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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