made
"The present day female historians
of the Confederacy who are so vocifer-
Gus at the reunions Of the old Southern
veterans would do this country a real
service if they would devote less time
to ferreting out responsibility for his
tory that was made before most Of US
were born. and more time to correcting
ignoble history now in the making.
lest unborn generations shall in fu-
ture years seek scapegoat for the
crimes Of our twentieth century civili-
zation.
Lynchings Are Denounced
"America is the only country in the
WOrl0 tnaC DufnS human being at
the stake. 1t does not suffice to
answer that it is black man paying
the penalty of devilish crime against
a white woman. Tomorrow it will be
a white man and the crime less helm
Gus. Lawlessness, like a prairie FIRE,
may be started by any maniac. but it
takes an army to put it out.
SIT is a pity that the old Confed-
crates, tottering on the border lands
of eternity, should have to bear the
onus of the note of bitterness sounded
at Richm ond. l have no idea that l
per cent of them knew anything of
the meaning of the resolutions which
were rushed through at the last min
ute or would have Endorsed them if
they had. I hope to see every Confed-
crate camp and every chapter of the
Daughters of the Confederacy and the
Children of the Confederacy pass res
olutions of regret for the action of the
Richmond reunion, of which l have
no doubt the vast majority Of those
who were present and responsible are
already aShamedV