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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
GENERAL LEE IS DEAD, AND A HERO
HE WAS.
Not only the South, but the country at
large, lost a man yesterday when. Stephen
Dill Lee, the last of the Lieutenant-Generals
of the former Confederacy, died at Vicksburg.
His age was seventy-five years.
Born in South Carolina, educated at West
Point, a defender of the flag in Mexico, a
hero on the plains of Texas, the man to fire
the first gun of the great war, and then from
a Lieutenant to a Lieutenant-General, he lived
militantly the first thirty-three years of his
life.
When the surrender came at Appomattox
he did not turn to the graves of the past for
his inspiration, but rather to the living, who
were still hopeful and God fearing. He knew
that a Divine Providence had “laid upon every
ragged gray cap the sword of an imperishable
knighthood.” He knew, too, that neither
tears nor regrets could till the fallow lands
of his Southland, fill its depleted smokehouses,
feed the hungry children, repair shattered
fortunes, lend a chorus to the songs of the
fields.
General Lee was the first of Southerners
to advocate schools and colleges devoted to
industrial education. He realized that his
section of the country needed lessons in the
science of planting, cultivating and harvest
ing preferably to courses in the translation
of dead languages and a knowledge of the
tactics of Hardee.
While a State Senator, soon after the
reconstruction days of Mississippi, which
State he had adopted after the terrible con
flict, he advocated a bill creating an agricul
tural and mechanical college. After a time
he saw its fruition". When the college was
opened he became its president, remaining
as such for many, years.
All over the South today are young men,
gone from his training, who have nobly
assisted in conserving the forces of nature,
in making their country richer, more inde
pendent, more beautiful. Other States of the
South, following General Lee’s idea, now pay
more attention to gardens, the dairy and
corn and cotton fields than to the grosser
things—like fighting for office and trying to
be orators.
It seemed fitting that while serving the
United Confederate Veterans’ Society as its
commander-in-chief he should have taken a
commission from the man his soldiers had
fought upon many battlefields —William Mc-
Kinley. President Mr. McKinley made him
a Military Park Commissioner, and General
Lee held that position when he died.
Never in his life was he heard to speak ill
of friend or enemy. When the clash of arms
challenged him to the front he remained there
until all was lost, never showing the white
feather. In peace the North loved him as
well as did the .South. And when breath was
departing from this gallant soldier and citizen
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
a golden key lay in his hand to open the way
to a palace of eternity!—New York American.
THE VICE-PRESIDENCY.
The disposition upon the part of so many
to minify the office of Vice-President, or to
regard the nomination of a candidate for that
office as a matter of political expediency for
securing the vote of a state, rather than as a
recognition of the importance of the office,
has tended to create the impression upon the
unthinking that the custom has been to name
mediocre men for the second place on presi
dential tickets. It is true that at times rather
inconsequential men have been nominated for
Vice-President, but this has not been the
rule. The Washington Star, dissenting from
the notion that it has been the rule to nomi
nate inferior men for Vice-President, refers
to Mr. Fairbanks as one who could serve
with distinction in the White House, and in
stances from the record of the past forty
years as follows:
“On the Democratic side, Frank Blair,
who ran with Mr. Seymour, was a man of
much force. Gratz Brown, of whom Nast
made such unsparing game, was a politician
of experience and ability. Thomas A. Hen
dricks, who ran with Mr. Tilden in 1876 and
with Mr. Cleveland in 1884, was of presiden
tial size, and certainly Allan G. Thurman, who
ran in 1888, was. William H. English, who
ran with Gen. Hancock in 1880, lacked per
sonal popularity, but in politics was much
superior to his soldier chief.
“On the Republican side we find Schuyler
Colfax in 1868, and Henry Wilson in 1872 —
both of presidential size, and with politi
cal experience far in excess of that pos
sessed by Gen. Grant. Mr. Wheeler of New
York was better known to the country at
large in 1876 when the Republican ticket of
that year was nominated than Gov. Hayes,
who headed it. Everybody thought a risk had
been taken in 1880 when Gen. Arthur was
nominated, but in the office of President he
subsequently show’ed excellent ability. Gen.
Logan in 1884, Mr. Morton in 188 S and
Whitelaw Reid in 1892 were worthy of the
honor they received, and either of them in
the office of President would easily have met
its full requirements.”
Nevertheless it has been often the ease
that the man nominated by a party for
Vice-President has been a man who would
not have been seriously considered for the
first place on the ticket. As a rule the can
didates who secure prestige as available or
probable nominees for President are put in a
class which would regard the nomination for
second place on the ticket as a drop below
their political dignity and importance. For
instance, it is not to be believed that Mr.
Bryan or Mr. Taft could be induced by any
kind of agreement or pressure to accept a
nomination for the second place on a presi
dential ticket if the convention should fail
to name him at the head of the ticket. And
while it is barely possible that Mr. Fairbanks
might be induced again to accept a nomination
to retain him in the. vice-presidential chair,
it is safe to assume that not Hughes, or Knox
or Cannon would consent to accept such a
nomination. —Nashville Banner.
ARE THE FAIR RACES DYING OUT? CAN
NOT SURVIVE URBAN LIFE,
SAYS SCIENCE.
In every country where scientific observa
tions have been made the fair complexion
proves to be dying out. It will vanish alto
gether unless the decline be cheeked. Every
where the conclusion is the same —a dark type
supersedes the fair. A few years ago the
British Medical Journal raised objections to
some of the arguments advanced, but at the
close it mournfully admitted that “the fair
maid so much beloved by poets and artists
seems to be encroached upon and even replac
ed by that of darker hue.” It is a melan
choly aspect for the esthetic. Even peple
like the Spanish and Italians, with whom
black locks are the rule, conceive celestial
beings as fair.
It can not be an accident that nearly all
those conquering races which were also col
onizers have been fair. Perhaps there is only
one indisputable exception—the Arab, for of
the tribes which furnished a large proportion
of the Roman armies in the earliest time, some
were blonde, doubtless as the Samnite. So
it is with the Spanish conquerors; one may
see flaxen hair, blue eyes and even red cheeks
in Costa Rica, Segovia and elsewhere not
infrequently to this day.
Mr. Lee Poer discusses the soldierlike
qualities of each nationality represented in
the foreign legion, and there were many. He
finds himself unable to set one above another
for courage, “but,” he proceeds, “there was
one class of men far more lively, far less
given to grumbling, and altogether possessed
of more brilliancy and resilience of tempera
ment than the others. This was the men of
fair complexion. All fair haired, blue eyed
soldiers seemed to withstand bad conditions
of living more easily and better than their
dark complexioned comrades.”
Nevertheless, it was not physical attributes,
but greater energy, enterprise, longing for
adventure, that caused the fair races to play
the leading part in the story of mankind.
They have been the disrupting force of
humanity from the inroad of the “Cimmer
ians” —which brought about the fall of
Nineveh, and left the great province of
“Galatia” to tell to future ages the real
names of those mysterious invaders—to the
outburst of the reformation, and on to the
settlement of America and Australasia.
If this complexion be declining now and
vanishing, those who fancy that “the Aryan
is played out” may find there a striking con
firmation of their views. The fact is assured