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passed which they think will be ob
jectionable to the Farmers’ Union,
will also be suggesting that the stae
officials should spend their time at
some other place and in some other
way.
If the membership wants to know
who it is that is opposed to the Far
mers’ Union watching the lawmakers
of our State, they can spot them by
keeping quiet and listening; for
these fellows are going to offer their
criticisms and when they do, you can
know that they, or their masters, are
afraid of having some pet scheme
exposed. And they may have, for
no doubt it will be necessary for the
committee to quietly notify the mem
bership about the actions of some
persons connected with the legisla
ture.
r
These criticising angels (!) have
no criticism to offer when corpora
tions of every class and clan send
their lobbyists to wine, dine, bribe
and buy; but when the Farmers’
Union sends a committee to the State
capitol to mix and mingle with the
law-makers, and tell them of the
views of the organization on certain
questions, then it becomes a heinous
crime, and they, the critics, wash
their blood-stained linen and swear
that it has always been white.
We would put these saints (!) on
notitce, however, that the Farmers’
Union is not afraid of their criti
cism, and that the membership will
refuse to accept their counsel, and
the committee will, to the best of its
ability, discharge its duty, and the
schemers will be met at every turn
in the road. —Union News.
ANOTHER OPPOSES.
Editor Waltson’s Weekly Jeffer
sonian :
We, the members of Rebecca Local
Union, No. 538, of Turner county,
believe that the present scheme of
immigration bureaus aided by corpo
rate powers, in the interest of capital,
in the hands of great transportation
companies for the sole purpose of
making profit for themselves, is dan
gerous to the agricultural interests
of our country, and believing that
such schemes, if put into practice,
will make this Southland of ours a
dumping ground for the lowest and
most dangerous criminal classes of
the old countries; and,
Whereas, These new-comers know
nothing of our patriotic history, and
care less for our system of religion
or free institutions, such as free
school, free ballot or our freedom to
serve God according to our conscien
ces, and,
Whereas, We know that they
would increase the expense of our
courts, destroy the present happy
constitution of our society, and take
away and occupy the land which
rightly belongs to our own children;
therefore be it
Resolved, That we enter our sol
emn protest against such, and ask
our brethren throughout the good old
State of Georgia and all our sister
Southern States, to pass resolutions
and use every effort to stop these
wholesale schemes to flood our coun
try with these dangerous setbacks.
M. B. BURNETT, Pres.,
C. L HARALSON, See-Treaa.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
LINCOLN’S PLAN OF RECON
STRUCTION.
(Continued from Page Three.)
change of feeling springing up be
tween the respective sections; a
change of Northern sentiment as to
•Xie real condition and disposition of
the Southern people, and a change in
Southern sentiment as to the men of
the North. Thus a new era of feel
ing and sympathy, as the ties and
associations of a common ancestry
and a kindred destiny, will arise and
be fostered until the wounds of the
past shall be cicatrized and forgot
ten, and the removal of suspicions
and prejudices can make the two sec
tions again one, and enable the peo
ple of each to see not the worst but
the best phases of their respective
disposition and character.—Atlantic
Monthly.
THE O’HARA POEM.
Mr. Ranck Did Not Change or Muti
late “The Bivouac of the Dead.”
Three weeks ago, we published a
page from the “Old Scrap Book”
in which Mrs. Dixon made certain
statements which did great injustice
to Mr. George W. Ranck, whose sori
sends us a letter containing a refu
tation of Mrs. Dixon’s charges writ
ten by his father in 1900.
We take great pleasure in publish
ing the letter and also the newspa
per article.
St. Louis, Mo. July 15, 1907.
Mr. Thomas E. Watson, Editor
Watson’s Weekly Jeffersonian,
Atlanta, Ga.
My Dear Mr. Watson: My atten
tion has just been directed to an ar
ticle reprinted in your magizine un
der date of June 27, entitled “Theo
dore O’Hara’s Immortal Poem,”
written by a Mrs. Susan Bullitt Dix
on of Louisville, Ky.
This article attacks my father, the
late George W. Ranck, of Lexington,
Ky., in a most unwarranted manner
and charges that he deliberately mu
tilated and changed Theodore
0 ’Hara’s poem, 4 ‘ The Bivouac of the
Dead,” a statement that is unquali
fiedly false.
This controversy has long ago been
settled and I do not care to answer
Mrs. Dixon’s article. This has al
ready been done by my father, who,
in August, 1900, through the columns
of the New York Times Saturday Re
view, absolutely refuted this base
less charge and proved to the world
that O ’Hara was responsible alone
for whatever changes were made in
his matchless poem. The incontro
vertible proofs of this were placed
in my father’s hands by the poet’s
sister, Mrs. Mary O’Hara Price.
As George W. Ranck has passed
from earth and is-not here to defend
himself, I want to ask in justice to
his memory and to right a wrong that
I am sure was unintentional, that
you publish in your magazine the en
closed article from the New York
Times which, I think, will convince
any fair-minded person that my fath
er was actuated by no other motive
than the preservation, as Theodore
O’Hara himself wished it, of the
grandest martial poem in American
e literature.
I have always heard you spoken of
as an eminently fair man, Mr. Wat-
son, and I am sure you will see the
justice of my demand.
Very sincerely yours,
EDWIN C. RANCK,
Associate Editor.
O’Hara’s Poem Revised by Himself.
To The New York Times Saturday
Review:
I rarely ever reply to a fair criti
cism of my work. An author who
cannot stand such an expression of
opinion would better retire. But mis
representation is not criticism. A
short time ago, I am informed, some
one filled three or four columns of
your paper with hysterical allusions
to that recently published little book
of mine, “The Bivouac of the Dead
and Its Author,” and accused me of
amending and changing the greatest
martial elegy in existence —Theodore
O’Hara’s 4 ‘Bivouac of the Dead.”
There is no truth in the assertion. I
not only never changed that magnifi
cent production in any way whatever,
but in my book I tell as plain as day
who did make the changes. I state
that it was the only man who had
.the right and the genius to do so —
the poet O’Hara himself —and I
prove my statement. What shall be
said of any one who knew that fact
and then deliberately and intention
ally ignored and misconstrued it!
I also made it plain why O’Hara
made the changes. He did it to per
fect his masterpiece, and he certain
ly succeeded. After trying to make
me responsible for something with
which I had nothing to do, your cor
respondent furnishes a copy of the
great poem in ten stanzas, and wild
ly urges the literary world to accept
it as “the original, unmutilated ver
sion” of the elegy. Now, right here
is where the real funny part of that
hysterical article comes in. The
crude original, which never satisfied
O ’Hara, comprised twelve stanzas,
while the copy your correspondent
champions not only differs from it
otherwise, but has been shorn of two
stanzas. Behold the learned advo
cate of an original that is not an
original ataal a savage denouncer
of mutilation ignorantly indorsing a
mutilated version. But shall I char
itably admit that this was the result
of utter ignorance or shall I hysteri
cally charge your correspondent with
the cutting out of those missing stan
zas—with “the deep and damnable
wrong and outrage of alteration and
mutilation”? Forbid it. Heaven!
No, O’Hara did all these horrible
things himself. According to his ac
complished friend and then compan
ion, the late Major W. T. Walthall,
O’Hara made his first general revis
ion of his elegy in 1860, when, among
other improvements, he almost to
tally changed the last stanza, which
until then commenced, “Yon faith
ful heralds blazoned stone.”
Three years after this the poet
touched up his work again, and his
old comrade, Col. J. T. Pickett, said
of the changed text: 4 ‘This version
was repeated to me, by the author
himself, and by me written down at
the time in the City of Mobile in
1863. Before he died, in 1867,
O’Hara changed parts of his lyric
again, reducing it to nine stanzas
and making it universal in its appli
cation, and this copy of his poem as
finally revised by him he intrusted
to his sister, Mrs. Mary O’Hara
Price, who regarded it as the version
he meant for posterity and placed
it with his papers in my hands, and
I published it verbatim as I received
it from her.
In one of Mrs. Price’s letters to
me, which was copied by Mr. D. E.
O’Sullivan and included in an inter
esting article by him, the scholarly
sister of the poet said: “I want to
say to all that I furnished you with
the poem ‘The Bivuoac of the Dead’
as I found it, and if it is not as it
first came from Theodore’s hand,
surely you are not amenable.” I
will be pardoned under the circum
stances for adding these lines from
Mrs. Price, who has passed from
earth, and who made their publica
tion a sacred request: “When you
publish your tribute to my brother
Theodore, say that it is accompanied
not only by the entire indorsement
of his family, but by their warmest
gratitude and love, for you have
done more than all others to cause
his poems to be properly appreciat
ed.”
Your correspondent has raised “a
tempest in a teapot.” There is noth
ing at all astounding in the fact that
O Hara revised his sublime lyric.
Poe radically changed his immortal
“Bells,” and Gray altered and cor
rected his famous “Elegy” worlds
without end. But, unfortunately,
O ’Hara allowed each amended ver
sion of his poem to be published, and
their conflicting texts naturally
caused bewilderment and misappre
hension among persons ignorant of
that fact.
The responsibility for the changes
in “The Bivouac of the Dead” rests
solely with the author of it. As far
as I am concerned, if I had not con
sidered O’Hara’s last version of his
elegy the strongest, grandest, and the
most perfect of them all, I would
not have published it, and I must
blushingly admit that folks like Ma
rion Crawford and the Southern His
torical Association, who indorse my
work, meet with my timid but warm
approval. It was the last perfected
version of the sublimest elegy ever
given to the world, “The Bivouac of
the Dead,” that excited the admira
tion of Lee and Grant and Gladstone,
and that will continue to be ad
mired.
While Fame her record keeps.
GEORGE W. RANCK,
Lexington, Ky., Aug. 27, 1900.
ANOTHER OPPOSES.
We, the members of Local Union,
No. 2, of Mitchell county, do hereby
oppose all foreign immigration, be
lieving that the same will be the
means of destroying our peace and
happiness in this, our land of the
free and the home of the brave, and
beg that you will do all in your
power to prevent the same.
J. A. LAIRD, Pres.
E. A. FUSSELL, Sec.-Treas.
NOTE THIS CHANGE.
Herafter address all letters to
Wataon'g Weekly Jefre tonlan, and
Watson’s Jeffersonian Magazine to
THOMSON, GA.
PAGE SEVEN