Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-04-05

dence and that warm their hearts. He never
lost an opportunity to turn an honest dollar
or to prove himself friend, or to serve his
ardenty beloved commonwealth, or to
stand for truth and right as he saw them
1t was a rare and shining group with whom
Longstreet soon found himself fraternizing-
William H. Crawford, John Forsyth, Richard
Henry Wilde, William C. Dawson, John M
Berrien, George Gilmer, Augustin S. Clayton,
George M. Troup, John M. Dooley, and many
another OF statesmanly stature. Later he
was to be in correspondence with men Of
letters the country over, and to be leagued
with such churchmen as Lovick Pierce and
James Osgood Andrew. In 1922, while re-
siding in Greensboro, he W, notified of his
election by the General Assembly to the
iudgeship of the superior court Of the Oc-
mulgee district. Two years later he was
running for Congress. 1t was prime article
Of his political creed, he is quoted as declar-
ing, never 10 go Will any party LUZ IheF lAan
he believed it to be right and that it was
''the bounden duty of candidate openly
to avow his sentiments, particularly those
which are averse to the prevailing opinion of
those to whom he offers himself" Imagine
such a speech today!
1t was not for politics, however, that the
Judge was destined. Providence interviewed
with sorrows and revelations that turned his
life's current to other channels He is re-
membered today as an author, an editor, as
an educator, as towering figure in the con-
troyersy that resulted in the establishment
of the Southern Methodist church fifteen
years before the War Between the States;
and as one who, when past threescore and
ten, bore the stress Of that struggle as gall
lantly as the youngest of Lees cheyaliers,
and turned from its tragical end, heart
broken, but unconquerably brave.
For the history of those wondrous years
as Longstreet's life reflected them, We COM
mend the reader to Mr.. Wade's scholarly and
delectabIe book. 1t was written, we hear, as
lumbia; it will live only that literature
can live into which life has been poured
warm and running. The heart OF Georgia
beats from its pages, while through them
walks, from boyhood to patriarchal years, as
appealing a character as novelist ever deln-
Gated and as fine a gentleman ever the
South produced. Particularly notable are the
chapters on Georgia Scenes" for in those
graphic sketches Judge Longstreet' made one
American literature, and achieved, most hap
PLY, what he declared to his friends to be
his prime purpose In writing them, that we
may be seen and heard by our posterity two
hundred years hence just as we are" High
ly engaging, too, is the chapter on Emory
College, of which the Judge" after entering
the ministry became president. No lawyer
sh 7uld miss the account Of his picturesque
in the eighteen-thirties. And as
suredly no one Win an eye FOR human ihteA
est will hurry over the hearthside scenes, Or
the eyer-rescurring sallies of humor.
Not only is the University of Georgia, OF
whose faculty Mr.. Wade is member, non
ored by the production Of his "Longstreet,"
but the State as a whole is honored and Is
served No truer service can be rendered a
people than to light them to a broader under
standing of their present through clearer
vision of their past, and thus to quicken hope
with history. I'll John Donald Wade has
done and has done unforgettably.