Newspapers / The Commonwealth (Scotland Neck, … / May 14, 1908, edition 1 / Page 2
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l l . T- 1 The Commonwealth. a E. H1IJ0IARD Editor Published Every Thursday. Entered at the postoflice at Scotland Neck, N. 0., as Pecond-Clasg Mutter. Thursday, May U, lf'S. Putlisfeer's Announcement. It is a settled ooint in newspaper ethics that editors and publishers re not responsib. (- the views of correspondents, an. I the publication of ?. communication does not meat. that the editor 01 cublisher endorses thtf communication. I hi Commonwealth adheres to these general pnci ples. Elder P. D. Gold's position on prohibition, which we print on the first puo, is sound and rings clear with good logic. Let ever' one who wishes to see the State rid of the liquor traffic read it and follow Mr. Gold's conclusions. AN ELOQUENT TRIBUTE. Memorial Day Address Before the Back Kltchin Carnp of Confederate Veterans. BY IIGN. E. A. DANIEL There are only two more weeks in which to work for prohibition and it behooves every friend of temperance to be constantly active. Let no stone be left unturned whereby any influence can be set to work for the good cause. The unanimity of the people on prohibition is shown in the high plane on which the cam paign is conducted. There is no bitterness, no strife, no say ing of harsh things about any body, but there is unity of pur pose to bring about that condi tion that will uplift humanity by removing a great evil from the State. Greenville Reflec tor. HON. "OONNELL .GILLIAM. The death of Hon. Don Gil liam, of Tarborolast week, was a great loss to his community. He was easily one of the most gifted lawyers in the State, and his great powers were recognized by all who ever came under the spell of his oratory. For many years he had been prominent in poli tics ofhiscouuty and the State, and was one of the most suc cessful leaders of his time. He will be greatly missed in Edge combe county as a citizen, an able lawyer and a man of af fairs generally. His was in deed a striking personality, which made a lasting impress on all who knew him. Weil Known Colored Waissa Dead. Departed this life suddenly at the home of her son-in-law, George T. Hill, m Scotland Neck. N. C, Har riet Whitaker, colored, in her Slst year. She was well-known in this place for her quiet, unassuming Christian life, and for her kind and obliging disposition. She was trained in early life by Mrs. Adelaide M. Smith, a lady of true culture and refinement, who made a deep and lasting im pression upon all her servants under her Christian care. Harriet was baptised in the Epis copal church November 2nd, 1849 and confirmed May 2nd. 1857, and she has been a consistent communi cant in the church, striving always tp do good, and to be helpful to others whenever she couid. The burial was made in bid Trin ity church cemetery, Saturday, May 2nd at 2 o'clock p. m. There were present a large number of her friends and relatives. G. Wl P. A Day Id Norfolk. The editor of The Commonwealth spent a day in Norfolk last week. The people of that good city are still clever and progressive. In the face of the panic and dull times they are forging ahead at new and commend able enterprises. Recently there has been set on foot a project to raise by May 25th $150,000 for the erection of a new building for the Young Men's Christian Association. They have a committee of fifty older business men, one hundred yonger business men, and one hun dred young men and boys at work. They will raise the amount by May 25th. Altogether, Norfolk is quite an in teresting city and the people of East ern Carolina are largely interested in its progress and development. Tbe Evidence io the Case. 33 years use is evidence Millions of consumers is evidence sale3 made by 16,000 agents is evidence. You buy 2 gallons L. & M. Paint and 3 gallons Pure Linseed Oil (at 60 cents) mix them and make; 7. gallons best pamt ready lor ase cost xmiy per gallon uone m two minutes. L. & M. Paint Agents Hardy Hdwe. Co., Scotland Neck. R. H. Salsbury & Bros. Hamilton, N. C. .i: i Ladies and Gentlemen and Confed- erat-3 soldiers: I feel to day as thougn I were a trespasser on soil already dedicated to oratorical talents, and whatever I may be able to say on the subject which you, Confederate soldiers, have already made glorious would be at best but a poor effort compar ed with what you havj been accus tomed to hear from your many dis tinguished and renowned townsmen from the present all they way back through him in whose honor this- cnaoter is named. lut nowever mat i may be, I assure you that I hold it a high honor and a rare privilege to be permitted, for the first time in my life, to address an audience of the county of my nativity, and I further assure you that it was with much pleasure, mingled with apprehension, that I received the invitation from the United Daughters of the Con federacy of Buck Kitchin Chapter to extend to you an address of wel come. Confederate Soldiers, it is with pleasure, because I va3tomeet face to face with the representative? of the last vestige of an age which . . .1 i i -i i -i virtually exists to-uay oniy in nisiory and literature; because I wish, to as sure you on the part of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the present generation that we have an abiding confidence in your brave ry and your honor, and to tell you that when the last Confederate Vet eran has finished his march down here and has pitched his tent "on fame's eternal camping ground,'' then we shall continue to send our children and our children's children on the 10th of every May loaded with the white flowers of spring time to si rew over his grave as fit emblems of your honor and your in tegrity, your love of country, and your devotion to duty, your knight hood and your chivalry. It was with apperhension that I re ceived the invitation, lest I should find myself unfit to deliver to you the great message that has been en trusted to me for delivery, and lest I should find words, at best, entirely inadequate to express the deep emo tions that -swell the bosoms of those who have entrusted this message to me for delivery, which trust I hold as a sacred find, the delivery of which I esteem a high honor. But, Confederate Veterans, I have accepted the invitation and now it is--that I come before you with a heart filled with gratitude and love. Grat itude to ycu for the heritage you have left us an honorable heritage, untainted by corruption of any kind; an heritage to which we shall poin; posterity as one cf the proud heir looms of noble ancestors. It is with love that I come to you, because my kinsmen, my uncles, my father, were Confederate soldiers, and, like you, were ready to fight and to die in defense of a cause which they believed to be as just and as holy as the cause of Christianity itself. And thus, you and they were engaged in. the defense of a common cause with a common purpose in view, and you were their comrades and for that I love you. Something more than seventy-five years ago, a little upward of three quarters of a century, as Daniel Webster stood at the unveiling of the Bunker Hill monument and saw before him a small handful of men with tottering footsteps and gray hair dangling about their shoulders; a small remnant of those men who participated in the battle that was fought upon that very spot just fifty years prior to that date, it seems to me that then it was that Daniel Webster uttered the most appropri ate words that ever fell from the lips of the orator when he said, Venerable men, you have come down to us from a former genera tion!" So, as I see gathered before me a small handful of men with tottering footsteps and gray hair dangling over your shoulders bear ing evidence of the fact that you stand near the veil that parts this life from the vast unknown, you men who participated in those scenes that took place a little more than forty years ago, those scenes that tried the souls of men, so, sirs, it seems to me that I would do well should I only add to these words of Webster, l ITT 1 1 1 veneraDie men, you nave come down to us from a former genera tion," and that, generation repre sents the highest type of honor and integrity, bravery and courage, chivalry and gallantry, that the world has ever known. But upon an occasion like this it would seem also appropriate to call this generation's attention to thos most potent characteristics of your age which gives to it immortality and make it hold an unique chapter in the history of the world. When Moses of old came forth from Di vine presence, he had on his lips this inspired command, "Qnljr.luikeheecl to thyself and keep thy sou! diligent, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: But teach then thy sons and thy sons' sons." So it is well that we take heed to ourselves and keep our souls diligent, lest we for- j get the deeds of heroism m tiie past; but let us continually teaca th 8s you stood upon the verge of war. When I hear men say that the Civil War was fought over the intrinsic value of the slave, I refute the impu tation. Ladies and Gentlemen, our forefathers did not wage four long years of war with their brethren on account of th intristie value of the negro. But the same spirit that in- ,i j spired our revolutionary forefathers our sens and our sons' sons. debate whether cr ( tnre ate veteran?, to not you made mistakes in 1861 . You have settled that matter. We have met here to assure you that we know you acted wisely and honestly and justly, as it was then given We j to wage an eight years' war witntne mother country when sne levied a pence tax per pounu c-n test, although nine-tenths of the people did not drink it, inspired our South ern fathers to enter the civil strife when the North said that we had you to I no property in slaves which wre could to other states, although the Supreme Court of the States had htld otherwise. United No, feirs, Civil see justice and righteousness, acting upon all the facts and experiences: and light that you then had before you. You had before you for settle ment a constitutional question that had agitated the minds of the Amer ican people from the foundation of this government. Fur the adjust ment of it you appealed to the arbit rament of arms, and by that deci sion you have abided, and I assure you that from the decision we shall not appeal. Sirs, in appealing to the arbitrament of arms you made for yourselves immortal history. You laid deep the foundations from which must spring inspiring litera ture; yea flung wide the pages in which the poet of the future will and must write an immortal epic. These characteristics, Confederate veterans, which will give you a unique place in the history and the litera ture of the world are these: Your knighthood and your chivalry as ante-bellum gentleman; your hones ty and integrity as a people, standing upon the verge of war; your indom itable bravery and courage as sol diers fighting for your country's honor; and finally, your unparalleled powers of an adaptation as a defeated army returning homeward from war when all had been lost save honor itself. These, these, sirs, are the characteristics that will immortalize you in histoty and make you sacred in literature. Ladies and gentlemen, turn back ward with me in your imagination for forty-five or fifty years, and I will introduce you to an age which represents the highest type of chiv alry and gallantry that the world has ever seen. The old South just prior to the war represented the bad under consideration the acquisi grand culmination of five centuries j -ion of Louisana Hon. Joshua Quincy, of development in gallantry and j then president of Harvard, gave ex- - i ....... fhivalrv. Yon wore hv iVriftrit.anpp pression to this utterance and chivalrous knights. Your English thought so much of it that he had it forefathers were knights of former ! reduced to writing: days. War was fought to establish a principle which involv ed the honor and integrity of tbe South. It was to adjust a constitu tional question that had disturbed the minds of the nation from the establishment of the government. It was the question of States' rights. From the beginning the thirteen colonies fiom Plymouth Rock all the way down the Atlantic coast, each was jealous of its individual rights. When they were forced to join themselves together under that slack, loose instrument known as the article of confederation, which vir tually gave to the central govern ment no executive powers whatever, it was with alight finger that the drafters of that instrument drafted those lines that would take away from the respective colonies any of their former rights. Eight years later, in 17S9, when the representa tives of the thirteen different state? adopted our present constitution it was with curious eyes that they conned those lines that denied states' rights, and neither North Carolina in the South, nor Rhode Island in the North would come into the union until certain amendments were made to the constitution, so jealous were they of their rights. At that time there was not a state that came into the union but believed that it had the right under the constitution, to withdraw when its rights were at tacked. Scarcely was the govern inent fifteen years old before New- England had threatened to secede the United States Congress nessof the institution but it was a question as to whether or not the South could permit the other states to correct the moral wrongs of its own states and adjust domestic re lations therein existing. Confederate Veterans, with you it was merely the question of protect ing your honor and defending what you believed to be a constitutional right. Thus, I welcome you as the representatives of the honor and in tegrity cf the old South. But that is not all. You represent the bravery and courage of a people engaged in war fighting for their country's honor. Where was it that the Southern Confederate soldier acted in a cowardly manner; when and where did he show the white feather; when and where was he not the bravest of the brave, and the most fearless of the fearless? Was it when he defeated the Federal forces at Bethel and Washington City was thrown into confusion lest he should capture the union's citadel? W5i- Confederate Veterans, when vou had followed the hvrinci immortal Stonewall Jackson during the campaign of the Valley of Vir ginia? Was it when you had with stood the fiery darts of the enemy during the seven battles of the Wil derness? or was it when you scaled the heights of Gettysburg while from the mouths of the enemy's guns poisonous venom was continuously belched forth which played dire des truction on your brave bosoms, sweeping away company after com pany and regiment after regiment and still you persisted? Or was it finally when your treasury exhausted, your clothes worn and tattered. your ammuni- ence that though you yielded at Ap pomattox you were not conquered, and upon the ashes of the past you have erected a new South a new South, as Henry W. Grady termed it, "which represents a perfect dem ocracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement, asocial system comnact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but stronger at the core; one hundred farms for every plantation; fifty homes for everv palace, and a diversified in dustry to meet the complex needs of this complex age." You have turned from war to Not one moment did you feet features of a human f:cc as the world stands in the "... mediately under the din battle it sees in the '1 tta tr tit When oar a "-'v--"' v. J 1 1 war iiiiu uiuou, unu nrav but the roar of cannon, 1, has backed off to the m-.': unhampered by p;;r:'.-:i prejudice, it will w.v ;.! the cause which yc;; ;': will the causa of t' .-' ; federacy hold an ; i- ; in history and a i;:;.--.-! literature. Literature love.-? a h r honor is saved. Itwa- , torious Greeks, but ti .j Trojans who fought, lost all save honor it -;, - the subject ot an p:;. victorious Russia i land who fought, ar-i ;' all save honor itself subject for the no.''i i. victorious but defeat;- fought, and fight ir,:r ; . honor itself and has L . .; ject of lyrics. In tin- i'-i not be the victorious l!V ! ;, peace sulk in your camp with Achilean stubbornness. You beat your swords into plowshares and went to work. You have cut away the great forests that have heretofore been the homes of wild beasts and have caused them to blossom like the rose. By your genius you have harnessed the water powers that had heretofore rippled unbridled to the sea and have put them to work. By your thrift you :ble and I bave whitened Southern waters with nrtrnsiPs f man. You have duuc up i a commercial and industrial South ; defeated South who i i that stands to-day in the foremost j fighting lost all sa e 1, nthpr RPctinn of the i that will become in:n: n country in the great march for com- sacred m literature an. mercial and industrial conquest. poetry. Those most pi. . , , j .i I teristics of the age whi :h Ana you nave uune muie man this. Scarcely was the roar of can non hushad before you adopted into your organic law that clause which forever bars you of the right to se cede, thus acknowledging to the world that you were willing to ac cept the arbitrament of arms. You have always been ready to accept the right hand of friendship when ever the North extended it. You tion given out, starvation staring have blotted out the Mason and Uix- you in the lace, ana tne iamt cry oi on line ana aeciareu mat you lutuw ry. thJs wi,, be the j,,.,-. your hungry babe and the shreiks no North, South, East nor West, but j erature. thjs wjn ,Q 7;,,, . of your starving and homeless wife that you are more than any section J poets; and, finally, when the and mother haunted your few mo- in that you are American citizens. I . anle 'comes 'forth i., meats jl ateey, wucu avxniuiuonu ivu nave attcpicu me 1.1 um ui mo, great ana nouie ueeus 1:1 i,y vnn worn fnrppd tn nfppnt the heart- cnlprifi id rnncmmnc exclamation of and noble men. this win 1 0 - 1 : i- chara';. sent are and forever will i r v. u. gallantry and your tdiivalry the ante-bellum gent'omen: y.. honor and integrity as a standing on the vere r,f vcr your indomitable coinr.;.-;' urA !,;-. very as soldiers engaged ia 1 and finally your unparaikni of adaptation as a defeat v.-i anny : turning homeward fr war wh-n all had been lost save lion: r :'.e'.:. and this will be the verdict of ! : r ,. And from the day the cava!- j "If this bill passes," referring to ier first planted his foot upon South-! the bill of the acquisition of Louis- ern soil at JamostGwn in 1G20 up un til 1861, nevr were conditions more favorable for the highest develop ment of a gallant and chivalrous spirit than those that existed in the South. The cavalier found before him broad acres of land upon which could erect ins col in Corinthian and Duri ana, "it is my deliberate opinion that the union is virtually dissolved; and the states will be free from their moral obligation, tuid i,s it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare for separation amicably, if they can, violently if id mansion j they must." Scarcely had this revo rchitecturc, j lutionary sentiment died, before the ind there upon his Southern manor j war of 1812 came, then we hear of numerous slaves stood ready to obey j the famous Hartford convention his every command and to minister j that adopted the most revolutionary to his every want, and he in turn j resolutions that are still of record, ministered to the wants of the wife, j and the entire New England press who was queen of all he owned. I j and pulpit were at red hot pitch am mindful of the fact that there j with threats of secession, was an age in English literature in j I call your attention to these facts, wnicn tne icmgftt was required to 1 not to arouse sectional feelings, for take an oath to protect those in dis- God knows that 1 would blot out tress, to maintain right against might and to never do that which would cast a stain upon his charac ter a3 a knight or a christian. The ante-bellum Southern gentle man, without taking the formal oath of knighthood, was always ready to protect those in distress; his doors were ever swung wide to those who would enter therein and partake of his Southern hospitality. Without taking the formal oath of knighthood, he was always ready to maintain right against might. The Southern gentleman was of all the most ardent devotee of freedom and liberty. He loved liberty; he wor shipped at freedom's shrine. I call on history and literature to bear witness to the fact that those who are themselves the owners of slaves are the most jealous of freedom. To them it is a kind privilege and an honor that they hold more sacred than life itself. Without taking the formal oath of knighthood he was particular to never do that which would taint his character. He had an ideal of what should be the char acter of a Southern gentleman. That ideal character he would have pro tected with his life. His moral char acter might not have been such as would in all respects have blended with the religious character of the Puritan, but what it was he held it stainless. The old South possessed all of the luxuries of the feudal system with out any of the oppressive incidents of that system. Thus I welcome you, Confederate Veterans, on the part of the United Daughters of the Con federacy, as the representatives of an age of chivalry and gallantry. But you are more than that. You represented an age of honor and in tegrity as a people standing upon the verge of war. Never was there a people inspired with , a purer and more upright heart ittian were you every trace of sectionalism and par- tisanism and boast of a united gov ernment without reference to sec tionalism, but I feel it only fair and just to the Confederate Veterans to say that prior to 1861 there was a universal belief that under the con stitution any state had the right to secede; that our forefathers were not traitors but were honorable men fighting in the defense of a just and honorable cause. Thus believing that they had a right to secede, the time came when their honor and integrity demanded that they exercise that right. They believed that they had the right to secede under the constitution; under the same constitution they knew that they had the inalienable right of property, and under the same constitution they knew that the slave was their property. Northern states not only refused to obey the laws of comity, and return the slave to his master when found within their bor ders, but on the other hand refused to give them up when demanded by their masters. That you may right ly understand the sentiment that existed in 1861, it is necessary for you to get the same point of view that the South had at that time. 1 know of no better way of giving you that point of view than through the utterance of the South's chief execu tive as it stood on the verge of war. I hold in my hand an extract of President Davis' second message to the provisional congress, dated April- 29, 1861, fourteen days after war had been declared against the South by President Lincoln. . . . I do not assume to pass upon the questions whether or not institu tion of slavery was a just, philan phrcpic and correct institution. I leave that for the philosopher and the philanphropist. With the South in 1861, it was not a question as to the moral and philanphropic correct- rending terms of peace ! I leave it to impartial history and literature to answer when and where you were not the bravest of the brave and the most fearless of the fearless. At Appomattox, when youthful, vigor ous, bouyant Southern manhood had been overcome by starvation and overwhelming numbers, he stagger ed, pale with the cold sweat of death on hi3 youthful brow, and the cause of the Southern Confederacy was about to fall forever from his emaciated hands, though manly, in the dust of defeat, I see glory spread out its white wings of honor and dart downward from her throne in the heavens to rescue the cause of the Southern Confederacy ere it falls and to bear it upon her immortal bosom up to a throne in the skies where the poets and the sculptors of the future may gaze upon it to catch a higher and purer inspiration of great and noble deeds done by great and noble people. Thus, I welcome you as the bravest of the brave and the most fearless cf the f earlesa. But the grand act in your life, which caps the climax of all your characteristics, is your unparalled powers of adaptation as a defeated army returning homeward from war when all had been lost save honor itself. Added to this last sad mem ory, which will always live in our minds, comes the cheering experi- Daniel Webster in the Webster Haines debate, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." You have enlisted under the flag of the union and claim it as yours. When the nation's honor has been threatened by an enemy, you have been among the first to draw your sword from its Bcabbard and the first to spill your precious blood in the defense of a united people. These, sirs, are the acts that will you give an immortal chapter in history and a sacred spot in literature and a sweet song in poetry. Shall we forget the past? No, sirs, we will not forget the past, for its history has been completed and crowned by acts most worthy of a great, noble and brave people. I boldly challenge the world to point to a single parallel in all history. Confederate veterans, you may never live to see the cause of the Southern Confederacy shine forth in its noonday splendor. Great causes are never highly appreciated until the world has moved off to the prop er angle. Hawthorne, in his "Great Stone Faco," causes the spectator, as he stands in the valley immediate ly under the projecting peaks, to see in the mountain nothing but a cha otic mass of rocks and dirt, but as he backs off to the proper angle he sees in the same mountain the per- i i . try made in tne eternal r. filed in the archives of rh" over, ing God. Cu. ' t: 1 ;,H A great many r. .h r.n- have heart trouble v. ; that tho wholo.trouhli' lie- : i aeh. The pains in tin i U region of th heart su heart trouble. We start with the stoium-!. ;. ; ! you feel a depression ;;'. r whenever your food : t take Kodol. It will ii- t i until all these "heart ; . re appear. Take Kodo! n .-. you know you are ritdn isn't any doubt abou: v.-!.:ii and ymi will find ;!. '. statement vi-rified afi'-ry..-: K dol for a few wreks. I ; by E. T. Wbiteho-jd C. I am prq u '1 my eld ct-rtoncr public generally very best cf fresh 'Stir eer, n 0 All orders filled every customer's va Main St., next to Prince's 2faib the mzmmmmmxg. FERTILIZER WtxKM THAT NEVER But the grand act in your life, the world has moved off to the prop- o M THAT NEVER mi f j t ,s I V (! ', - r " COLUMBIA GUANO CO. NORFOLK, VA. P Cures Biliousness, Sick Headache, Sour Stom ach, Torpid Liver and Chronic Constipation. Pleasant to tafee sxative Friiit Svriin Cleanses u:c j- thoroughly end cU- n- i-.v-r.n3c' saiiovv coiii) nimr1 r- r".ru'l , It is fiuarcntes11 - CttU company, ScotW North Carol inn . 1 1,
The Commonwealth (Scotland Neck, N.C.)
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May 14, 1908, edition 1
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