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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition,
1998
BY
Copyright - 1919 by Mrs. Felton
Printed by Index Printing Company
Atlanta, Ga.
IN LOVING OF MY BELOVED FRIEND,
THE LATE MRS. RUSSELL SAGE,
OF NEW YORK CITY.
The greatest woman philanthropist in the known world. She gave millions upon millions of her wealth - to education - to philanthropic institutions - to charity - to every good enterprise which appealed to her - and dying after ninety glorious years of good deeds-she left many other millions to other institutions - to war support and other magnificent benefactions.
She was also a noble Christian woman.
She had a broad vision as to proper uses for great wealth - a lofty example of unselfishness.
Untold generations and unborn millions will be benefited by her noble gifts, and they will rise up and bless her name and memory!
THE AUTHOR.
Why this Book was written after I had passed my eighty-second year deserves an explanation. Understanding the infirmities of age, which can be easily increased by worry and overwork, I had almost decided to allow my accumulated manuscripts to remain after my decease, when those who survive me might give them to publisher if so desired. But when I gave this statement to a number of my sincere friends I was met with a storm of protest. They said I might do this work, if I would be careful as to health, and with frequent rest spells. I explained that while my memory was still good, and my condition normal, still I was a very old lady - much of my physical strength abated - and old people by reason of age were almost sure to become garrulous, talked too much (if they have impatient kinspeople) and were set in their ways of thinking as well as of saying and doing things, and are old-fogyish in regard to modern methods and activities. Nevertheless they have insisted and reminded me that while we have Southern histories concerning the Civil War, compiled from data furnished by political and military leaders, the outside world really knows very little of how the people of Georgia lived in the long ago, before the days of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, cook stoves, sewing machines, kerosene oil, automobiles, tri-cycles and a multitude of other things now in common use. "We can read about those things with a greater relish when we hear about the olden time, than when they were unknown propositions." They reminded me that Boswell's Life of Johnson really gives more satisfactory information about the early habits and homes of English people than all the fine and elaborate histories by illustrious writers. Finally I concluded to send some of my already printed articles to a distinguished Georgia gentleman who has never held political office, or sought any preferment or promotion, but whose name
is a synonym of lofty integrity and honest purpose, and who could easily command the votes of his state and section. He had at several times insisted upon my printing or collecting together the literary accumulations of my long lifetime, urging their preservation, etc.
When his reply reached me I finally decided to set my face to the task. I copy here a few lines of his highly prized letter: "I am returning herewith your papers, registering the package in order that there may be no possibility of their being lost. I assure you it gave me much pleasure in reading these articles of the past, giving me an opportunity of knowing something of the history of the politics of Georgia with which I am not familiar. In your reply to Hon. ---- you demonstrated your full knowledge of the political situation and issues of your day and the records of the public men of the time. It is needless for me to say, you used your pen in a vigorous manner. Your usual vigorous style of writing was stimulated in this case by your determination to protect the good name and acts of one near and dear to you. The other articles read like prophesy. They could be used in present customs. You have lived to see part of your dreams realized. It must give you great and added pleasure and incentives to labor for causes you advocated long before 1900.
"It is information of this kind that is contained in the articles you sent me, which I do hope you will incorporate in a forthcoming book, along with all other similar data, for only in this way will it give to coming generations an opportunity of appreciating in full the work which you did for Georgia and which will give them the advantages of a true insight as to the political history of the State during your lifetime. Sincerely yours ----."
My attachment to the readers of the Georgia newspapers is something like the affection that an aged grandmother feels towards her great grandchildren. We understand each other, and generally we think alike. Numbers of these readers (in their loving confidence) have named children for me. I prize their
affection. I wish for them Heaven's richest blessings when their faithful old friend can write no more! They write to me and touch my heart, and some of them say further - "You have a large following in the State of Georgia who are devoted to you, especially among the rural citizens, the plain people of the State. They always feel assured you will state facts and furnish proof if your statements should be questioned.
We will be glad if you will consent to write and publish this chronicle for those you have loved so long and served so well."
Longfellow's beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' is pertinent as my reply and acceptance of the task:
"Something remains for us to do and dare
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his Grand Oedipus and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than forescore years.
And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten
Had but begun his Characters of Men.
Chaucer at Woodstock, with the nightingales
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales.
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions, but they show
How far the Gulf Stream of our youth may flow
Into the Arctic region of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And, as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars.
Invisible by day."
Among the recollections of my childhood, the most startling to my youthful mind, was a story told me by my mother of an Indian raid that came near enough to my grandfather's home to massacre and scalp the whole family of friends, Brantly by name. Within a very few miles of the Brantly's there was a large settlement of whites, who owned their farms - some had lands inherited from their parents. For many years they had not been thus molested and the massacre of the Brantly family came like a shock from a clear sky. Mr. Brantly was plowing in a nearby field, his wife, with a servant woman, was washing at the spring branch, when the red skins swooped down upon them and tomahawked the last one of them.
Morgan county, Ga., was not a border county either, and when the alarm was given, my grandfather Swift, then a comparatively young man, saddled a gentle horse, helped my grandmother into the saddle, lifted my small uncle, William, up behind her, and placed the three-months old baby (my own dear mother) in grandmother's lap. Armed with a musket, he walked beside the horse, until they were in sight of my great grandfather's home, when he bade his little family goodbye and went back to join the near neighbors who had agreed to pursue the Indians. Night and day these armed men hunted the tracks of the murderers, but to small effect. This occurred in the year 1813.
My mother's aunt, born a Talbot, went to Texas with her husband and children - two in number - with a slave woman who had been given her by her father before she left her girlhood home for the "wild west." They arrived at their destination in Texas, cleared some land, built a house and were comfortably settled,
to start a home and make a fortune. The little family were at supper table one night, the four-year old boy in his high chair close at his father's right hand and the year-old baby girl also in her high chair, with a home-made doll in her arms, when the Mexican Indians raided the place, killed and scalped the husband and wife, also the little boy. They took with them the baby girl and the colored nurse and departed. The family in Georgia were informed by some means that the Mexican Indians would ransom the little girl, but she was twelve years old before her mother's brothers got on track of her, and they made the long, wearisome trip on horseback to a place designated in Texas and found their sister's child (still in care of the servant woman who had taken up with one of the natives). The ransom was paid as agreed upon. The young girl was mounted on a Mexican pony, the colored woman on another pony, and the faithful uncles started on the long return trip to Georgia.
All went well the first day. On the second day the colored woman lagged behind for some purpose. Before the uncles were apprised of her ruse, she was whipping the two ponies and escaping. Another long parly was had, and another ransom was handed over. The colored woman was left behind this time, but the journey through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama was a fearful one, constant anxiety about Indians was added to the fatigues of the long travel, all on horseback.
The girl brought her doll with her, the only memory that remained to her of her parents and little brother. She died early - was never fully at ease with her surroundings and slow in adapting herself to the ways of her kindred.
The girl was my mother's own cousin and I found myself constantly pondering over what had happened to her in that wild country. So it is easy to understand that my early life was much concerned about Indians. I was really three years old when the Cherokee tribe was forcibly removed from Georgia in 1838, and were started on their long trip to Indian Territory. It has been stated that four thousand died on
the way before the exiles could stop and find a resting place. There were 14,000 who began the march. The journey of six or seven hundred miles was performed in about five months. Chief men of the Cherokees were assassinated on the trip. Those who took an active part in negotiating the treaty with the United States government, at New Echota, Major Ridge and his son, John, with Elias Bondinat, thus met their untimely fate. Forty years ago I met in Washington City another Elias Boudinot, a direct descendant of the murdered Cherokee Chief. He had held office under the Confederate congress and was then employed as agent for his people in their dealings with the Federal Government, when I questioned him concerning the fate of his ancestor. This final treaty with the Cherokee Indians was held in Murray county, Ga., and the house that John Ross lived in is still standing within the town limits of Rossville, Walker county, Ga, only a few miles from Chattanooga, which was named for him, then known as "Ross' Landing." Ross opposed the removal of the Cherokees and the factions for and against were known as the Ridge party and the Ross party. The Indians were finally collected at Ross' landing (Chattanooga) on June 10th, 1838, for the State of Georgia took possession of this Cherokee Country on 24th of May, 1838.
In Bartow county, where I have been a citizen since the year 1853, there are most remarkable mounds on a plantation which has been in possession of the Tumlin family for more than seventy years. These mounds seem to antedate Indian occupation. So far as known the Indians have no tradition concerning them. They are the work of skilled architects and some of the relics found in those ancient mounds are exquisite productions. There is a vase of artistic shape and high coloring which was unearthed by an unusual flood time, in the Etowah river, that we may reasonably suppose was fashioned by a race of people who occupied this section of the country long before anything was known of the rude and illiterate aboriginal Indians of America. Also a large platter of beautiful workmanship was purchased by the authorities of the
Smithsonian Institute and highly prized by American scientists. The red Indians were in possession when Columbus landed in 1492. Those who erected these mounds were here before the Indian period of occupancy in earlier centuries.
In this Cherokee section of Georgia the Indian names for rivers are still preserved without change, and many of Georgia's streams in other sections have the names of Indian origin. Except the mounds, there is but little else remaining to tell the story of the red man who refused to be the white man's slave, prefering to be bayonetted off the continent, in his love for freedom. When the full story of world democracy is chronicled, in the light of this world-wide European war as connected with the Republic of the United States, what relation will the Red Indian bear to the Russian peasant who has so lately accepted democracy in lieu of Czarism? The Red Indians of North America refused to become the white man's slave, while Africa made no resistance. The aboriginal Indian received the white man as a friend until the white man taught him to drink "fire water" and dispossessed him of his "happy hunting grounds." The African in the slave-holding states did not rise up in defense of democracy or human freedom when the Federal armies of the North had overrun and subjugated the slave owning Southern Confederacy. Whoever writes the true story of the red man must give him credit for higher ideals and loftier patriotism than the Mongolian or any of the yellow or black tribes can furnish.
The story of Georgia for a hundred years and the methods used to dispossess the Indians of their happy hunting grounds will ever be a humiliating confession of the Anglo-Saxon's greed and injustice against their red brother.
Perhaps the most thrilling recital of such assumacy and violence is found in the city of Washington, where the government of the United States has chronicled it, found in various volumes under the title of American State Papers, and I read the story of the "Yazoo Fraud" forty years ago, in certain of these
volumes that I procured from the House Library upon application with a Congressman's written order.
There had been a bill passed through the Georgia Legislature, and which Gov. George Matthews signed, which sold to certain trading companies all the lands owned by Georgia, from the Oconee river to the Mississippi, and from the Tennessee line southward to Florida, a tract that covered the two states afterwards organized into Alabama and Mississippi, besides the entire western part of Georgia. These lands, as described in the petitions and deeds, amounted to nearly 22,000,000 acres. As soon as these lands were corruptly sold the companies computed the tract as containing 40,000,000 acres. Wars with Indians had been expensive to the taxpayers of Georgia and a lying title was made to the bill for sale of these so-called "Yazoo" lands, and a provision was inserted looking towards payment of state troops with the money that these lands sold for. The forty-million tract was really bargained away for $500,000, the state getting one-fifth of the money in hand, the balance mortgaged to be paid within ten months. There were four of these companies, the Georgia Company, the largest of the four, took half the gross amount, $250,000, the Georgia-Mississippi, $155,000; the Upper Mississippi, $35,000, and the Tennessee Company, $60,000, each getting by metes and bounds the lands proportioned to these respective payments. The state of Georgia sold twice the land that these pretended traders claimed to receive, and for half the money that was really brought forward. A lying title was made to cover the outrageous swindle, and the legislative act forbade the sale of an acre of the land to any "foreign king, prince or potentate." It was worded to attract foreigners as well as emigrants from other states of the Union. Having bought a principality at less than the eighth of a cent per acre, the plan was laid to sell at very low figures and sell as quickly as possible.
Augusta was the capital of Georgia, and the record shows that the honor of the state and her greatest public interests were bartered off by traitorous Representatives and the Chief Executive. Except one man,
Robert Watkins by name, the official record in Washington city shows that every man who voted for the sale was corruptly influenced. The Senate of Georgia consisted of 20 members - ten voted for the sale, 8 against it. In the Lower House there were 34 members - nineteen voted for the sale and nine in the negative. In these volumes, called "American State Papers," the amounts paid to these traitorous representatives are set down. Some received cash, some large grants of land, some had negroes conveyed to them, etc., but the whole story is blazoned in full in these official records. I copied down every single name and the amount received, but I have made a lifelong rule in discussing matters of this kind, to spare the names for sake of innocent relatives who might be hurt by a public exposure of such evil things, unless certain actors in public betrayaal of their constituents had made personal attacks on me or mine, then I made the story very plain with names, dates and proof. A judge of the Supreme Court of the United States was one of the active conspirators in this Yazoo Swindle, James Wilson by name, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, also a member of the Continental Congress, a member of the convention that formed the Constitution of the United States, and at the time that this Yazoo sale was carried through the legislature of Georgia, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and so elevated in public confidence that he was one of the original selections for the organization of the first Supreme Court of the United States. Prepared by his position to adjudicate the very first test case that might be made - appealed by these corrupt Yazooists. He became a leading partner and interested to the extent of a million acres in this unparallelled swindle in barefaced wickedness. Side by side with this schemer on the bench and unworthy official, was Nathaniel Pendleton, District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, also Andrew McAlister, District Attorney of the United States for Georgia. There were only two Superior Court districts in the State, and one of the two judges was William Stith, who accepted $13,000 in cash and promise
of the traitors to elect him the next Governor of Georgia. The contrast was great between Judge Stith and Judge George Walton, who illustrated his office and retired from the bench without a spot or blemish on his character.
The active man in Georgia, the chief conspirator, was United States Senator James Gunn. He came from Virginia during the revolutionary war, and joined Gen. Greene's army when Gen. Washington dispatched Gen. Greene to recover the Carolinas and Georgia. After the losing battle of Camden, Gen. Greene had a fuss with him about disreputable horse racing and it is reported that he swindled a woman who was seeking to recover pay for a celebrated race horse belonging to her husband's estate. In Simms' Life of Gen. Greene, some of these things are related. But Gunn was adroit in his methods. In 1789 he was chosen to the U. S. Senate with Senator Wm. Few. When he ran for re-election the Yazooists were his champions and he prosecuted the Yazoo Fraud to the limit of his ability and he prostituted his senatorial influence and used his ignoble opportunity to its successful promotion. His last term in office expired in 1801; after the vengeance of Georgia had descended on the ignoble men who had vilely betrayed her trust. When the people awoke to the certain knowledge that the men who had bought the "Yazoo lands" had bribed the majority of the Georgia legislature and the Governor, the Congress of the United States also became aroused to the infamy of the transaction. Gen. James Jackson, the other Georgia Senator, resigned his seat in Congress, came home to Georgia and was elected to the Legislature which rescinded the Act, and the tempest of indignation against those who were bribed made some of them uneasy as to what would happen to them at home. The Yazoo sale was denounced in the Legislature as a fraud, the Yazoo Act was rescinded and the records were publicly burned in Louisville, Georgia (then the State Capital), by fire drawn from Heaven by a sun glass. In the days when matches were very scarce, these sun glasses were common. I well remember seeing them in my childhood's
home. Georgia's title to the immense tract sold to Gunn and Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and their co-workers was seriously questioned in Congress. Our disturbances with Spain and the dread of Indian alliances with Great Britain made Gen. Washington anxious. After years of dispute and political chicanery Congress finally appropriated five millions of dollars to settle the claims of innocent purchasers, and then the lands were divided as at present, between Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
But the Yazoo swindlers soon passed out as owners. They sold out rapidly and covered their ill-gotten gains into their plethoric pockets. This Yazoo history is fully told in the American State Papers alluded to in this article. I read these facts myself in Washington city. One declaration by the Congress of the United States remains vivid in memory. The names, the amounts paid to bribed officials and the shame of this transaction, are to be carefully kept, so long as the government of the United States remains in force, as a living witness so to speak of the infamy of the actors, forevermore.
In Gov. Bullock's time there were ugly stories of bribed legislators, and there have been various legislative and congressional investigations that make the people at home aware that frauds and swindles were still active in political centres, but the only part of my life that came in actual touch with corrupt politicians in high places when my husband was in Congress, was that well-known era of graft and bribery that attended the corrupt progress of Pacific Railroad legislation in the national congress in the 70s and 80s, when men of high position in many states were openly pointed at as being owned by these railroad authorities and serving in their pay, and yet holding commissions as senators and congressmen in the highest legislative body in the world. Supreme Court judges were also known to be their willing servants, appointed under agreement as filling campaign pledges and Pacific Railroad lobbyists had the finest quarters and highest salaries known to that period in Washington city
homes and hotels. History repeats itself. Human nature is the same in all ages.
At the risk of appearing egotistical I must tell you a good deal of my grandparents and parents, because it is to their memories and traditions that I owe very much of the information which it is my purpose to relate in these pages. As I knew of these personages better than all others, I am doubtless impressed by their opinions, and their hereditary associations and trends of thought have been more or less perpetuated in their descendants, I cannot, therefore, very well avoid such opinions or omit such mention.
So far as known my forbears were either Virginians or Marylanders in the early days of the Republic. My father was a boy of seven years when his parents moved from Maryland to Georgia. Both of his parents had progenitors at that time who had been living in Maryland nearly one hundred and fifty years, and both of his grandfathers served in the Army of the Revolution. There was a trunk full of papers, letters and various valuable documents in my childhood home, once the property of his mother, and many of the letters were written to her, after she moved to Georgia, by the Maryland kin. I can recall the delight it gave me to examine my grandmother's papers when I was a bit of a girl. I recollect she was married by a bishop of Maryland - she was a staunch Episcopalian - and the Bishop's name was signed to the marriage contract that closely antedated the wedding festivities and ceremonies. Alas! When "Sherman marched through Georgia" the trunk, with the letters and papers, were all destroyed, as were thousands of other properties of like interest in countless Georgia homes during the Civil War. But the ownership of her own estate is substantiated by the records at Annapolis, Md., and in the court house of LaPlata, Charles county, where deeds and wills are fortunately
of permanent record. The various farms which she sold before moving to Georgia, and also the sale of "Marshall Hall," on the Potomac river, are recorded in the records here mentioned, and it is interesting to note that a Maryland woman did own and manage and sell her own lands as early as the year 1803. "Marshall Hall," on the Potomac river, as many of my readers know, is nearly opposite to Mt. Vernon, and is the great picnic grounds for Washington city people. In the mid-summer of June, 1916, there were seven of the largest church organizations in the nation's capital that picnicked there in one day when I chanced to go along on a river boat, and it was said that ten thousand tickets were sold at the 7th Street wharf during the day here mentioned. These river steamers touch first at Mt. Vernon and then continue to "Marshall Hall." As early as 1650 a Marshall bought and owned a place named "Marshall," and of this tract on the Potomac river he willed two hundred acres to his daughter Barbara. She married a Hanson and this two-hundred acre tract continued in the ownership and occupancy of Marshalls and Hansons as late as 1847, and has been known as Marshall Hall for considerably more than two hundred years. My grandmother inherited it from her father's estate and sold it in 1803 to her brother, preparatory to removal, as before stated, to Georgia. There were three brothers (her uncles and father) by name John, Richard and William. All three owned a part of an estate called "Three Brothers." Richard died and his will was dated October 30, 1757, before the war of Independence. John Marshall died in 1801. William Marshall died in Chas Co., Md., in 1793. John, William, Philip, son of John, and Thomas, son of Richard, all took the oath of allegiance between 1775 and 1778. (It is recorded that Hon. Benj. Few, one of Georgia's noted Revolutionary officers, was born in 1744, at "Three Sisters" plantation, near Baltimore, Harford Co., Md. He has a Georgia descendant in Dr. Jas. E. Dickey, president of Emory College in Georgia.)
In the time of Charles the 1st he who lost his head in Cromwell's time, Maryland was inhabited by Indian
tribes. A gang of bandits, however, settled on Kent Island in the Chesapeake bay. Charles the 1st conferred a grant in Newfoundland on George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, and who had been Knighted by James 1st of England.
The climate was so forbidding that Calvert traveled southward and beheld a country lying on the Chesapeake bay and the Potomac river, which greatly pleased him. When he returned to England he so impressed Queen Henrietta Maria with his accounts of that part of the New World that King Charles conferred this Maryland grant on George Calvert. Soon after he sickened and died. His title and estates were turned over to his son and heir, Cecil, the second Lord Baltimore. Cecil afterward commissioned his brother Leonard to take possession, and the new country was given the name of Maryland in honor of the enthusiastic Queen. Two hundred and four Englishmen, with their families, sailed in two small ships called The Ark and The Dove, and after a tedious voyage, landed on Kent Island. Among those who came over with Governor Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore (Cecil never came to Maryland) were four young Hansons, wards of the Queen Henrietta Maria. Two of them later returned to England. Randolph Hanson, one of the four, and who died in 1699, married in early life Barbara Marshall, before mentioned, who had inherited the two hundred acres forming a part of the plantation called "Marshall."
In "Sidelights on Maryland History" it is recorded that the title to "Marshall Hall" was made by an Indian Chief and patented by Lord Baltimore. There were frequent intermarriages between the Hansons and Marshalls. In the list of fourteen Marshalls that can be seen in Colonial Hall, Washington city, as signers of the oath of allegiance in 1775-78 there is a John Marshall Hanson, a John Hanson Marshall, and Thomas Marshall Hanson. It was a Hanson, an official who took down the names of these signers in Chas Co. Each name had a date, also a number and this signature is considered the highest test of loyalty.
In the recorded will of Capt. Randolph Brandt, who
died in 1699, and whose will I copied some months ago, in the Land Office at Annapolis, he gives his son, Randolph Brandt the 2nd, "two hundred acres lying on the Potomac river near land of Randolph Hanson's, wherein Brandt is now dwelling, called Hammersmith." Randolph Brandt the 2nd witnessed the will of Randolph Hanson, in 1698, likewise did Richard Harrison, progenitor of two Presidents Harrison, both of Hanson lineage. This data I collected from "Maryland Calendar of Wills" with proper dates, books of record and numbers on pages in folio.
The title deeds from the Indian chief are said to be still in possession of Marshall and Hanson families. The present owners of "Marshall Hall have been seeking the Bible record of these early owners and offered some aged relatives five hundred dollars for a Bible containing the names of a number of them, but the offer was declined."
One of these Hansons was so highly respected in Maryland that the state has presented his statue to the Hall of Fame in U. S. Capitol. Along with Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the two represent their native state. John Hanson, whose magnificent marble statue can be seen in this Hall of Fame, was a grandson of John Hanson, the emigrant and son of Robert Hanson. This distinguished John Hanson was early elected to the General Assembly of Maryland, and is known in Colonial history as one of the most noted of its citizens. He was also distinguished in Revolutionary affairs. He was president of congress when the seat of government was located in Philadelphia, and welcomed General Washington before the U. S. Congress when he returned from Yorktown after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. These facts can all be found in the Library of Congress, in "Sidelights on Maryland History." Both the Presidents Harrison were of his lineal descendants. U. S. Senator James Alford Pearce was a descendant. Hon. John Hanson Thomas was U. S. Senator from Maryland, dying in 1815. Dr. John Hanson Thomas was in the Legislature of Maryland, 1861-65. He was confined in Federal prison for six months. Pages 121-324 "Sidelights of
Maryland History." This John Hanson of the Hall of Fame was born in Charles county, 1715, died 1793. There were two dominating factions in the State of Maryland before and during the Colonial wars. John Hanson represented the Protestants while Lord Baltimore and his following were zealous Catholics. Hanson's grandfather, the emigrant, known in Maryland records as the "Colonel," was doubtless a brother to Randolph Hanson - both wards of Queen Henrietta Maria - the latter, as before stated, living at Marshall Hall, and married to Barbara Marshall after 1650 and mentioned in her father's will, probated in 1698, and is of record in Annapolis at this time. Randolph Hanson's will was made in 1698, and all these Hansons and Marshalls were citizens of Charles county, named for King Charles of England. Their wills are all recorded.
General Washington's half brother, Lawrence, inherited the magnificent estate of Mt. Vernon on the death of his father. Lawrence became the guardian of George when the latter was twelve years old. Lawrence married into the Fairfax family, one of the most distinguished in Colonial history. George therefore spent much of his time at Mt. Vernon when he was very young. In 1752 Lawrence died, leaving an infant daughter and when the little girl died, George, the future President, succeeded to the estate of Mt. Vernon as legal owner. The Washingtons came into Virginia as early as 1657. It will be seen that these Marshalls and Hansons were even then their neighbors, their lands being divided only by the Potomac river. This nearness accounts for the fact that fourteen Marshalls residents of Charles county, Maryland, just across the river, signed the oath of allegiance to the Revolutionary cause in 1775-78. If General Washington had failed every one of these neighbors would have been exiled, their lands confiscated and doubtless their heads would have adorned a pike. My grandmother, Rebecca Marshall Latimer, inherited Marshall Hall on the death of her father in the year 1793. Gen. Washington died at Mt. Vernon in 1799. My own father was born in 1799. The ownership of
this Marshall tract began in 1651 according to "Maryland Calendar of Wills." It is obvious that Marshall Hall and Mt. Vernon House were erected near the same time. It is family tradition that brick were brought in from England, possibly as ballast for sail-vessels. Furniture and other things came in also, possibly exchanged for tobacco, the market crop of early Marylanders. This tobacco brought ready money in pounds shillings and pence. Tobacco is still grown in Maryland on a large plantation known as Lord Baltimore's "Dower House," seventeen miles below Washington city. I visited the old Dower House in 1914 with a party of friends and the owner and hostess told us of her growing tobacco crop that day. This old Dower House was built to withstand Indian attack. A secret outlet, like a tunnel, was constructed as a means of escape should the red skins overcome the whites in this great house. There were friendly Indians as well as hostiles, and another ancestor of our family had a good deal to do with this Indian warfare about the same era of Maryland history.
Capt. Randolph Brandt might have been born in the Barbadoes, where his father and mother and oldest brother lived and died, for their wills are recorded there in proper form and order, but family tradition tells of English birth and lineage for the ancestors. Capt. Randolph Brandt came into Maryland before 1660, upon the invitation of Lord Baltimore. They were close friends and patriotic workers during life and "Maryland Archives" preserved in the Library of Congress, is full of the story of Capt. Brandt's unusual patriotism. He and Lord Baltimore were zealous Catholics through life. Capt. Brandt had a wife and children when he settled at "Penguiah Manor," about the year 1670, in Charles county, and the name of the plantation is still connected with the soil, and the land lies quite near the county site of LaPlata.
The county site of Charles county up to the close of the Civil War was "Port Tobacco." Federals and Confederates had numerous clashes. It was evident that county records were in danger of destruction. These books, of incalculable value to future history
were conveyed to the Land Office in Annapolis as a place of safety. After a splendid court house, erected at LaPlata, the new county site, had been finished these valuable records have going back into the custody of Charles county officials. The room in which they are stored at LaPlata is modern and fireproof. It was at LaPlata that I found fuller records of my Maryland kindred, although the Land Office at Annapolis is a wonderful storage place for Colonial and Revolutionary documents. I found in LaPlata a deed of sale made by my grandmother, Rebecca Marshall Latimer (for whom I was named) to three plantations called "Walker," "Poquasket" and a part of "Three Brothers," all lying and situated in Charles county, where she and her progenitors were born and lived. For the three places here mentioned she received £1,063, ten shillings, current money at that time, nearly six thousand dollars. All plantations have a name in that section of the country. The clerk of La Plata court house told me that he himself had purchased and then owned a part of "Penguiah Manor," and named other nearby places that had names noted in the wills of the Brandt's, the Latimer's and Marshalls.' I found these facts in Book "I. B." pages 365-372 inclusive. Book "I. B." No. 7 was compiled in 1806.
Capt. Randolph Brandt was captain of Maryland militia in 1678, member of General Colonial assembly in 1682, Commissioner of Indian Affairs when Wm. Penn was also Commissioner of Indian Affairs in State of Pennsylvania. Mary, his daughter, married James Latimer, who died in Charles county, 1718. Their son, James Latimer 2nd, married and left a son, Marcus Latimer. Marcus Latimer, grandson of James who married Mary Brandt, took oath of allegiance 1777-8. His son, William Latimer, married my grandmother, Rebecca Marshall Latimer. The sale of "Marshall Hall" is recorded Liber "C" No. 2 page 147, Land Office, Annapolis.
James Latimer, son of James Latimer 1st and Mary Brandt, and grandson of Capt. Randolph Brandt, Lord Baltimore's friend, was prominent in early Colonial
days. This data is here set down, for the benefit of relatives who may be seeking genealogical data in days to come, and because of their connection with our forefathers.
Capt. Brandt was expressly engaged to protect the
towns of Charles county from hostile Indian invasion.
He also protected friendly Indian tribes from the hostiles,
who continually threatened to exterminate all
Indians friendly to the white settlers. In that time
of stress and strain he raised a large military company
at his own expense. In remembrance thereof the Colonial
assembly of Maryland voted to Capt. Brandt
several thousand pounds of tobacco as a part refund
for money expended in behalf of the Commonwealth.
To those of our kindred who feel inclined to consult
"Maryland Archives" in the Library of Congress
will find on page 357, vol. 17 the following: "Capt
Randolph Brandt, precept: to protect the towns of
Charles county. His course of diplomacy and devotion
to duty characterized Capt. Brandt's career in
Maryland, and mark him as one of her noblest founders
of colonial families." I copied a part of his will
in the Land Office at Annapolis. He left four hundred
pounds English money to the minister who would
officiate at his funeral exercises. He divided lands
and slaves between his heirs, also spoons and silver
and gold cups, and made provision for the education
of his minor children. There were five Latimers who
took the oath of allegiance to Gen. Washington's cause
with several of other families, sons-in-law and near
kindred. It is well to copy here this oath of allegiance,
as taken from records in Colonial Hall, D. A. R.
documents in Washington city: "I do swear I do not
hold myself bound to yield any allegiance or obedience
to the king of Great Britain, his heirs and his successors;
that I will be true and faithful to the State of
Maryland, and will, to the utmost of my power, support,
maintain and defend the freedom and independence
thereof, and the government as now established,
against all enemies and traitorous conspiracies
and will use my utmost endeavors to disclose and make
known to the governor or to some one of the justices
Page 24
or judges thereof, all treasons or traitorous conspiracies, attempts or combinations against the State or Government thereof which may come to my knowledge. So help me God."
Both of my Maryland great grandfathers took that oath. Both served under General Washington, who lived across the Potomac river, in sight. Several of my great uncles took the same oath. One was a major in the Revolutionary army, who willed his valuable sword to his daughter's son and his namesake, provided he (the youth) should serve his government with loyalty and patriotism. This brave old kinsman died in 1801, only surviving his great general, Washington, barely one year. His will, recorded in La Plata courthouse, Charles county, covers seven mammoth pages, and these pages are nearly or quite two feet square. In this will he bequeaths his part of "Three Brothers" to his son, Philip. In the will of Richard Marshall (1750) a part of "Three brothers" was given to his son, and his riding saddle and wearing apparel to his beloved brother, William Marshall (my grandmother's father). And William Marshall's part of "Three Brothers," passed to her, when he died intestate in 1793. Each of these three brothers owned a part of a tract called "Point St. William" in addition to "Three Brothers."
The Fendalls of Maryland were related to these Marshalls, as John Fendall owned a part of "Three Brothers," also a part of Point Marshall. Thomas Hanson Marshall owned a part of "Marshall's Adventure."
Among the early Maryland settlers appears the name of Ann Marshall, 1641; Richard Marshall, 1658; Rebecca Marshall, 1643; William, 1640, and another Richard, 1646. These arrived in Maryland before the advent of the Brandts. There is recorded an early settler, 1645, belonging to Latimer family.
The Bealls, who intermarried with the Marshalls, two of them marrying my grandmother's sisters, sold their plantations in 1793, preparing to move to Georgia - one as late as 1803. Emigration was afterwards heavy toward Georgia.
"The Yazoo Fraud," of which I have written elsewhere, and more fully had been exposed and finally settled by Congress, which opened up a vast territory of fine lands, well watered, reaching from the Oconee river to the Mississippi river and these lands having been cleared of all difficulty as to government title, became exceedingly attractive to Virginians and Marylanders. As a rule they were slave owners and they sought more land to expand their agricultural pursuits, and many of those of whom I have here written, sold out and undertook the long overland journey with only wagons and carts for their necessary transportation. Many North Carolinians were also seized with this moving fever, and among them we can place all of my great-grandparents, parental and maternal on both sides of the house.
It must have given my grandmother Rebecca Marshall Latimer, a pang of regret to vacate the beautiful Marshall Hall on the Potomac river, owned by her family for nearly two hundred years, and to start southward across three states, to find a home at last in the wilds of Georgia, in Warren county. The little seven-year-old boy (my father) has often told his daughters of crossing the Potomac river on a flat-boat. The family left behind them the splendid brick residence, the capacious barn and outbuildings, all built of brick, perfectly sound and useful at this present time, a home of former wealth and luxury, to adventure life, fortune and happiness in a sparsely settled country, fully half of which was still inhabited by red Indians. They had also to leave the graves of their kindred in the cemetery which is still enclosed at Marshall Hall and full of Marshall dead. But there is a record on a gravestone showing that a Thomas Hanson Marshall was an owner and buried there as late as 1843, with an inscription signed by his beloved wife, who then survived him. There are inscriptions showing this burial place of Marshalls as early as 1680, and there are living kinspeople, who tell of a visit to this old family home and still owned by relatives as late as 1872 and 1880.
It is now the property of the Potomac Boat Company, and as before stated, transformed into a great recreation pleasure grounds, where the residents of the National Capitol are delighted to assemble on every fair day in the summer time with pleasant weather, beautiful river trip and outing.
In Georgia there are many of the descendants of those Marshalls, Brandts, Bealls and Latimers, all of whom are more or less familiar with Charles county, Maryland, traditions and memories, among them the Furlows, the Hollingsworths and others that I fail to remember at this writing. Before leaving the subject of Maryland's kindred, it is a matter of history that James Latimer and Mary Brandt, daughter of Capt. Randolph Brandt, were entrusted with the guardianship and care of two Fairfax orphans. Lawrence Washington married a Fairfax, and you can find the following in "Sidelights on Maryland History," page 315. "In the absence of Parish registers or complete early Charles county records, the exact relation of the Latimers and other Charles county families is not exactly proven, but the fact that John Fairfax left his minor children, Ann and William, to live with James Latimer and the close ties shown in the records to have existed between the families, imply kinship. John Fairfax was the earliest of the Charles county Fairfax family, many years before Lord Fairfax became identified with Maryland." James Latimer herein named, had a family home called "Maycock's Rest," which descended to my great grandfather.
In this compilation of genealogical data of family history my main object has been to give information to surviving kinspeople and also in a general way to show to our readers how Georgia was settled in the early years of the 19th century.
This influx of cultivated people from states that had superior advantages in wealth and culture, gave Georgia an uplift that was felt in many different ways to the immense benefit of the English settlers who had come over with General Oglethorpe seeking a refuge from autocracy and royal mandates, the victims of
oppressive laws and debtors who were thus released from prison bounds. The first ten governors of Georgia were English born. Archibald Bullock, Theodore Roosevelt's ancestor, came from S. Carolina, Gov. George Walton was born in Virginia, Stephen Heard came from Ireland, Lyman Hall, Connecticut; Samuel Elbert, South Carolina in 1740; Telfair, Scotland, 1735; George Matthews from Virginia, he who wrecked a magnificent military and legislative record with affiliation with the "Yazoo Swindle." Jared Irwin, he who signed the rescinding act of the Yazoo law, seems to have been a native Georgian. Gen. James Jackson and the ancestors of Gov. Milledge came to Georgia from England. Peter Early came to Georgia in 1795 or 6 from Virginia, one of those who emigrated from with great numbers from Maryland and Virginia. Matthew Talbot, my mother's kinsman, and a lineal descendant of Capt. Matthew Talbot, distinguished in Revolutionary war, was born in Virginia and moved to Georgia in 1785. Governors Clark and Rabun came from upper North Carolina. Gov. Troup was a native Georgian, elected in 1823. Forsyth was a Virginian, also Wilson Lumpkin, born in 1783. Wm. Schley, elected in 1835, was a native of Maryland. Afterwards native-born governors were the rule and not the exception in the gubernatorial chair of Georgia. Rev. Hope Hull was born in Maryland, Rev. Henry Holcombe was born in Virginia, two very great leaders in Methodist and Baptist organizations in primitive Georgia days. Colonel Wm. Few was born in Baltimore county, Maryland, in 1748, a magnificent Indian fighter in Georgia. He was United States Senator from Georgia in 1793. Governor Matthew Talbot filled the office of Governor with credit to himself and to the family. My maternal grandmother was Lucy Talbot with a direct line to Capt. Matthew Talbot of Virginia and a kinswoman of Governor Talbot who settled in Wilkes county in 1785, afterwards removing to Oglethorpe county in Georgia. In White's miscellainies it is recorded "He died on 17th Sept., 1827, aged 60 years, leaving behind him the character of an honest and patriotic
citizen." In "Men of Mark," compiled by ex-Gov. Northen, we hear more of Gov. Talbot. The State of Georgia fitly perpetuated his memory by naming one of her counties for him. I remember hearing Hon. Alexander Stephens speak of the lofty integrity of Matthew Talbot, as one of Georgia's most patriotic citizens.
My maternal grandfather was Thomas Swift, a member of one of Georgia's very excellent families that settled in Morgan county after the Revolution. My grandfather was the eldest of four brothers, and married Lucy Talbot near the year 1810. His father was a planter and slave owner, and tradition has it that the Swifts and Talbots emigrated from Virginia after the Revolutionary war and obtained lands on Sandy creek in Morgan county, which their descendants owned for at least a hundred years. The next brother was Dr. Elias Swift who married a sister of Major Taylor, of Athens, Ga., who was a practicing physician and died in Madison, Ga., when a young man. The succeeding brother, Dr. John Swift, married in early life a sister of Messrs. John and Stewart Floyd, of Newton county. She died, leaving two children, one of them the late Mr. E. S. Swift, of Columbus, who has surviving children. Dr. John Swift was married the second time to Miss Mary Ann Harris, a sister of Hon Y. L. G. Harris, one of Georgia's noted philanthropists. She became the mother of a large family of children, being left a widow when the most of them were small. Mrs. Mary Ann Swift lived to be nearly one hundred years old. Mr. William Augustine Swift married a Miss Keller, of Abbeville, South Carolina, and two of his sons, Thomas and John, are still living in Elbert county, while the aged widow is nearing the century mile stone and is still a very remarkable woman of the olden time. This longevity is worth mentioning as in striking contrast to the fragility of more modern women. There were two sisters of this early Swift family, Mrs. Mary Darden and Mrs. Bethenia Lewis, who also raised large families.
My Maryland grandmother died several years before I was born, so it was my Georgia grandmother,
Mrs. Lucy Talbot Swift, around whom my early recollections cluster and are well remembered up to this good time. I was often at her home (which she inherited, and was her father's early residence) and I was a close observer of her housekeeping methods and of her abounding hospitality. The mother of eleven children, all reaching maturity, except two that lived to eleven and twelve years, her industry, her management and her executive ability in caring for and carrying on her household affairs are still wonderful memories, and have continually lingered with me as examples in the progress of my own extended life. It was a fine specimen of a Southern planter's family and home in ante-bellum times. Grandfather had a plantation, a grain mill and saw mill, which kept him busy with his own duties as a provider, but it was grandmother's skill as a home-maker, with an eye single to her domestic duties and diligent attention to home economies, that impressed me most in that early time of my life when I trotted around after her as she went from the dwelling to the garden, and to the milk dairy, to the poultry house, to the loom house, to the big meat house, where rations were issued once a day, and to the flour and meal house where there was always a superabundance of supplies for white and colored. She had fowls of all domestic kinds to look after and there were fattening pigs in the pen also. She had geese to raise feathers for the family beds, because there were no mattresses in that early time. When one of the children married there was a substantial outfit prepared to set them up for limited housekeeping. There were no such things as "comforts" eighty years ago, but quilt making was never interrupted, winter or summer, and in early Georgia homes woolen "coverlids" woven at home, and quilts innumerable, made by hand, were the bed coverings in all such well-to-do Georgia homes. I distinctly remember that my own mother made and quilted with her own nimble fingers, fifty good, serviceable and good looking quilts in the first ten years of her married life. In that early time, before there was a railroad in Georgia, our own home became a regular stopping
place for travelers and there was urgent need for beds that could meet the demand when people traveled from Savannah and regions lower down south even to Nashville, Tenn., going north, and after stage coaches were set going the coach expense was so great at ten cents a mile, that the bulk of the travel was still made in carriages, carts, gigs and on horseback. In event of stormy weather these travelers were often detained at our house. Sometimes floods in rivers and washed-out roads intercepted travel. All mules and horses and hogs brought into the state were driven from Kentucky and Tennessee, as there was no railroad in Georgia to furnish markets in southeastern Georgia. When my grandmother, Lucy Swift, began housekeeping, wool and flax were the dependence of housekeepers for clothing their families. Silk culture was exploited in Gen. Oglethorpe's time, but the use of cotton was handicapped. Before there were any cotton gins the cotton lint was picked from the seed by human fingers. The lint was then carded by hand, spun on home made wheels, then reeled into what were called "hanks," by use of home-made reels, then the warp was prepared for the home-made loom, by a variety of processes, all tedious and slow and all the work done by the house mother and her helpers. The thread was "sized" with a thin corn meal mush, then rolled on to home-made corn-cob spools from these stiffened "hanks," then the spools were carefully placed and manipulated on warping bars, then rolled on the beam of the loom, then drawn thread by thread into the "harness," keeping exact count of each thread, one to go up and another to go down when the treadles were moved by the weaver's foot, then carefully pulled through what was called a "sley," fashioned from canes gathered in swamps. After all this was performed the soft spun thread for "filling" was carefully transferred to small spools that were fitted into "shuttles." The warp being thus made ready for the weaver's shuttle, the process of cloth making was nearly accomplished, so the weaver pressed one treadle with her right foot and rushed the shuttle through, then pressing the other treadle with her other foot, she
again dashed the shuttle back again, each time beating up the "filling" by fierce muscular strength in her arms. In this slow, tedious, intricate and nerve-racking and painstaking way all the wearing apparel of the masses was constructed. Well-to-do men generally contrived to get a broadcloth coat, maybe once in a lifetime. The rest had coats of plain jeans. Silk dresses were scarce and with scanty lengths and they were only worn occasionally, at weddings or brilliant occasions. A "Leghorn bonnet" would last a woman a lifetime, and kid slippers were the fashionable and expensive footwear of the belles of the period. The shoe problem was an immense proposition and the hides were generally tanned in dugout troughs, stretched out, dressed and dried at home. The traveling shoemaker made periodic visits and one pair of shoes per annum was considered a liberal provision for grown-ups. Suffice to say the children as a rule all went barefooted summer and winter, and how remarkable they were for good health and lusty frame, and their longevity was astonishing. And this perplexing shoe-making problem lasted a long time. I recall with vivid memory the first time the family shoe-maker measured my feet for a pair of shoes. He brought along a piece of white pine board, and I stood flat-footed on the board, while he marked a line in front of my toes with his big coarse horn-handled knife. Then he marked another line behind my heel and cautioned me that I must not draw my toes together or try to crumple up the bottom of my foot. I felt quite a somebody when the new shoes came home and I had liberty to lay aside the red-morocco baby shoes to which I had been accustomed. Stumped toes in summer and cracked heels in winter were always in evidence with pupils during my school days, when the country child had a log cabin for a school room and "puncheon" benches for seats, and the farmer boys and girls of the rural neighborhood wore coarse home-fashioned clothes spun and woven in looms at home. Towels, table cloths and shirts were made in the same slow way, and even the "best-fixed" families were glad to use "thrums" for towels and soft soap
in a gourd to wash hands, and the family had a shelf for the wash basin outside for young and old.
In the rough, country-made looms, the last ends of the warp were cut loose and the warp made slack and thin, so these rough sleazy lengths were only good for towels and wash clothes. The old timers called them "thrums," and the modern factories call them "mill ends." All the men's wear was woven at home, coats and pants, and the wool was grown on the farms and picked of cockelburrs by hand, spun and woven just as cotton and flax cloth was fashioned. Men's socks were home knitted of woolen thread (they generally went sockless in summer) and overcoats were an unknown quantity. Grandfather Swift owned and wore a blue camlet cloak, with a cape on it. It was a family treasure, perhaps it was an heirloom. Grandmother owned a woolen shawl made up North. In cold weather the women folk used the shawl if they had to go on an outside trip. But the homespun clothes were warm and enduring. My mother and grandmother had "bed-gowns," short affairs when I was a child, and the young women had chemises and bare arms for nightly repose. Home-made sun bonnets were always in evidence. A pretty white complexion was the call of that period. The young women were emphatic on this line. They were constantly busy, often with cloth making work, but they were scrupulous in care of the skin. They wore gloves for washing dishes or when washing clothes. "Tomboy" girls were sometimes encountered, but the belles of Georgia enjoyed beautiful complexions. They also laced very tight, and it was fashionable to faint on occasions. Weddings were sumptuous affairs. When my mother married there was a crowded wedding at night and three more days of festivities, with a different dress for each day. "Infairs" were popular, where the wedding spreads were transferred to the groom's home. Everything good to eat was bountifully furnished, meats in abundance, all sorts of home collections and concoctions topped off with pound-cake and syllabub. There was always a sideboard where gin, rum and peach brandy held distinction. Loaf sugar
brought from Charleston and Augusta by wagons was uniformly present. I can remember with accurate recollection those beautiful snowy cones of white sugar encased in thick bluish-green papers, that were always in request when company came, and the sideboard drinks were set forth in generous array. "Peach and honey" was in reach of everybody that prided in their home. Those primitive farmers had abounding peach orchards and bee-hives were generally in evidence more or less on Georgia farms. Everything to eat and to wear that could be grown at home was diligently cultivated and the early fortunes of Georgians were promoted by such thrift, economy and conservation of resources. In the summer time the drying of fruit was diligently pursued, and it was a poor and thriftless domicile which failed to supply itself with dried peaches, apples, cherries, pears, etc. My careful grandmother put up bushels of dried white English peaches of which she often made family preserves for home consumption in the scarcer spring-time. In this present emergency of war strenuosity the remembrance of those affluent households with always something good to cook inside, and no stint anywhere in big-house or negro cabin, appeals to me with most suggestive force. The present generation lives in paper sack supplies. They buy everything in paper sacks, from a goober-pea to a small sack of meal, when everybody knows the soil will yield a superabundance of good eatables if it is only "tickled with a hoe." I plead guilty. I am now buying peaches (July) at thirty cents a dozen, when I might be handling the fruit from that many peach trees planted on my own waste ground and with a minimum of expense in the care of them.
My grandmother made all the starch she used, sometimes from whole wheat, oftener from wheat bran Her seven girls, big and little, delighted in dainty white muslin frocks, and laundry work for thirteen in family was always going on, and insistent in that large household. She was a rare soap maker and every pound was prepared at home with diligent care. The meat scraps and bones were utilized and cooked with
lye, drained in ash-hoppers. It made perfect soap for domestic uses. Hard soap was prepared for the big house in various ways, tempered with age and used by young and old alike. For wounds and baby usage there could be bought Castile soap, but the soaps of the multitudes were prepared at home. Except salt, iron, sugar and coffee, everything was raised by those early Georgia planters necessary for human comfort and sustenance. Coffee was scarce and high, sometimes a Sunday morning luxury, and brown sugar was generally used, the exception being the beautiful loaf sugar brought from the North. The family loom was kept going from Monday morning until Saturday night. My grandmother's home was a two-story frame dwelling also with a brick basement, largely above ground. In that brick basement there were three spacious rooms. The principal room was used for the family meals, with capacious fireplace and safes stationed around the wall. In these safes or cupboards there was storage room for all sorts of domestic supplies. The middle room was the "loom room," the third was the kitchen, with wide hearth, cranes in the chimney for hanging pots and kettles. (I never saw a cook stove until I was grown) These rooms had brick floors and were well ventilated. My grandmother had an easy chair in the dining room and the coffee and tea were made under her direction. She supervised the cooking in her kitchen and that cloth-making business went on exactly where she could overlook it. The colored women were always busy and likewise the mistress. The daughters were taught to spin and weave, to knit and sew, and to overlook the dairy, etc., as the mother directed. There was plenty of work for all because a large slave family had to be clothed from that busy loom, and the cloth was to be cut out and made into garments as soon as woven, and that large house was to be kept in "apple-pie order."
And the abounding hospitality! My grandfather was a deacon in the Baptist church at Sandy Creek church and the Saturday and Sunday meeting days always brought friends and neighbors for at least one meal, many to spend the night. My mother said it looked
like a camp meeting when the kinspeople, the neighbors, the beaux and girl friends alighted from their horses and the crowd collected in the house. Servants carried the riding saddles into the harness room in the barn yard. The daughters prepared the Saturday big dinner while grandmother went to conference meeting. On Sunday grandmother supervised the big Sunday dinner and the girls mounted the riding horses, wore their best dresses, and went to church, and, as was the custom of the time, there was a lot of courting going on when the beaux rode home with the girls they were inclined to marry. It would take the genius of a Judge Longstreet to faithfully picture what took place on these big meeting days, after the congregation vacated the meeting house. Sometimes an unlucky swain would find himself "cut out" as a shrewd fellow would often mount his own horse and watch his rival as he led the young lady to the horse block to mount her steed, and before the latter could untie his nag and start the shrewd fellow was cantering off with the girl. In some old books that I read with delight in the long ago, it was told how the young swain would hold out his hand, the beautiful girl would place her left foot in his hand and he would swing her up to the saddle with a skilful use of his muscular strength. That was not the early Georgia style in the up country. There were always horseblocks prepared for use at church and at home and at country stores to mount from, and it accorded likewise with the modesty of the girls and the timidity of the boys. Every woman who rode horseback had a riding skirt made of substantial home weaving with a belt, but open to the hem. These riding skirts protected the dresses and were in universal use when my mother and grandmother were young. After I came along, also a horseback rider until I was seventy years old, I owned once or twice a riding habit, but I had my early training with my mother's riding skirt and side saddle. I began to ride at six years old and one of the proudest days of my life came along when my father slackened his firm hold on my pony's bridle and let me go alone to manage for myself. To this delightful
and frequent horseback exercise I attribute much of the vigor of my later life. It is essentially a delicate woman's opportunity for healthful recreation and it never lost its charm for me even when I became a grandmother, for I could canter over the fields and farm lands with perfect freedom, assured of my ability to manage my horse. I always had some sort of a horse to ride up to old age.
This universal use of horses for men and women contributed very greatly to the raising of fine stock in the early days of Georgia, and Kentucky furnished droves of them to supply any lack at home. My father prepared barns and lots for such horse drovers and they were sometimes detained for days by high water at our house. During one long period of detention, the drover ran short of funds and the horses were "eating their heads off." When starting time came he led out a fine pony-built horse and told my father he would give him the horse for his feed bill. Pointing to my small self he said, "pony will be a treasure for your little girl. He has sense like folks, and is as gentle as they are made." So I came into ownership of dear old Pony at a very early age. Everybody could ride him in the family, including children. The negro boys learned to plow with him and he was the dependence for going to mill, with a sack of corn on his back for more than a dozen years. When I married he was still in fine appearance and doing good service, and one of the most beloved appurtenances of the family home. We owned also a twin pair of "claybank" horses at one time, a perfect match, named Pompey and Caesar, in my early girlhood days. Hitched to a barouche they sped along in famous style, flinging white manes and tails to the breeze, and it was perfectly delightful to me to see my father and mother, mounted on the "claybanks" for a horseback ride, and both were good riders in their early prime and dearly loved the sport.
We had singing schools in our section seventy-five years ago, about the time I could be trusted to ride Pony and hold my own in a merry crowd of youngsters. It was three miles from our home to Macedonia
meeting house where the whole neighborhood gathered for education in old fashioned round and square note books, and where we closed the exercises by marching around and singing, old and young, to the bent of our inclinations. We traveled along a leafy road, crossed two or three clear branches, and occasionally the big girls and boys raced their horses. This racing woke up in Pony's brain a remembrance of his "Old Kentucky Home." Whenever I saw him lay back his shapely ears and arch his proud neck I always clutched the horn of the saddle to hold on. The race was all right for the rider and pony were in full accord in a frolic of that sort.
In the long ago the "stars fell." My mother saw the falling. She often told me of it. Uncle William, the oldest of Grandmother's children, was to be married in November, 1833, to Miss Elizabeth Furlow. The preparation was immense in the Swift family, getting ready for the "infair." My mother, as eldest daughter, was the mainstay of her mother and they were working far into the night with some sewing for the children of that large family. There were blazing fires in the living room and candles on the sewing table. Going out on the back porch between midnight and day, for some wood to replenish the fire, my mother saw the "falling stars." The negroes down at the quarter also witnessed the wonderful sight. They rushed to the big house in a panic of fear as "the world was coming to an end." Soon everybody was up and wondering what would come next. Grandfather went out on the back porch and then discovered that no star ever rested on the ground. The star disappeared and its light went out, when it reached the dirt. He therefore quieted the frightened people but all hung about the big house until daylight came. Uncle William got married all right and raised a large and splendid family of children in Houston county. Charley Northen was the oldest grandson in that delightful household, late clerk of the Georgia Senate for a long term of years. Another of the Furlows married my mother's sister, Harriet, and Hon. Charles Furlow, their father, married, as his
second wife, my Aunt Maria Latimer, born in Maryland, and my mother married Maria's brother, Charles, my father. All these weddings and infairs came along in rapid succession. Matrimony, like the measles, is undoubtedly catching, and Grandmother must have had a strenuous time of it, in getting feather beds, quilts, bed linen, china and silver spoons for the newly wed, as their lawful marriage portion. Grandfather, with lofty impartiality set down in a book what he gave as a marriage portion to each of his children, and my mother was fond of telling us, how rich she felt when he made his first visit to her, bringing a set of mahogany furniture, the household effects before noted, along with an excellent servant woman and a fine saddle horse. When I arrived on the stage of action, Agnes, the servant woman, was ready to nurse and love the little new comer, which strong affection remained intact as long as she lived. En passant. I own two of those early silver teaspoons that were in use for my comfort eighty-two years ago, also two tablespoons, part of a set given by my father to his bride, with their united initials engraved thereon. In those days there was not much to be bought but whatever was purchased was sterling and lasting. I remember well the china plates. In the centre was painted a lovely pink rose also a delicate border. When I was uncommonly good I had my molasses on one of these precious plates, and as I sopped my biscuit across I contrived to get a continuous good look at the centre rose until the lunch was concluded. My education in art, although very limited, was early begun.
It required a day and a half to make the annual journey by gig or barouche to Grandmother's house, one night of lodging to be secured on the trip. I might go to California or Europe nowadays with fewer thrills and expectations, and a globe trotter might envy the delight that pervaded my soul when we came in sight of the dear Grandmother's home, and when the aunties snatched me to themselves and kissed and petted me to my heart's content. Blessed are the grandchildren that can go on such annual journeys and revel as I did in such pure affection.
My Uncle John, who made his home with us for various years, carried me along to his wedding with Miss Elizabeth Paxton, when I was but a tot, and from the wedding we made a bridal tour to see the grandparents. With the "claybanks" in fine mettle and my Sunday best in wearing and with my extra promotion as a wedding attendant, I certainly was in ecstasy. When we arrived at our journey's end and saw the kinnery swarm out from piazzas and Grandmother from the basement, with her cap strings flying, and I could so easily connect her with the good things to eat that were awaiting our arrival.
There was in Grandmother's big, clean yard, a small structure, a little house, mounted on long legs. It was called the "milk dairy," and butter and milk were kept therein for immediate use. Besides the milk and butter ready for the table supply, there were pies and cakes that could be handed out to little folks when they were hungry. This milk dairy was stationed under an enormous white oak tree, which afforded a dense and delightful shade in summer time. There was also a long bench nearby where little folks might sit and enjoy a bowl of bread and milk before sleepy-time came along. Oh! The delights of that old-fashioned milk dairy. And the odor of those pies and cakes still visits me in memory. It has hardly been a year ago since Rev. G. A. Nunnally, of Rome, an octogenarian like myself, lately deceased, and who was grandmother's nephew (sister's child) said to me: "Do you ever forget the wonderful goodies that Aunt Lucy could hand out from that milk dairy when we sat on the bench in that cool, clean-swept yard, when we were little people?" Nor do I ever forget those wonderful beaten biscuits that I ate for breakfast along with rich red ham gravy, or the dinner-time experience with a plateful of chicken and dumplings, and also a generous slice of pot peach pie, smothered with cream and sugar. And can I ever forget those enticing plum orchards where we young ones were prone to linger until my frock would be so tight in the belt that I could hardly stand it. When I see children of the present time racing to the soft-drink store,
with every nickel they possess, and cramming on the painted candy until they destroy their digestion, I wish they could see what children had to eat nearly a hundred years ago in such abundance and such truly pure foodstuff. And the watermelon time beggars description. Wagon loads found their way into a dark, cool cellar and all that were not O. K. went to the pigpen when everybody had liberty, black and white, to cut and eat until satisfied so long as the crop lasted. There were no selling places for such superabundance and if any neighbors failed in such crops the way was clear to participate without stint with the lucky ones. Home-grown wheat, home-raised meat, home-pressed lard, the whitest corn selected for meal, poultry abundant and fresh eggs collected every day, and milk, cool and sweet, with cakes of yellow sweet butter and plenty of colored help to cook it all and serve it, and partake bountifully on what was left over. I honestly believe that Georgia farmers were the best fed people on the globe in our ante-bellum days. All owing to industry and thrift.
Large families were the rule, visiting was constant, and in times of festivity or bereavement, there were crowds of willing helpers to laugh with the happy or weep with the suffering ones. When my mother was quite small she soon became expert with a needle, and she remembered going with grandmother to neighbor Gov. Wilson Lumpkin's home to a "family sewing." She sat in a high chair near a table and "backstitched" a seam in a pair of men's breeches on that occasion and I thought it was fine when I could sit in my low chair and "backstitch" seams in a pair of breeches for Uncle Dave who was our faithful colored family fire-maker. I never saw a sewing machine until I was full grown and twenty one, but there was no lack of dainty finger work in those early homes. There is a revival of this fine hand-sewing in later days and it is good fortune to find somebody with ancient experience to show what our ante-bellum women could do on this line. Homespun dresses were not to be despised by any means. Carefully spun and woven with indigo dyes and turkey red to form a pattern,
they made admirable dress materials, washed well and endured mightily. Just think however of the toil that went with their home manufacture when the cotton had to be handpicked from the seed and every thread, warp and filling spun by willing and painstaking hands. What energy, persistence and fortitude. When my grandmother's brood of eleven circled around the big open fireplace in the evening, knitting work in hand, she understood without doubt, that she must rise early and work late, start before daylight and endure until after dark to put clothes on them and keep them with changes and well-fed for their health's sake. If cotton mills and factories were blotted out today is there sufficient fortitude, energy and persistence in the present generation to conquer a similar task?
Grandmother raised her brood in credit with genteel manners and fine reputation and her grandchildren have sung her praises and paid glowing tribute to her industry and fidelity. None of us are clamoring for a return to the hard work and unremitting effort to make cloth by hand or do sewing with fingers or cook meals on open hearths in hot fireplaces, but I hope the day will never dawn that succeeding generations shall fail to applaud the vigorous self-sacrificing and unfailing industry of their forbears. Now-a-days there is a mania for spending. In those earlier days there was a well-formed habit of saving. Therein lies the difference between the new and the old. In the present generation we tear down spacious, convenient and comfortable church buildings and replace them with palatial edifices partaking of cathedral appearance. The struggle to compass big salaries for the pastorate has advanced into strenuosity. The meek and lowly feature has entirely vanished and unless our modern congregations are out on dress parade the mass of the people remain at home on Sundays to read the daily papers or go on an auto ride to the most attractive nearby town or city for Sabbath diversion. My mind reaches back to the old-time country meeting houses where there were religious services not oftener than once a month. Everybody
was anxious to go. It was a great time with children, negro nurses and dogs. There was always a spring of good water close about. The mothers provided biscuit and teacakes for their hungry tribes. A quilt or shawl was spread on the church floor, the babies that could sit alone were thus made comfortable, and the preacher was in no wise disturbed by their various activities when the little pitcher of fresh water was brought in and the young ones were duly watered. I remember these things with accuracy because I own the quaint little pitcher that Nurse Agnes carried along for my use and comfort, and it represents nothing similar in modern ware as to shape and coloring. It may be more than a hundred years old. I can vouch for more than eighty years myself. The women occupied one half of the building. The men and larger boys kept to their own side of the house. And the preacher was a discourser. He got but little as to pay and he expected little, but he omitted nothing as to creed and doctrine to explain his views to the congregation. Hard Shell Baptists had a large following in Middle Georgia a hundred years ago. I have seen a number of foot washings and I have always queried as to why the Saviour's attitude towards the washing of His disciples' feet should have been abandoned by any Christian organization. If His command as to sacrament administration is imperative it seems to me that foot washing is likewise an imperative example.
Some will ask about the preacher's pay in those early times? I remember well what was told by Capt. Felton, my husband's father, speaking on this particular line of church work sixty odd years ago. There was never, he said, a discussion, as there was no salary. At one time in the history of Oglethorpe county where his father had settled (and had removed from North Carolina, at the close of the Revolutionary war) there was however something said on a certain meeting day as to some tangible remuneration for the minister's services. Being as before said a delicate subject, there was considerable hesitation until a brother who could tan leather quite satisfactorily from cattle
hides, rose up and contributed a pair of shoe soles, and another neighbor who was also skilful as a tanner, matched the proposition by offering the uppers for the preacher's footwear. There the question halted for a spell until the best shoemaker in the neighborhood agreed to get the preacher's measure and would proceed to make the shoes on the first day when it was too wet to plow. "And you young ones needn't smile," said the Captain, who was a veteran of the war of 1812, "for a man who owned such a reliable pair of shoes as preacher ---- was given was very happy in such possession." It is a good place to set down the fact that Capt. Felton was in the famous Indian battle of "Chalibbee" when he was commanding Oglethorpe county troops, serving under Gen. John Floyd. After a six-months campaign on the frontiers of western Georgia, helping to build Fort Hawkins at Macon, they went forward by regular marches until there was a line of forts and block houses extending from the Ocmulgee to the Alabama river. There was a Fort Mitchell erected on the right bank of the Chattahoochee river and where Antossee battle was fought, where the crafty Indians inflicted heavy loss on Georgia troops.
The battle of Chalibbee was begun before daybreak and in White's Miscellainies you will find that the Indian surprise did not affect these brave Georgians, not a platoon faltered and Gen. Floyd made a valiant charge after daylight and won the battle. Capt Felton lived to be 80 years old and despite his military services in 1812 and heavy losses in Civil War, he declined to ask for a pension. He said "pensions should be for those who were maimed or wounded in service, that every man owed duties to his country in time of war or peace. Those who were spared in life and limb were fortunate and should not be a burden on the community." According to this creed and practice, he refused to apply for a pension. His survivors are in possession of a little cow-leather traveling trunk that he could strap on the rear of his saddle by aid of iron rings and in which he carried a six months outfit for heavy and exhausting army service, exposed to
Indian attacks day and night all the time he was absent. He had a change of underclothing, a pair of extra socks, some writing materials, and his razor in this small military outfit. One suit of good, strong, homemade jeans carried him through and he made no complaint as to finding himself in service to his country more than a hundred years ago. And he was an officer, better equipped and mounted than the privates.
In his early time there were no banks or safety vaults for depositing money. Salt was one of the main articles of domestic use, and he and his wife kept an open salt barrel in the kitchen. Black and white dipped out salt, as needed for cooking, saving meat and for salting horses and cattle. This salt barrel constructed of a hollow poplar log with a well-fitted bottom, was always kept half full of salt or over. Silver money was the favorite coin of the period. Down at the bottom of the salt barrel the early Felton's kept their silver money in a sack, and although they were accustomed to make journeys to South Carolina and eastern Georgia, they also made a safe-deposit box still safer by emptying a fresh sack of salt on top of what was still in the kitchen barrel as a preparation for leaving home. No thief or burglar ever thought of finding money in a place that was never locked and covered with salt. There were no banks in those days.
I wish I could remember all he told of the early settlers of Oglethorpe county, formerly Wilkes. He was familiar with his near neighbors, the Lumpkins, and Gov. Gilmer, Rev. George Lumpkin was his pastor at Beaverdam church and he occasionally came to see us in Cass county, now Bartow, when preacher and Captain were old men. After I married into the Felton family I gathered a lot of information as to the way Georgia pioneers lived from such reminiscences. One of the stories that delighted me was their recollections of some famous race horses that were trained and raced at Lexington, Ga. These were four-mile heats and sixteen miles to run to be declared the winner. As I recollect Col. Wade Hampton's medium-sized
gray mare was the best racer of that early time. Money was staked by men from a number of different states, and crowds attended from all eastern Georgia.
Augusta was the great market place a hundred years ago. Cotton and wheat were waggoned long distances to be sold in Augusta. It required about five days steady driving from Lexington with strong teams to make the round trip to Augusta. The neighbors managed to go in large companies, camping out, with a supply of cooked victuals already prepared. After the produce was sold, salt, sugar and iron were purchased for the return trip. Store goods were bought in limited quantities for the women at home with an occasional bonnet and slippers. Calico was scarcer than silk velvet at the present time, and the stuff which was laid in for a coming baby's Sunday frock was called Leno, a medium white cloth, lighter than bleached domestic and heavier than plain white lawn. We preserved such a baby frock as an heir-loom made for Dr. W. H. Felton in 1823 (who died not long before he was eighty-seven). A queer little frock, low necked and with long sleeves and it ranked as something extra for quality when it was completed, about a half yard in length with a two-inch ruffle at the bottom. But it differed greatly from the cloth made in the home looms, where the cotton seed were picked out by hand before the thread was spun or woven. Everything a grown man wore as before stated was prepared at home from the cotton in the seed and the wool on the sheep's back down to the knitted suspenders and fingerless mittens.
Nutmegs with other spices were hunted for in Augusta, brown sugar and black molasses were in demand. There were small stores in little towns and some creditable country stores also. My father had a country store where he sold pins and needles, lute string ribbon and prunella shoes on one counter and dealt out thick black molasses and kit mackerel within ten feet of the millinery. Can I ever forget the day when my Uncle John who had adventured to Charleston to buy goods and returned with a wax doll and how I could not be parted from it and how I slept with
it, ate with it in my arms and finally wrecked it by going to sleep before a great log heap fire in the living room and where the heat melted its head and spoiled its beauty for all time? Anything so rarely beautiful had never crossed my experience before. I have often wondered as to how the nude red Indians felt to see white people in accustomed dress for the first time. The change from my clumsy rag dolls to the Charleston beauty with real curls and blue eyes must have produced somewhat similar effects on the small Georgia cracker who had never seen a bought doll before in her four years of mortal life.
We had for small silver change thrips and seven pences, value 6 1-4 cents and 12 1-2. I had a few of each that were my very own and I would have given all I was worth for a recipe to restore my doll's pristine loveliness.
In these country stores there was large traffic in cotton and woolen hand cards, and joy without measure when cotton factories were built in Georgia and "spun thread" could be bought for the warp, because homespun warp was not easy to manage by inexpert weavers. It needed harder twist and stronger thread for warp uses, while the filling could be spun softer and with less care. We have preserved some of the store accounts of the early period. Indigo, madder, turkey red and copperas were staple goods for dye purposes and the housewives of early Georgia history went to meeting (church services) with every finger nail as blue as indigo mud would paint them. It was considered a badge of efficiency, experience and culture in cloth making. The wool dyes, made women's hands almost black with logwood and walnut leaves. Men's summer working breeches were copperas dyed and those plain men-folk were as yellow legged as our choicest breeds of chickens.
Among the Felton neighbors a hundred years ago was a farmer and his industrious wife who spun and wove all their wearing apparel and who had manufactured enough cloth to provide her husband with two strong, good shirts. When he returned at night from the hot corn and cotton plowing and his shirt
was wet with prespiration she had always a clean, dry garment ready for she did a bit of laundry work as regularly as she washed and dried her breakfast dishes and this good woman's fame has followed her down as an extraordinary manager and capable married woman. I was impressed as to her super-excellence, because the family washing in such plain homes was done once in seven days as a rule and where children were numerous they might take off their one garment and sit in their skin on hot days until a clean shirt or frock was ready for use. In the olden times farmer boys of eight, ten, even twelve years, were provided with a summer shirt of extra length (perhaps the pattern has been retained for men's night shirts) and the youngsters had nothing to hinder their agility in athletic sports. It would be refreshing to find a chronicle of the self-made distinguished men of early Georgia who were glad to own and wear these one-piece, home-made suits when cloth was scarce and hard-work in the field a necessity for family subsistence.
In those early days the children said "Dad" and "Mam" and as history repeats itself the petted child of 1917 is happy to call his well-groomed father "daddy." Fifty years ago it was a mark of very common raising to say daddy and mammy. Virginia and North Carolina children said "Paw and Maw." The Hugenot or French strains said Pere and Mere, while another breed of folks in upper Georgia said "Pap and Mam." The most of well-raised folks said Par and Mar.
But the folk raised in that early period of Georgia's history were brought up to wait on their elders and reverence for the aged was the habit inculcated early in their childhood. Old people then and now were apt to be garrulous and sometimes tiresome with their advice and platitudes, but the neglect of aged grandparents, common in many sections today, was of rare occurrence in the homes of the pioneers of our Southern country.
The first wedding I ever attended was in 1840. My baby sister had very lately arrived, but the good
neighbors insisted that my father and myself (barely five years old) should be there. Black Mammy had me in charge, also the brass candlesticks and silver spoons that were loaned for the big gathering. Mammy belonged to the F. F. V. colored, in old Virginia. She always fixed her head dress turban shape with a big white neckerchief around her neck and shoulders and a big white apron about her capacious self. Mammy was an expert on big table arrangements. There was a girl in the neighbor's family with whom I had slight acquaintance but the wedding festivities accelerated our friendship. I saw the bride and groom walk out to be married and the latter had been so unfortunate as to split his big toe with an awkward axe, so his unlucky foot was outside the upper part of his shoe in a white store stocking. The rest of the time I devoted to seeing the people eat, tablefulls giving way to new comers as fast as they could be served. My new girl friend agreed with me that it was tedious waiting. Finally she made her way between crowds and found that a quantity of plates had been emptied into a capacious tin pan under a side table. I questioned the advisability of going under that table cloth and helping ourselves as one pig helps another. I did go, and I did partake, and when I was missing it was black Mammy who discovered the lost child in her ignoble plight. Time has never quite erased the feeling that possessed me when my escapade was narrated at my mother's bedside on our return. To start out as I had done with my best bib and tucker, traveling in fine style with a pair of matched horses and a driver, with the comfortable feeling that I was going to a big wedding, and then to be brought home in some sort of disgrace, because I ate under a table, out of a scrap bucket, with all the indignation that Mammy was capable of expressing by words and looks and gestures, I was given a lesson as to table manners and wedding feasts that always remained with me. So far as I know nobody but Mammy ever suffered stifling mortification about it, nevertheless the memory of it has lasted nearly fourscore years with the delinquent.
The first funeral I ever attended still haunts my memory. The dead wife and mother left a family of small children, two of them my school mates. There was a poor little baby, two months old, and the children were left in deep sorrow and gloom.
The dead woman and my mother had been girlhood friends. I loved her like I loved my kin, and I almost cried myself sick with those lonely children who came to us to get relief from the sad home. There were no hearses in those days. Neighbors took hold of coffin handles and carried the coffin to the grave yard. The preacher took the hand of one of my sobbing school mates and walked behind the coffin. The snow was falling and the gloom of the whole business was almost too much for us all.
The coffin was made in the town. I saw the people tack on the outside black cloth and the inside white linings. It filled me with an awful dread that my mother might die, too. I was worked up into a sort of hysteria. When the clods fell on the coffin I could scarcely repress a shriek. Little children can suffer intense agony under similar conditions.
I do not recall any particular mourning garments. In rural districts death always caught the people at a disadvantage. Home-made coffins were clumsy. Shrouds were made around the dead body. Neighbors had to dig the graves and do all things else, as there were no bought things to help along. Crowds could be had to sit up with the dead. Silver coins were laid on eyelids to hold them down. When a person got so low down in reputation that he deserved the meanest that could be said, you would hear "He is mean enough to steal the silver on a dead man's eyes." Graves had to be made nearby unless there was a meeting house within convenient distance. People were generally buried on their own land and enclosed like a tiny garden, with wooden palings.
I recall an incident that stays with me. Occasionally my mother helped in the store, in push times. I was in evidence too. One day a lady with several children came and bought big bundles. When she left I found my mother crying and to pacify me she told the
reason. The customer had a dreadful cancer and felt she was going to die. She desired to prepare a good supply of children's clothing (there were no such things to be bought) before the crisis came. Just before she started home, in her carryall a sort of conveyance in general use, she went with my mother into the back room of the store and showed her bosom with the cruel ravages made in her breast. And those children were so happy and knew so little about the heroism of their mother who faced death like a martyr.
The first railroad in Georgia coming from Augusta and toward us in northwestern sections created much excitement. This excitement became intense when the legislature passed a bill to construct another railroad starting from our section going to the Tennessee line, with State's money, and to connect with the other road known as the Georgia railroad, at Marthasville.
The civil engineer of the Georgia road made his headquarters at our home off and on for perhaps eighteen months. The progress of both undertakings was a topic of daily conversation where I could wonder and also listen. When the state railroad was able to lay down rails from Atlanta, then known as Marthasville, to Marietta, twenty miles, the engine, freight car and passenger coach were hauled from near Augusta by mules, over the stage line, and the wonderful new cars were halted in the big road in front of my home. They had already come over one hundred and fifty miles when I saw the three before named.
It was decided to celebrate the opening of the state road by an excursion to Marietta from Marthasville with a big ball at the latter place and considerable speech-making from the politicians. It was the first adventure of that sort in the Southern States and broke the ice for internal public improvements. My parents were invited by the beloved civil engineers. I was included, a tot of seven years, and I could now paint scenes, if I was an artist, with distinct remembrance of what I saw on that great trip.
The future Capitol of Georgia then had one building, the rough plank depot, with a shed room equipped
with a fireplace where all sorts of good liquor could be bought, etc.
It was a cold day in the late fall and my father and mother, with my small self, reachtd Thompson's Hotel in Decatur, where the excursionists assembled and where a fine dinner was provided. It was a six-mile drive to Marthasville and conveyances were in demand. We were delighted when Maria Gertrude Kyle took a seat in our barouche on my mother's invitation, and she was well known as authoress and poetess, in our few Georgia papers. She had lately married and her new clothes interested me, and I was even more interested to see her dance that night in some of the new sort of dances, different from the Virginia Reel and cotillions that I had been accustomed to, in our own home, by tourists who traveled from Savannah and Augusta to Nashville, Tenn., and regions beyond, either in a stage coach or private carriages. The supper was handed to us as the people sat on benches around the Marietta ball room. Some people had syllabub strong with Maderia wine, but I had a wine glass of jelly and a spoon with which to dip it out.
I soon had enough of the frolic and was put to sleep in a bed, already a foot deep with shawls, capes and bonnets. The joyful folks danced all night. There were relays of fiddlers to keep the tunes going. I remember I thought I had been awake all the time because the music and the calling of dance figures and the dancers' feet seemed to be going on until daylight in the morning.
The trip homeward was as dull as the going had been hilarious, but I have always taken satisfaction in the thought that I was a trip passenger on the very first passenger train that ever left the Union Depot in the present city of Atlanta. Judge Warner, the grandfather of Judge Warner Hill, of Supreme Court, was on board with his little daughter, now Mrs. Hill. So far as we know she and I are the only two known to be living, and fellow travelers on that momentous occasion when a railroad was adventuring into Cherokee Georgia where the Cherokee Indians had been living only ten years before. A Mr. William Longstreet had
invented a steamboat before that time and should share honors with the so-called inventor who got the credit. My father used to sing for me the following ditty based on Mr. Billy Longstreet's new fad.
Billy boy, Billy boy, can you steer the ship to land?
Billy boy, Billy boy, can you steer the ship to land?
Yes, I can steer the ship to land
Without a rudder in my hand.
Billy boy, Billy boy, can you row that boat ashore?
Billy boy, Billy boy, can you row that boat ashore?
Yes, I can row that boat ashore
Without a paddle or an oar.
I remember also a Maryland corn-shucking song that my father would sing to me in my baby days. He came from his native state when a small boy, but he brought to Georgia many songs that delighted me. One of the many still remains. Among the Maryland chronicles of wills and deeds, mention is seen of the Notleys. The song runs thus:
"Mighty wedding over the River (Potomac)
Hoosen Johnny - Hoosay!
Notley Dutton courts the widow.
Hoosen Johnny - Hoosay."
These Marylanders and Virginians had corn-shuckings. They were almost universal in Georgia in my childhood. The ripened corn was hauled to the barn lot and heaped on the ground outside the crib. Word was sent around that so and so would have a corn-shucking on a certain night. White farmers came with their colored men. A great supper was prepared for all who came - substantials - plenty of it. In the big house there was a bountiful table, in the kitchen another table just as plentiful for the blacks. It was a big time for everybody. Before the daylight came the shucked corn was safely housed. Everybody had a good time and "all went home in the morning."
Those corn-shucking melodies are yet twittering in my recollection, and when my own babies came along
in the early days, for my first born arrived when I was only nineteen, I found myself singing "Papa's Corn Songs" that he brought along from his old Potomac home.
And I must not forget the "quiltings." Fashionables would call them "quilting bees," but they were popular gatherings. The women of the neighborhood were delighted to entertain. Each guest brought along her own thimble, maybe a needle or so; as needles were scarce and high. Along about midday the husbands began to come, some afoot, others on horseback. And the dinner, was a spread that tested the skill and industry of the hostess to be sure. The "tables groaned" with everything that the mistress and her colored women could prepare. After dinner was over the farmers returned to their work and the women finished the quilt, even to binding the edges in first class style. And there were famous quilters abroad in the land in those industrious days.
I had almost forgotten to say that when a farmer was very sick and unable to work and watch his crop his neighbors would go over on a day agreed upon, with all their forces, plow hands, horses and plows and before dark came the crop was in good order.
A couple of fine Georgia gentlemen whose grandparents were my father's early neighbors, told me the following story about two years ago. The grandfather became ill and died - left a widow and a house full of children. There were slaves but nobody to direct but the anxious woman who had this large family, black and white, to provide for. Everybody had to fence the cultivated land. Old-fashioned worm fences were all they had. The widow could not get the "worm of the fence" laid straight. My father heard about it and early one morning he went over (about a mile) and carried every field hand he had, and he made a straight fence out of a crooked one before nightfall. When she sold her crop he kept the matter straight for her, whenever she needed advice she knew where to go to find a willing helper.
After eighty years or more had passed the grandchildren of the widow told me of the esteem and affection
that lasted with their family when all the actors were dead and largely forgotten. All along down the line they said they were told of the "best neighbor Grandmother ever had." These fine, elegant Georgians requested the privilege of carrying my sister and myself on a visit to our birth place in an automobile. Also to the girlhood home where both of us had been married, neither of which I had seen since the Civil War was over. It was a day of days for us. What they knew and could tell was largely tradition and hearsay, but what we knew and felt, words cannot fitly express. The river plantation passed away from us in my father's lifetime. We had, therefore, no financial interest in it. It had changed hands several times within the half century. It had gone down in decay but it was a thrilling place for two aged women who had been happy, active girls when we called it "home."
Somebody sent me the following circular before it passed into the present owner's hands. As it gives me kind mention, I wish my descendants to know of the occurrence. In our day we had crowds of company, music, good living, all the things that belonged to a comfortable country home in upper Georgia.
of Farming Lands, at
Court House in Decatur, on Wednesday,
September 15, at noon.
"Panola Plantation
to be Subdivided and Sold.
"One of the finest
plantations in DeKalb County, the famous
Panola Plantation, will be divided into eleven farms by the
enterprising Real Estate firm of H. F. Sanders and Shelby Smith,
of Atlanta, and sold at public outcry to the highest bidder at
the Court House in Decatur, on Wednesday, September 15, at
twelve o'clock, noon. The plantation contains 725 acres. It
lies on South River, fifteen miles east from Atlanta, ten miles
from Decatur, five miles from Lithonia, and seven miles from
Ellenwood.
"Panola Plantation, from our best information, was the
childhood home of Mrs. W. H. Felton, whom all Georgians love
and honor. Maj. Latimer, the father of Mrs. Felton, built the
fine colonial home on this place. The body of the house is in
a fine state of preservation.
"Mr. R. M. Clark was the next owner of this place. He
supervised the Oglethorpe Manufacturing Company, which built
a cotton mill there. This plant was burned several years ago.
In connection with his milling interests, Mr. Clark maintained
on this plantation a very fine stock farm, raising in great
abundance, all kinds of provender, such as wheat, corn, oats,
hay, etc. In addition to the cultivated lands, he had very fine
pastures.
"There are several public roads that converge at this place,
making it a good point for a public store. There was at one
time a store and post office there.
"This plantation was later bought by Col. Milton Candler,
and afterwards sold to the present owners.
"It will be seen from the above, that this plantation is historical.
"These eleven tracts as subdivided, for quality of land, value
of timber, convenience of location, and many other points, have
never been equalled at any auction sale in DeKalb county."
Among the notable family occasions that I recall
was the wedding of our miller, colored, and the housemaid,
that would doubtless interest the northern people
as a feature in Southern country life before the
war. Ben was quite a catch in his early manhood, and
Minerva was one of the three colored girls given my
mother by her father. She generally journeyed with
the family to Grandmother's home when we children
were small, as my sister's nurse. She was not a field
hand but remained in the big house as house maid.
The match was of prominence therefore.
They were to be given a house of their own, a plain
cabin, but close and comfortable. Ben had a new
suit of clothes for a bridal present. The bride got her
outfit from we girls. There was a preacher to marry
them and a good supper for the occasion. There were
a happy couple, had a family of sprightly children
and were a part of my sister's allotment after she
married and had her own home. The surrender turned
everything upside down and Ben went back to the
old Panola home and secured a position as miller. As
the years rolled on Ben lost his wife and his boys married
and he was lonely in his old age. He came back
to his "Mis' Mary" and she gave him a house to live
in, coal to burn, clothes to wear, was fed from her table
at every meal and he swept the sidewalks and did
errands for my sister as well as he could. After he
had passed eighty years he was often infirm, sick at
times. One of his sons was comfortably fixed and
sister advised the old negro to go there to be properly
waited on. She gave him the money to get there. Inside
of two days Ben turned up again with nothing to
say beyond "Mis' Mary I've come back." When he
died "Miss Mary" furnished the coffin and burial
clothes and had been his best friend in his extreme
poverty and weight of years, when he was too infirm
to help himself. He died two years ago.
Once I was "candle-holder" at a big negro wedding
at Grandmother's home. The girl was a housemaid
but the groom lived several miles away and came to
his wife's home every Saturday night to stay until
Monday morning daylight. The patrol system was in
force throughout the South. Colored men going to
the wife's house were given a "pass" and it was a wise
precaution. Slaves were too valuable to allow one of
them to be beaten because he did not have a "pass."
The colored boy came one night after supper to "ask
for the girl," and I was present at the asking. I was
very fond of the bride-to-be, and I became a close
listener. There seemed to be a sort of matrimonial
catechism for such occasions. "Will you treat your
wife decent, if I allow you to marry her?" "Will you
act the dog and beat my good darky when you get mad
with her?" He gladly answered "no." "Now I expect
you to behave yourself if you come here to live.
It's my house you will live in with your wife but you
are welcome if you behave yourself."
As a wind-up Grandfather said "Now, Jim, my own
colored men that go to the wife's house, always cut up
plenty of firewood for house and kitchen before they
start on Saturday afternoons. Mind you, now, if you
take any of their wood and are too lazy to go to the
woodpile to make your wife a good fire by your own
labor, I'm as certain to thrash you as I find it out, and
they will be sure to tell me." The crowd that attended
the wedding had to be entertained out of doors
for the ceremony. No cabin could give them standing
room. As "chief cook and bottle washer," or rather
director of arrangements, I held the candle for the
colored preacher to read the marriage pledges. He
had a newspaper clipping in his hand and I saw it was
upside down, but it served to raise a laugh when my
part of the performance was over, and I repeated to
Grandfather what I saw and heard as an official at the
marriage. And I was so welcome for I was Miss
Ann's oldest little gal, and I was to tell about it when
I reached my own home, and you may be sure I was
a faithful narrator to a very eager set of people while
I was doing it.
My father's early
plantation was twenty miles from
Covington, Newton County, Ga., and ten miles from
Decatur, and situated on the main highway coming
down from Nashville, Tenn., to Augusta. As far back
as I can recollect stage coaches were actively used on
this line. These coaches were ponderous affairs with
a big leather boot on behind and a little
bannister
around the top to hold baggage. There were regular
stage stands ten miles apart, where a relay of four
horses were constantly stabled. About a mile away
the stage driver's horn would be sounded so that the
hostler would be ready with fresh horses on his arrival.
They were also mail carriers. It cost ten cents a mile
to travel on the stage coach and it required ten cents
to send a letter. I have an old letter written by my
father to my mother, before I was born, and it is
marked for twelve and a half cents for postage from
Charleston, S. C. It was also a newsy letter, for those
days. It was his first ride on a railroad from Augusta
to Charleston. The railroad was built on trestles, and
my mother suffered painful anxiety as to whether her
husband would survive the dangers of that rapid
journey. At Aiken, S. C., there was an inclined plane.
An extra engine would be hitched on to one end of a
chain or cable and the train would be pulled up and
down on this inclined plane. I rode over the Aiken
plane, when I neared my twelfth birthday, and
experienced the hoisting (or lowering) process with
extra engine. It seems to have escaped the minds of
the railroad contractors that a road could be built on
the ground, or that a hill could be graded or dug
around or tunneled. Not long before the Georgia
R. R., from Augusta to the town of Marthasville, was
started and the state of Georgia decided to build another
road from Marthasville to the hamlet of Chattanooga,
Tenn., known then as Ross' Landing, of which
I have made mention. I seemed to have come along
about the time that railroads and good school houses
were agitated in my part of the country. And there
were progressive people around us for it was decided
to build an extra good school house close by and engage
a teacher that was somebody, in our immediate
neighborhood. My father gave the site and the community
erected the building. It was a long framed
house with a chimney at each end, doors in the middle,
front and rear. My first teacher was Rev. E. M. Haygood,
uncle of Bishop A. G. Haygood. The teacher
was of Baptist faith while the Bishop's father was a
strong Methodist. The school house cost so much
money to build that the patrons "signed" for the
pupils, which meant a pledge to pay the teacher an
allotted sum at an allotted time. My father "signed"
for his little girl, not yet five years old, so I had an
early start in primitive schooling. There is a halo
about the memories of that first school business which
do not pertain to my later schools. As I remember the
time, I was as happy as the day was long, and I was
devoted to Webster's blue back spelling book. It was
"readin, writin, and cipheren" from eight in the
morning to five or six in the afternoon and the big
boys took their slates and worked sums out of doors
and the girls had reading lessons in the school house
part of the day and the teacher taught the small ones
every word of the lesson in the spelling book at his
knee. All pupils when advanced to writing lessons
took a spell at the high writing bench. All brought
goose quills from home to fashion into pens, and the
teacher occupied a good part of his teaching time cutting
the goose quills into pen shape. There might
have been some pencils in use, but I cannot recall any
such things. Writing ink was scarce and high but
the oak balls that fell from the oak tree limbs were
plentiful. So the thrifty ones manufactured red ink
in that way and the copy books were parti-colored on
every page and almost every line. Slates and slate
pencils were sold at my father's store, and I had a
small slate on which I drew pictures of cows, cats and
dogs and the large girls and boys made pictures of the
teacher on the sly. The spelling lesson of the day was
the closing exercise. The teacher had a queer contrivance
nailed to a post set up in the middle of the
room. It was known as a "spelling board." When
he pulled the string to which the board was fastened
the school gave attention. If he let the board half way
down the scholars could spell out words in moderate
tone in preparing that evening spelling bee. If he
proceeded to pull the board up tight everybody "spelled
to themselves." When he had drilled them
considerably on the "shut-mouth" plan, he would advance
towards the spelling board, give the cord a pull
until down dropped the plank and then the hubbub,
began. Everything went with a roar.
Just as loud as you pleased. You might spell baker
or circumlocution or anything else and the people
going along the road were happy to know that the
children were getting their lessons, and that the
teacher was earning his pay.
When the spelling class was called those that missed
went down to foot of the class, and those that spelled
well went up head. There was some luck in the matter;
nevertheless, I fairly danced on my way home,
when I went up head the first time. When my first
school term closed (aged five years) the entire neighborhood
gathered to hear the boys speak, and listen to
the girls as they read a page in the reading book. I
recall one other time when the school exercises were
closed after a big audience had been there all day by
a marriage ceremony between Mr. Haygood, the teacher,
and his handsomest grown-up girl pupil. It took
us all by surprise, nevertheless it was considered a delightful
wind up. We had ups and downs in the next
three years. Changed teachers, the fine school house
was burned at night, and my parents decided to send
me to school in Oxford, Ga., where I was boarded at
Rev. Mr. Simmons' and attended Miss Hayes' school
and took music lessons from Mr. Guttenberger, a blind
man and a pioneer in music teaching in upper Georgia.
The stage driver became a great friend to the little
girl and I expect I enjoyed my stage trips of twenty
miles much more than a late one to New York city
within the last month. At Miss Hayes' school I won a
pound of candy by repeating the multiplication table
back and forth without missing a figure, and I played
the "Blue Bells of Scotland" for my blind teacher at
his concert at the school's close, which was considered
pretty fair going for an eight-year-old girl in the early
40's in piano playing.
In the rural schools of my earliest days nearly all
of us wore a cord about our necks with a little wallet
of brimstone or assafoetida tied on as an itch preventive.
And the warts. My! My!! How to get rid
of the itch and the warts on their hands occupied
much of general conversation at recess time and the
surprising part of the whole thing was the apparent
indifference to both itch and warts in the rude homes
where the majority of the pupils were domiciled. After
these girl pupils were able to read fairly well and
to write a little they vacated the school benches and
went back home for the domestic duties that were imperative.
When I think of the helps afforded to pupils
nowadays and their attendance at fine schools from six
to sixteen and later, my appreciation of the early ones
increases in immense ratio. They got so little eighty
years ago and yet made so great progress in business,
at home and outside. Some of the finest business men
of that early era had something less than three months
schooling, yet they were capable, wrote legibly and
made headway in fortune-making and good living.
My next adventure with schools took place in Decatur
where Dr. John S. Wilson established an academy
of high grade. My parents moved to the town,
and made various business sacrifices because of this
educational opportunity. Dr. Wilson was also pastor
of the Presbyterian church and founded the first of
the same kind of churches in Atlanta. He was a
famous teacher because of his thoroughness. The five
years of my school life that I spent under his supervision
were the very best of all I received and I have
reason to thank him, because he kept me at spelling
lessons year after year, and his grammar instruction
was well nigh perfect in its exactness and constant
application. That still embraces the secret of a good
education. His good influence on that community has
been felt for more than half a century as an educator.
Decatur, in his time, was one of the finest towns in
upper Georgia, with its high grade of citizenship and
distinguished for the fine women that were reared and
educated there when educational opportunities were
limited and no advantages from travel abroad were
obtainable. Allow me to tell a story.
Dr. Wilson was unutterably opposed to dancing.
His opposition became a serious matter when he forbade
his scholars to attend dancing parties. For
a while the controversy ran high. It put me in a
panic because I loved to dance like I loved candy. My
father liked to have me dance, he said it gave girls a
graceful walk. My mother was not so much in favor
of it. I was now very uneasy. There was always a
big ball in Decatur at the principal hotel on Friday
night of Superior Court week. Our judge was Hon.
Edward Young Hill, one of the handsomest men I
still think I ever saw in my life. I looked forward to
that big ball with delight. I was just entering my
teens and several times the judge would ask me to
dance with him and he was a splendid dancer.
I was quite sure at that time, that I was something
extra on the "light fantastic toe," but I am now satisfied
there were so many handsome belles fond of
dancing that the judge evaded a choice by selecting
an active little girl who cared only for the sport, just
as he did. He and my father were great friends, both
Whigs as I recollect, and it was the easiest way out to
get a very harmless little dancing mate. Up and down
inside the rows of partners or outside (as it happened)
in the Virginia Reel, we kept up our part of
the business with joyful alacrity. But the opposition
of Dr. Wilson grew apace. He became more aggressive
and the school patrons were divided in their opinions.
While some agreed others said it was none of his
business. The crisis came. The time of the big ball
was only a few days off. One morning after school
opened, the stern old dominie shot his bolt. The
fiat read this way: "Any girl that goes to a dancing
party while in school attendance will be dismissed next
day." When he said a thing he said it with emphasis.
We were up against it hard and fast.
I told the story at home and my mother said "We'll
wait until your father hears about it." My heart was
almost in my mouth when the case was laid before
him. He was my dependence. I hoped he would assert
his rights to govern his own household. But the
case was decided against me. He finally said: "We
keep up two establishments, one in town the other on
river plantation, where I must stay from Monday until
Saturday night, to give you school privileges. This
is why I bought this home in town. Otherwise we
would not be here." He disliked to give me pain and
he knew I loved to dance. Finally he jokingly said
"Little girl, Dr. Wilson is trying to educate your
mind and I must help him. After awhile there will be
time a plenty to educate your heels."
When the big ball came on we could sit on our front
porch and see the dancers in the hotel, because the big
dining room was always emptied of its tables for the
ball. The music had never been more enticing. I could
hear the dancing orders spoken. I don't think I had
ever wanted to go anywhere so badly in all my life
before. But I gave it up with a fairly good grace.
When the school term closed my parents gave me a
dancing party to show their sympathy with the girl
that tried to be brave.
It was a new era in Georgia history when Northern
women came down South as teachers or governesses.
No Southern woman of means ever proposed to work
at anything outside of home. When she left school
she began quilt-making, etc., looking towards matrimony
and it was nothing uncommon to get married as
early as fourteen or fifteen, and an unmarried woman
of thirty was rated as an "old maid." It was a quasi
stigma of reproach to fail to receive an "offer" after
the girl advanced into long dresses. The girl who was
coveted by a half dozen beaux at one time was the
center of admiration at a wedding or "infair." Nobody
that I ever heard of said to a daughter, "You
have got to marry," but plenty could be found, who
did say. "I am sorry for so and so, with a house full
of old maids." One of the handsomest women I remember
in my childhood was a bride at twelve, a
mother at thirteen and who had raised a family of
fine sons and daughters before she had reached middle
age and still beautiful. Nevertheless there were plenty
of marryings that were not love matches. If there
was a prospect of a plantation and slaves as dowry,
there was a rush into matrimony, just as the nobility
of Europe court rich American heiresses and the majority
of both classes were more than apt to regret the
hasty undertaking after a trial of it.
These early married Southern women wore lace
caps very early after motherhood. It marked the distinction
between married and single in promiscuous
company. And the babies wore caps also whenever
dressed for going out with the young mother. I
thought my delicate mother and baby sister were the
prettiest pair in the world when I saw them thus
dressed for going to meeting which was the general
custom of the early Georgians, once a month. Quick
to catch on I put caps on my dolls, big and little, and
occasionally contrived to put on for myself one of my
mother's caps on the sly when I took on a spell of doll
nursing of which I was remarkably fond. When I
was about seven years old my uncle John brought
from Augusta a drawn silk bonnet for my mother and
also one for myself. The silk was gathered in close
rows on fine whale bone strips and shaped as a calash.
Each had a tiny skirt to the bonnet and inside was a
row of small pink rosebuds encircling the face. Hers
was of "silver gray" and mine "bottle green." This
was my first bought bonnet and considered a beauty!
As a rule, in plain households, the mother purchased
a nice calico dress with enough to make the little
daughter one like it. If there were scraps left a bonnet
was made for both and families could be identified
by the flowers on the calico, and the style in making.
There were fine English and French calicoes and
muslins and "northern homespun" came from the
factories in New England fine and white, while our
southern factory cloth was rough and unbleached after
cotton mills were erected in Georgia. As my
father had a store, I began to wear "prunella" shoes
very early. They were made of cloth as well as
leather but only used for dress up, not for service. I
had plaid woolen dresses at various times but generally
my mother cut down her worn or out of date
frocks for my use. My first silk dress was a "made
over." This descended to my small sister after I had
outgrown it. When I had reached the age of ten the
fashionables wore voluminous skirts and many of
them. The underskirts were starched as stiff as possible,
and I remember hearing a friend of my mother
say she had on at that time eight petticoats beside
the outside frock made of "balzarine." Something
like the voile of modern dress goods. As she came
down the street she was like a ship in full sail. Her
dress skirt was as wide as the sidewalk. The body to
the dress was tight as beeswax and she was laced until
her beaux could nearly span her waist with both
hands. Everybody, women and children, wore bonnets.
Hats belonged to the masculine. Artificial flowers
were plentiful on these bonnets but when a young
woman was religious or became converted she laid
aside her flowers along with her finger rings and
breastpin. And I never can forget my feelings when
I heard a woman pray in meeting for the first time.
It came like a "clap out of a clear sky." She had
been talking to a bench of "mourners" and broke
loose, in the fervor of her pleadings. It was the talk
of the town for a good while. Some said it would not
do at all - others said she was so good that she must
be forgiven, but the majority said she should have
kept silent. "Aunt Annie Bird," as she was known
to us, continued to pray aloud at protracted meetings
but she was "one by herself."
Nevertheless it was a very common thing for women
to shout at revivals. Perhaps there were then more
women shouters than masculines. Sometimes the excitement
made them faint but the difference between a
shouting woman and a praying woman was never
clearly defined in my youthful mind, as connected
with St. Paul's oft' quoted adjuration for women to
"keep silence in the church."
In later years there is more praying than shouting
in public gatherings by women, yet there are ministers
who are stubbornly averse and use sledge-hammer
logic against such women who are full of religious fervor,
and devoted to religious exercises, and the most
assiduous church goers in their respective congregations.
There were many noted revivals in the middle years
of my life and being a Methodist myself I applaud
these revival occasions, because they awakened the
minds of many sinners, connected broken friendships
and made the children aware that religion stood for
something better than mere morality at home, and
could save the drunkard and bring peace and domestic
happiness into divided households. The patience and
fortitude of long-suffering women who, full of zeal
and the Holy Ghost and always remarkable examplers
of Christian excellence and piety, under this demand
for "women to keep silence," has been an enigma to
many good men as well as women.
I recall a revival of religion in Decatur, Ga., when
I was a young girl, where Rev. Alexander Means,
Bishop Jas. O. Andrew, Judge Longstreet and other
noted Methodist divines gave weeks of service, daily
and nightly sermons, and which resulted in securing
a large membership and which is felt to this good day
in regions around and about Atlanta, the present
metropolis of our state, in Methodist families. I went to
school in Oxford with daughters of Dr. Means, Judge
Longstreet and Bishop Andrew and my remembrance
of those dearly beloved friends of my youth have
been a well-spring of pleasure in my own journey
through life. I am doubtless the sole survivor of those
mentioned here.
I must not omit mention of the annual picnics of
Dr. Wilson's school at Stone Mountain. Everybody
was glad to go; some by carriages and wagons and
multitudes by the Georgia railroad after it was set
a-going. The first passenger conductor that I remember
was Col. George Adair, the elder, and he became
an institution in which both passengers and railroad men
took pride.
The story of Atlanta's early days can never be fitly
told without including an extended notice of Col.
George Adair, the elder. His sister was my early
school mate and when we had young lady guests with
us Col. Adair was most helpful, because he chaperoned
numberless beaux to make my single aunties have a
good time. In those generous old days it was delightful
to be there. I was permitted to sit with the gay
crowd around a glowing hickory fire and listen to the
jokes as well as the music and general merriment, until
my bed time arrived. My mother was a champion
cake maker and there were waiters passed around with
all sorts of light refreshments. I was often privately
instructed that such small girls as myself should be
only seen and not heard. In those merry old days
what I could see was very satisfying.
Col. Adair joked everybody, myself included. One
time he got turned down and I was hilarious over it.
It was a very cold evening and the party of young
gentlemen collected near the blazing fire. First one
and then another would inquire. "How are your
feet feeling, Mr. Adair?" For awhile he refused to
notice the questions. The young ladies were given a
hint, and they were choking with laughter, over what
was told them. Somebody also said "your boots are a
perfect fit," and the girls screamed with laughter. To
make a long story short, Mr. Adair had on a fine new
pair of high-top boots that fitted him "like a bug's
shirt," and he struggled a good while when dressing
to get into them. He found out his companions were
going to get the joke delivered when he put out his
shapely feet and quietly said to the folks, "I tried to
get on two pair of socks, tore them into ribbons and
failed and these rascals are dying to tell you that I am
a sockless joker and they want to turn me down and
make these girls laugh at me." My mother had to
send me to bed I enjoyed the episode so hilariously.
A dozen or more years ago Col. Adair gave an interview
to Miss Isma Dooley on Old Atlanta days that
all those who were mentioned enjoyed heartily.
"But with the name
'Atlanta,' society seems to have begun
here, and the first parties I remember attending were at the old
Atlanta hotel built when the road was extended from Atlanta
to Marietta. The new engine brought here at the time was
hauled by mules from Madison, and the first car, built in the
penitentiary at Milledgeville, came the same way.
"Dr. Joseph Thompson
moved up from Decatur, and building
the Atlanta hotel, gave the place its first rights to be
called 'town.' His family was a most interesting one, and his
two daughters were then Georgia belles. Mary Jane Thompson,
now Mrs. Richard Peters, and Julia, the late Mrs. Orme, of
West Point. The other girls I remember in Atlanta at the
time, were Miss Lou Loyd, whose father built the old Washington
hotel, Judge Meade's three pretty daughters, Misses
Kate and Jane Kelsey, and Colonel Rhodes' two daughters, and
then the visiting girls that would pass through and stop over for
a night at the Atlanta hotel. Atlanta always was a good stand
for visiting girls.
"'Who were the beaus? Well, there were several very
prominent society beaus. I went out myself,' modestly remarked
the colonel. 'Then there was William Priestly Orme
and W. C. Printup. We all held lucrative positions at the time,
being conductors on the railroad, and as our rivals we had the
good-looking conductors from the Western and Atlantic railroad
- Joe Bennett and Jim Dobbs, and W. A. Huff and George
Jones, of the Macon and Northern railroad.
"Our parties were all given at the Atlanta hotel, and we
called them 'soires
.'
I didn't know why they gave them that
name then,' said the colonel chuckling, 'but my youngest
granddaughter,
Lizzie, now studying French, told me a year or so
ago, 'Why, grandpa, all evening parties are appropriately
called soires
. That's the
meaning of the word.'
"These soirees began early in
the evening about 8 o'clock,
and were generally over about the time the 'sparking' begins
now. The orchestra," said the colonel, presumably guying the
society column, "was not hidden behind a bank of palms and
hot-house plants, or screened off by silken portieres veiled in
smilax, but the fiddlers sat right where they could be seen and
heard when they caned out the figures, as we all danced the old
Virginia reel.
"Our first fiddler was old Howard Brown, while Guilford,
Judge Ezzard's barber, played the fiddle or the triangle, either
one well. Howard Brown, however, imbibed too freely now and
then for the spirit of the times, and Erby Powell, the welldigger,
was then called in to take his place. Erby was a fine
fiddler as well as digger.
"I remember one of the finest soirees we ever had was given
in compliment to Mary Willis Cobb, of Athens (now Mrs.
Johnson, the mother of Mrs. A. W. Hill and Mrs. Hugh Hagan.)
Mary Willis was quite the belle, and had more tony
party clothes than the rest of the girls, because she had spent
a winter in Washington, where her brother, Howell Cobb, was
representative from Georgia. She was such a pretty, round
plump girl, with laughing, beaming eyes, and danced better than
most girls do these days.
"Did we have a chaperon at these parties! Yes, one that
we all loved - Mrs. Joseph Thompson. I can so well remember
how she would enjoy the frolics, and I remember, too, that often
times, sitting near her and dozing to sleep soon after the fiddlers
would begin, was her little girl, Joan (now Mrs. Tom
Clarke). Mrs. Thompson was one of the finest women I ever
knew - of imposing dignity in appearance, with the finest head
and best heart. She was the leader in all interests for good
in this community, and I recognize so many of her characteristics
in her granddaughter, Nellie (Mrs. Nellie Peters Black.)
"About this time the town began to enlarge and the social circle
was brightened by such pretty girls as were Laura Farrar,
Harriet Eliza Cone, now Mrs. Hayden, and Jane Killian,
now Mrs. L. P. Grant.
"I remember, too, when Charles Latimer's two pretty, smart
daughters first appeared in Atlanta, Rebecca and Mary (Mrs.
William H. Felton and Mrs. Mary L. McLendon). Rebecca
was considered the smartest and Mary the prettiest, but don't
put that down for publication, because women are curious, and
the two sisters might have a dispute over the truth of that
statement.
"In them by the way is a wonderful blending of parental
characteristics. Their father was one of the stanchest and
strongest of men, very much in advance of the times as to
theories and thought which accounts for their force of character
and advanced ideas, while their mother was the gentlest and
most religious of women, imparting to them their religious
ardor and stand in the temperance movement.
"I would not undertake to enumerate the events that marked
the progress of Atlanta society after the war, but now and then
when I see some prominent woman, or read of her achievements,
I recall the first time I ever saw her. For instance I never
read of the president of the Georgia clubs that I do not recall
Mrs. Lowe as a bride, when she appeared at church in a blue
velvet frock. The women folks talked a great deal about it,
and I believe they said it was made in Baltimore. It created
quite as much comment in society on the west side, then the
quarter for the city's aristocracy (I still live there) as did the
black silk dress worn by Mrs. Joseph Smith, the grandmother of
Mrs. Will Spalding and Mr. J. E. Butler, when she came to
Atlanta before the war, at the time that Joe Smith succeeded
Wash Collier as postmaster.
"There are few things, however," mused the colonel, "in which
Atlanta has progressed more wonderfully than in her
livery, for when I brought 'ole miss' here a bride I had to
wait three days before I could get a buggy to take her for a
drive. She was so pretty - a great deal prettier than any of
my daughters or granddaughters - and I wanted to show her
off. Finally I managed to borrow Oliver Jones's buggy, and
his little mare, 'Jennie Lind,' and we took our first drive
together in Atlanta."
That first tower was blown down in a storm and its
successor was erected on the highest point on the mountain.
The second one, also, went to the discard, but in
"White's Miscellanies" you can see a picture of the
Stone Mountain and its noted tower taken about seventy
years ago. I remember well the coming together
of the first state agricultural society ever organized in
Georgia, at Stone Mountain, and the sensation created
thereby in 1847 and also the crowds that went in 1848
when our household went along with all the neighbors
who could be spared from home on that occasion. The
little town had meagre hotel facilities and the visitors
from Madison, Greensboro and as far down as Augusta,
completely swamped their accommodations. I
remember that day riding in a railroad box car, and
sitting on a squash sent for exhibition that tipped the
beam at eighty-two pounds. Some squash that, but I
was weighed that same day and marked eighty-two
pounds on the scales. My father remarked, "some
girl and some squash." It is astonishing how small
incidents stay with you when greater ones go glimmering
into oblivion. The politicians were active at that
early day and the defeated ones complained that
the new agricultural society was only a political machine.
History repeats itself and the society chaperoned
several governors into the executive chair in
later years.
Along about that time I began first to hear about
small pox. The disease was brought into Atlanta by
a guest at Thompson's hotel and spread panic all
through that section. So far as I knew it was the first
excitement of that kind in upper Georgia. Until then
nobody, old or young, had the disease or had been
vaccinated. Vaccine matter was as scarce as hen's
teeth. We refugeed to the river plantation and I
there attended a rural school where I saw the school
boys race out of doors to punish a smart Aleck who
went by crying "school butter." I learned to play
marbles and study Latin Grammar and carried to
school in a little basket a small bottle of molasses for
use at lunch time. Nothing in later life has been
more appetizing than those good biscuits with holes
punched with my forefinger and then filled with molasses.
We also ate hard-boiled eggs and cold sweet
potatoes and green apples with salt without telling
about the latter at home. We sat on hard benches
ranged along the wall with books lying under us on
the floor. I met a truckster in Atlanta last week, over
eighty, who went to school with me in those early
days. We were delighted to renew acquaintance. At
recess time we paddled in the spring branch occasionally
with bare feet and the boys brought red apples
and plums in their pockets for their favorite girls.
When a rain cloud rose up the pony was sent for myself
and small sister. I rode in the saddle and she sat
behind and held on to my waist with both of her dear
little arms. Sometimes we would be dripping wet
from head to foot, and the thunder and lightning terrified
us both while I whipped up the pony and tried
to comfort the little one behind me. Surely those
were exciting, happy days. It was a land of plenty
and I took no thought of the morrow.
My college course began when I was half-way between
fifteen and sixteen - Junior, half advanced.
Madison, Ga., was a remarkable educational centre,
the Baptists and Methodists had each a girls' college.
Lagrange had the same equipment and those were the
only high-grade girls' schools in upper Georgia in my
early life and north of Wesleyan College located in
Macon, the latter claiming to be the first among women's
colleges in the United States. There was no
railroad to LaGrange so Madison won the day with
my parents. My mother had attended school there
also in her girlhood days, and mother said "Don't
forget we must be convenient to the railroad if this
girl gets sick. It will take two long days and more
to drive to LaGrange in the barouche," so I went to
Madison.
Rev. Lucius Wittich had a reputation among Methodists
for learning and disciplinary qualities as president,
and I went to his house to board and received
my diploma in July, 1852, sixty-five long years ago.
It was a great and appreciated opportunity and I
had a royal good time; shared the first honor with a
class mate, read a valedictory essay and played time
and again during the commencement exercises on
piano and guitar, and received a real calf-skin diploma
and, more than all, made my parents very happy
that I had not failed to make good. When I see
(as I did see last year) one hundred and eighty odd
young ladies at the Milledgeville Normal and Industrial
college receive diplomas in one day and knew
what that meant to parents at home, who had made
many sacrifices and spent money to give those girls a
start in life, I could tell very accurately what progress
had been made in sixty-five years when there were
only a few denominational schools for girls and only a
limited number of girls who were fortunate in securing
a college education, and every dollar expended
came out of the self-sacrificing parents in the home,
and not a free school for the masses throughout the
confines of the Empire State of the South. We have
so many opportunities now compared to the few in
the long ago. I also wonder that there is not more
appreciation and progress than we find in 1917.
I married shortly after I was eighteen, and my entire
life was soon absorbed in home service and home
making and the care of my babies and the duties that
fell upon women of my class and kind in caring for a
considerable number of slaves and in keeping up with
the requirements of a plantation home in the country.
Before I forget it I will mention the interest which
colleges for women excited in the public mind about
the time I graduated at Madison Female college in
1852. Great crowds gathered and were delighted.
There were twelve girls in my class and so far as I
know all are dead but two at this writing. I was
entered at fifteen years and six months and graduated at
sharp seventeen. I took the entire course, also lessons
on piano and guitar. I had pencil drawing also for
all of which I had a strong liking. I had no time to
throw away to keep it up and during one session I undertook
French. He was an American, the teacher,
and I had had a previous French teacher raised in
France, so we had more than one discussion on the
right and wrong of our French lessons. But my music
teacher was an enthusiast and we worked together
famously. We speedily became a mutual admiration
society composed of two. Oh, it is sweet to remember
how often at the close of my music hour he would say
"Play for me an accompaniment for my violin and we
will have De-Beriot's Sixth Air. I enjoy seeing
your love for music the best there is." In rural
neighborhoods seventy years ago pianos were very
scarce and I am still thankful that I had a willing
mind and was ready to play for everybody. My father
had a flour mill, also a store, a woodshop and blacksmith
shop and there were always people busy coming
and going.
A few weeks ago a young gentleman almost a
stranger to me, told me of a visit to lower Georgia and
of meeting a gray-haired man in his eighties who had
asked about me, etc. The octogenarian told him of his
delight in his young days when he was allowed to go to
Latimer's mill and then could go to the house and
ask me to play for him. He told my young neighbor
of my willingness to oblige him and the others that
were with him and what a glimpse of real life and
melody I thereby opened to him. It gave me sincerest
joy to find this compliment returning to me after
many days. When the war of the fateful sixties left
us impoverished, obliged to earn the bread we ate, until
the plantation could be restored and farm labor secured,
my husband and myself decided to open a
school in Cartersville and do something for the young
people who had been almost without school facilities,
and also provide the wherewith for a start, making
some sort of an honest living owing to our poverty.
How I enjoyed that work would take a volume to tell
and my diligence in my own school days was a prime
factor for success in this strenuous time.
I have never been an admirer of our public school
system, set up in reconstruction days, and full of handicaps
and infirmities. Some years ago I was invited
by the Legislature of Georgia to meet with joint session
of House and Senate and talk it over from my
viewpoint. I will include the newspaper report of
my address on that occasion at the end of this chapter.
Since that time the system has grown more unwieldy
as to size and more costly as to expense. It is surprising
to know that our law-makers did not appreciate
the impossibility of covering the ground and
getting all the children educated by failing to command
compulsory attendance.
When Georgia legislators assumed the liberty to
commander or conscript your tax money to educate
my child it was only just, fair and equitable to compel
me to send that child to school or know the reason
why. I fully understand that public utilities are
hard to manage, but I also agree with a level-headed
old legislator who was "agin
the whole business,
because
it is the easiest thing to do, spend other people's
money."
The basic principle in such education is protection
against ignorance and illiteracy, it being a preventive
to crime and disorder, as elaborately expounded, but
public school education is or should be limited to a
plain English education, for it is a well-established
fact that many of our greatest criminals are among
the best educated and it is rank Socialism to take your
money by force for any such purpose. Our public
school education is a sort of moulding machine where
all the children are herded together and forced into
the moulds prepared by theorists, sometimes thoroughly
impractical in general use and application.
In my part of the country a girl or boy begins to
go to school at sharp six and holds on until nearly
nineteen or twenty. The boys are not fitted for any
calling or profession and generally serve as "bundle
carriers" for merchants, and girls must then go to
some other place to become equipped for making a decent
living. But somebody will say "Mrs. Felton is
an old fogy, behind the times, a slow coach, etc."
There is only one answer to meet such charges: It is
a gigantic scheme to squander tax money, growing
bigger every year and standing in the way of a better
and more satisfactory way of securing education for
the very people who need it most and care the least
for this opportunity of free tuition. Up to this time
there have been millions of tax money drafted or conscripted
out of those who own something, to pay
teachers and school commissioners while the parents
of no-account homes can completely defeat the undertaking
by keeping the children in the cotton patch or
in cotton mill work instead of attending school.
Railway travel in Georgia was nothing like the present
use of rail passenger transportation. The rates
were high, connections difficult and when you started
a journey you expected to get back of course but when
you might get home was uncertain.
I remember a trip my father and myself took in the
summer of either 1846 or 47. We were to go to Brunswick,
Ga. There was no way to get there from Decatur
unless we first took train to Atlanta, lately
named from Marthasville. Then we started to Macon.
We had a before-day breakfast and traveled until
3 P.M. to reach Macon, one hundred miles. We
went to the best hotel and later walked about in the
city. We were told that the train to Savannah started
early in the morning and there was nothing to do
but hang up until next morning. As we had small
experience with railroads that did not bother us. We
started on Thursday, left Macon Friday morning and
traveled until after dark to make the trip to Savannah.
A tremendous rain storm overtook us and the
track was often under water. The train hands frequently
shoveled off the wet sand from the rails. After
dark we were able to get seats in an omnibus which
jolted and careened over the flooded streets until we
were able to go in the Pulaski House. Securing a
room we prepared for the hotel supper. We had been
traveling, as you see, two whole days to cover a distance
that is trifling at this time.
Next morning we bought tickets on a steamboat that
made semi-weekly trips to St. Augustine, Fla., touching
at Darien and Brunswick en route, going and coming.
It was a fine boat they said. Everything was fine
to me, a girl of eleven or twelve perhaps. We went the
inland passage around and among the historic islands
off the coast of Georgia. We reached Brunswick about
eight o'clock Sunday morning. There was no landing
wharf. Brunswick had experienced a boom and the
boom had collapsed. We were lifted down from the
steamboat into a small boat. We were rowed along
until the beach became troublesome, so a sailor picked
me up in his arms like a baby and waded to hard
ground. My father rode pick-a-pack on the shoulder
of a robust sailor. There was one other passenger, a
victim of the boom catastrophe. He told us the big
hotel was shut up and the whole thing was flat, but we
might get lodgings with a plain family that fed pretty
well and were clever, all of which was a modest estimate
of some of the cleverest folks I ever met. We
were the only guests and they fed us up to the limit
on sea foods, like turtle soup and eggs, crabs and
shrimp to which I took like a regular fish. My father's
business was to validate some land deeds and the
Inferior Court of Flynn county met on Monday, and
that part being settled we made merry until the boat
came back Wednesday evening on the return trip.
We fished and rode in little boats to my heart's content.
Between the mosquitoes and the hot sun my
tender skin was generally blistered where exposed. We
reached Savannah Thursday up in the day and gave
the balance of the time to sight-seeing and getting
things for the dear mother and little sister at home.
There were such heaps of things, the like of which I
had never dreamed of, that decisions were hard to
make.
Finally our generous parent said "We all must
have shoes and I know the numbers," so we went to
the finest shoe store we could find and bought not one
pair apiece, but two pairs each. They were the best
he could find and my first experience with extravagant
footwear.
I was so full of enjoyment, wide awake in every fibre
of my being, not a bit troubled about boys and in
keen pursuit of all new ideas, that my father said,
"Wouldn't you like to see Charleston also?" My
answer was a joyful hug, so he bought tickets on a
boat called the "William Seabrooke" and we started
out to ride the big ocean waves. I fared all right until
I tried to dress myself next morning and then I was so
seasick my father had to come to me and carried me on
the upper deck, and I had so much "mal-de-mare,"
that I have shied at another ocean trip and will never
see Europe at my time of life. We remained a couple
of days in Charleston and it required the best of two
more days and one night to get back to Decatur. We
were very fortunate to make the trip in such good
time, as they told us.
The 4th of July came while we were in the decayed
city of Brunswick. Everybody, I mean men and boys,
celebrated with guns and powder. When they came
around where I was, in the house of our entertainers,
and fired a volley or two under the floors, I was scared
badly enough to be averse for a whole lifetime to seeking
entertainment by scaring children and dogs nearly
to death with shooting frolics.
When I received the
Congressional Record, bearing
date July 16, 1917, I found Hon. Ben Tillman of
South Carolina recorded therein and discussing slavery
in the nation. He uses the following words:
"Slavery was a curse and the Civil War was necessary
to destroy it. Nothing else could have done it because
of the profit there was in it. The same struggle for
freedom and the rights of the laboring classes in Europe
is going on right now." He reprinted also a part
of an address he made at Arlington Cemetery some
years ago. "I never believed it possible I could do it,
but slowly and by degrees I have come to think it was
best that the South should be defeated and for me to
say that is a marvel to myself. Slavery was a curse
that had to be destroyed ere the South and the world
could advance. It was a curse for which the South
was no more responsible than the North. Both sections
were responsible and both paid as penance four
long bloody years for their joint sin."
This discussion grew out of the late riots in East
St. Louis, where negroes were mobbed and killed and
ordered to vacate. I think this confession of Hon.
"Pitchfork Ben" was perhaps good for himself, lately
returned from a sanitarium and not a candidate for
reselection to the U. S. Senate, but it will not be
enthusiastically received in the State of South Carolina
by the "fire-eating" politicians of the Palmetto
State. It is only human nature to defend the actions
and opinions of our forbears, and South Carolina's
record on "nullification" and "secession" make it absolutely
impossible that Mr. Tillman's confession will
be echoed by those who will hereafter vote in Senator
Tillman's successor. But this belated confession gives
me a text for my present writing, and I propose to set
down the very words employed by Georgia's political
leaders, when Georgia followed South Carolina out of
the Federal Union in the winter of 1860-61. I own
a complete copy of the proceedings of the Secession
convention. There are very few in perfect preservation,
and this book hoary with age presents the official
statement of Georgia's grievances against those who
opposed the institution of domestic slavery.
What Mr. Tillman thinks or what I think is a very
small matter, but the results of the Georgia Secession
convention are sufficiently important to be carefully
remembered by succeeding generations. As a preamble
I will also say that Georgia, in General Oglethorpe's
time, discounted and discredited African
slavery, but the "profit in it" overcame these prudential
considerations. After the Yazoo Fraud was finally
settled, the inrush of slaveholders to the Carolinas
and Georgia became very great, and the new comers
brought along their slaves that they owned in Maryland
and Virginia under the laws prevailing in the
early colonies.
I will not attempt to record in this connection the
opposition that northern states early evinced towards
the abolition agitators. The "profit in it" and the
sale of negroes to Southern owners made business
lively. The abolitionists were frequently rotten-egged
in the state of Massachusetts in their attempts to secure
a hearing. Perhaps I am justified in saying that
abolition oratory continued to be distasteful to the
public so long as there were slaves to sell to southern
planters and until the "profit" in them became nil.
These abolition agitators did not become popular until
the politicians enlisted the northern churches in this
work of reform. When the preachers and the politicians
joined forces the row began in dead earnest, and
grew apace.
I was a small girl when I became acquainted with
Bishop James O. Andrew and I was only nine years
old when the Methodist church split over a negro girl
owned by Bishop Andrew's second wife in 1844. The
story of the split has been so often discussed-abused
and defended-that I am not inclined to say any more
on that line, at this time. From the hour when the
Methodist brethren separated at a General Conference,
until Georgia seceded in January, 1861, this
slavery question was kept to the front. The preachers
of the Southern church quoted the Bible, when they
took slavery for a pulpit discourse. Our Southern
bishops owned slaves and vigorously defended the
institution by voice and pen.
Slave property increased rapidly. Child bearing
sometimes began at twelve years and frequent births
made a heavy per cent of "profit." According to
Hon. Thos. R. R. Cobb, who was killed at the battle
of Fredericksburg, "the greatest evidence of wealth
in the planter was the number of his slaves. They
gave the most remunerative income. It was considered
the very best property to give to children and
children parted from their slaves with greatest reluctance."
These are plain and accurate statements.
Therefore, these Southern planters clung to their
slave property and continued to invest money in slave
property in Georgia after Sherman marched to the
sea. It was nothing out of the common for a planter
to pay twelve hundred dollars for a young, stalwart
negro man, and a girl who brought easily eight hundred
or a thousand dollars on the court house block
might be relied upon to bear a healthy slave child once
in two years. Anybody who could raise sufficient
money invested in slaves.
As I look back on that time of eager slave buying, I
am amazed at the lack of foresight in a business way.
Every nation that was civilized had abandoned domestic
slavery except Brazil, when our people were apparently
confident that it was a permanent thing, commanded
by the Bible and ordained of God.
There were abuses, many of them. I do not pretend
to defend these abuses. There were kind masters and
cruel masters. There were violations of the moral
law that made mulattoes as common as blackberries.
In this one particular slavery doomed itself. When
white men were willing to put their own offspring in
the kitchen and corn field and allowed them to be sold
into bondage as slaves and degraded them as another
man's slave, the retribution of wrath was hanging
over this country and the South paid penance in four
years of bloody war.
The Southern slaveholders looked on the "profit"
side so long that they believed what they said. They
proved their sincerity by buying and herding together
large slave families. The abolitionists were the best
hated people ever known within my knowledge and
the slave owner had no mercy when the abolitionists
in the pulpit discussed him. It was a time of madness,
the sort of mad-hysteria that always presages war.
There seems to be nothing left but war - when any
population in any sort of a nation gets violently angry,
civilization falls down and religion forsakes its
hold on the consciences of human kind in such times
of public madness. "Whom the gods would destroy
they first make mad."
We Southerners claimed almost divine right to the
ownership of chivalry but it would have outlawed the
most consecrated preacher known to that era of our
history if he had dared to say that a slave woman had
divine right to own her own liberty or direct the lives
of her own children. Some of the finest educators,
pious and godly men threw up their positions in the
South early in the struggle and returned to northern
latitudes after becoming residents in Georgia.
My husband, Dr. W. H. Felton, often regretted the
going away of Rev. Stephen Olin, after he had been
associated with Franklin College. The slightest
disaffection on the slavery question would have
vacated every editorial chair within the limits of the
state.
The story of our disagreements with the North filled
a part of every page in every official record of
congressional legislation. This heat and fury increased
at every session of that body until the break came,
and the Southern States pulled out and set up for
themselves. We, in the South, honestly believed we
could engineer a peaceable separation. There is no
doubt of the sincerity of the belief. It was not an
attempt at revolt or insurrection or anything else but
a resolute intention to own slaves and regulate slavery
just as our forbears had been doing for nearly a
hundred years.
So it happened that South Carolina went out first,
followed by Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Georgia
saw she was up against a tremendous proposition
and as I am only concerned to prove that it was slavery
and nothing but slavery that made Georgia secede,
I find in the records of the Georgia Secession Convention
certain indisputable facts, and nothing but facts,
will furnish reliable history. Every county in Georgia
had representation and Hon. Geo. W. Crawford
was chosen as president by acclamation. Commissioners
from South Carolina and Alabama were there to
speak. Rules for the convention were adopted. Gov.
Joseph E. Brown and ex-Governor Howell Cobb were
invited to seats on the floor. The commissioners made
their speeches on 17th January, 1861, and the convention
adjourned. On the 18th, next day, the following
resolution was offered by Hon. E. A. Nisbet: "That it
is the opinion of this convention it is the right and
duty of Georgia to secede from the present Union, and
to co-operate with such of the other States as have or
shall do the same, for the purpose of forming a Southern
Confederacy, upon the basis of the Constitution
of the United States, and that a committee be appointed
by the chair to report an ordinance to assert the
right and fulfill the obligation of the State of Georgia
to secede from the Union."
Remember that the convention had not cast a vote or
debated a single question and this hasty movement
was rushed upon it. Ex-Gov. Herschel V. Johnson,
late candidate for vice-president on the Stephen A.
Douglas ticket, offered a substitute. "The State of
Georgia is attached to the Union and desires to preserve
it if it can be done consistent with her rights and
safety, but existing circumstances admonish her of
danger; that danger arises from the assaults that are
made upon the institution of domestic slavery and is
common to all the Southern States, etc., etc."
First, Be it ordained by the State of Georgia in
sovereign convention assembled, that Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri be and are
hereby invited respectively to meet with this state by
delegates in a Congress at Atlanta, Ga., on 16th of
February, 1861, to take into consideration the whole
subject of their relations to the Federal Government,
and to devise such a course of action as their interest,
equality and safety may require." Section 2nd invited
the already seceded states to send commissioners
to said congress. Section 3rd, "That inasmuch as
Georgia is resolved not to abide permanently in the
Union without satisfactory guarantees of future security
the following propositions are respectfully
suggested as the substance of what she regards indispensable
amendments to the Constitution of the United
States:
1st. Congress shall have no power to abolish or prohibit
slavery in the territories or any place under their
jurisdiction. 2nd. Each state shall be bound to surrender
fugitive slaves, etc. The United States to pay
the owner the value of such slave, the county in which
such enticement shall occur to be liable to United
States for amount to be recovered in Federal Courts.
3rd. To be a penal offense to rescue or entice or encourage
any fugitive slave or to assist, etc., etc. 4th.
Whatever is recognized as property in the United
States shall be held to be property in the Territories,
etc.
Section 5. New states to be admitted into the
Union with or without slavery by the people at the
time of admission. 6th Congress to have no power to
prohibit or interfere with slave trade between the
states, nor prohibit citizens of United States from
carrying slaves passing through or sojourning in
District of Columbia, with prompt punishment of all
persons who may interfere. 7th. No state to pass any
law to prohibit owners from carrying slaves and returning
with them throughout the Union. 8th. Obligation
to surrender fugitive slaves or fugitives
charged with offenses connected with or committed
against slavery or slave property with agreement that
whatever is criminal in one state will be deemed criminal
in all states. 9th. No person of African descent
shall be permitted to vote for Federal officers nor to
hold any office or appointment under government of
the United States."
Such were the demands to be made on the Federal
Union or Georgia would secede. There was "elaborate
discussion" that day until the previous question
was called, and Mr. Johnson's substitute was set aside
and a direct vote on Mr. Nesbit's resolution was called
for, yea and nay vote. 160 yeas, 130 nays.
The convention organized on January 16, heard
commissioners on 17th and had virtually seceded Georgia
out of the Union on 18th. Alarming haste!!
When the ordinance was put on its passage, Mr. Hill,
of Trout, moved to give attention to Mr. Johnson's
resolution here copied. This was defeated, yeas
133, nays 164.
Then the ordinance itself was voted on. Yeas 208,
nays 89, January 19, 1861.
The balance of the secession work went along with a
cut and dried program of the first working day. The
majority was with the "fire-eaters" and they overrode
the large minority. There were tens of thousands
of Union-loving people in Georgia, but they had no
chance in that convention. They were forced into a
four-year bloody war to defend the institution of domestic
slavery, and they lost their slaves, their real
estate and personal property, lost their surplus money
and lost their lives in many cases. Excepting those
who retained their lands by self denial and self-sacrifice,
this section was swept bare by war destruction.
In a crowded parlor in Washington City, during
the late Confederate Reunion, June, 1917, I heard a
Confederate (wearing a handsome uniform with a
number of decorations on his breast, and apparently
well-to-do in this world's goods), expatiating on the
slavery question, insisting that the Bible approved it,
and God had ordained it, and the negro belonged nowhere
save in slavery and the world would not be set
aright until the old order was restored. Fifty-two
years had come and gone, and domestic slavery had
been abolished on both hemispheres, fully half a century
and this ancient warrior was still stirring the
embers of sectional fury and still spluttering about
the rights of Southern slave owners.
All we individually owned disappeared, except the
farm land, and in my old age, I am pondering this
question, why did not the South compromise by selling
their slaves or offering to take a price, and put it up to
those who were afraid of war? Was slave ownership
ever worth the sacrifice of blood and treasure that resulted
from that secession ordinance? Was Mr. Tillman
correct in saying that there was no other way to
remove the curse, and the South did penance with a
four-years bloody war? To clear his words of all ambiguity,
did the Lord Almighty punish the slave owners
by sending on them the awful struggle that ended
in complete destruction of the South and the sacrifice
of hundreds of thousands of lives? Any reader of history
will agree with me that the negro question is not
half settled. Our fifty years of hard experience since
the Civil War demonstrates one fact only, that the
negro is in the United States to stay and according as
he is dealt with, depends our own peace or disaster in
his association with the whites.
There is a well-authenticated story exploited in
the newspapers of the present year, 1917, that President
Lincoln, in February, 1865, met the Confederate
commissioners at the Hampton Roads conference and
made some sort of advances, looking towards a cessation
of hostilities and other suggestions looking towards
some reasonable remuneration for slave property.
This is affirmed by several reliable persons, who
declare that Hon. A. H. Stephens made such statements
and he was the vice president of the ill-fated
Confederacy at the time. Some of these declarations
are in the shape of affidavits. On the other side several
noted persons declare there was nothing of the
kind that occurred, that it was a fake story. I have
understood that the Confederate Veterans organization
proposes to explore into this matter and give the
result at the reunion in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1918.
Hon. Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, declares he
had the story at first hand from Mr. Stephens. Hon.
Julian Carr, of North Carolina, denies that any such
story can or will be affirmed. The meeting between
President Lincoln and Vice-President Stephens did
take place in Hampton Roads, February 3, 1865. Mr.
Stephens was accompanied by Confederate Secretary
of War, formerly Judge Campbell, of the Federal Supreme
Court, and Hon. R. M. L. Hunter, Confederate
Senator of Virginia.
Secretary of State W. H. Seward was the :Federal
Commissioner, and so far as known Mr. Lincoln's
presence was not expected. What he said on any of
these matters was addressed privately to Mr. Stephens.
There was lack of harmony between the president
and vice-president of the Confederacy. I am convinced
that Mr. Stephens entertained different views
from Mr. Davis, especially in the latest months of the
war struggle. Mr. Stephens is recorded as being in
Crawfordville on the 20th of February, 1865, and he
evidently understood that the government at Richmond
was on its last legs. The surrender at Appomattox
was only two months off when the meeting at
Hampton Roads took place. The story goes that Mr.
Lincoln said if he might write Union on the top of
the page, and the Confederates would lay down arms
they might write anything else below and he would
sign it. The Confederate commissioners conferred
and reported they must only ask for their independence.
So the last and final chance to get some sort of
a compromise went glimmering, and Mr. Lincoln's
overture did no good and every life that was shot out
afterwards was sacrificed. Indeed as the war business
appealed to me there was nothing but loss and sacrifice
after the battle of Gettysburg. Going into war as
we did to preserve the institution of domestic slavery,
we risked everything and lost everything by the venture,
and we also lost the sympathy of the outside
world because of our slavery contention.
I remember the visit President Davis made to Macon
in February, 1865. My husband went to the city
to hear the speech. We were poor refugees, only four
miles distant. I watched and waited for his return,
for my heart was heavy and the times ominous. I
saw little hopefulness in his face. "The President
told us we were doing well and there was no doubt as
to our final success." It was the old, old story, and
Sherman had already marched to the sea and Georgia
was prostrate. Despite the rigid, drastic conscription
which called all men from sixteen to sixty, despoiling
the cradle and the grave. Sherman went from Atlanta
to Savannah practically unopposed. I was called
to see my sick mother in Crawfordville, Ga., just
before Sherman threatened Macon. We were cut off
in returning by the burning of the railroad bridge
over the Oconee river. We were only ten miles from
the conflagration, and there was nothing to be done
but to go back either to Crawfordville, or try to make
a long circuit by Savannah, then to Albany, and then
northward. We essayed the latter route. On that
trip we passed car-loads of Andersonville prisoners
being removed to another camp as it was expected that
Sherman would strike for Andersonville. The night
was gloomy and the torch fires made a wierd
scene as
our train rolled along beside passing flat cars on which
those Federal prisoners were guarded, with torch
lights illuminating the faces of those ragged, smoke-begrimed,
haggard and miserably filthy men. I had a
glimpse of war conditions that was new to me. Prison
treatment of such men has always been a disgrace to
Christianity and civilization. I had read of Camp
Chase and Johnson's Island and been angered at the
treatment accorded to our Confederate prisoners, but
that sight of train-loads of Federal prisoners on that
wild night in Southern Georgia, when I could look
into their faces within a few feet of the train I became
an eyewitness to their enforced degradation, filth
and utter destitution and the sight never could be forgotten.
Nor can I forget seeing on a depot platform
a dead negro man who had said something offensive to
an Andersonville guard and he had been shot a few
minutes before our train pulled in. The quivers of
dying flesh had hardly subsided in his stalwart body
as we rolled away.
There never was a more loyal woman in the South
after we were forced by our political leaders to go to
battle to defend our rights in ownership of African
slaves, but they called it "State's Rights," and all I
owned was invested in slaves and my people were loyal
and I stood by them to the end. Like General Lee,
I could not fight against my kindred in a struggle that
meant life or death to them. Nevertheless I am now
too near to the border land of eternity to withhold
my matured conscientious and honest opinion. If
there had been no slaves there would have been no
war. To fight for the perpetuation of domestic slavery
was a mistake. The time had come in the United
States to wipe out this evil. The South had to suffer,
and even when our preachers were leading in prayer
for victory, during the war, and black-robed mothers
and wives were weeping for their dead ones, who perished
on the field of battle, I had questions in my own
mind as to what would be the end of it.
We had a Methodist camp ground on our plantation
in 1860. Immense crowds were in attendance on Sunday
exercises, among them the Governor of the State.
The crowd was so great I could not leave our tent as
we were cooking and feeding people the most of the
day. On Sunday night, while the mourner's bench
was crowded and people shouting down in the auditorium,
there were neighbors and friends inside our
tent armed to the teeth waiting for midnight to go out
quietly to suppress a "rising" that had been reported
to them late in the afternoon. The dread of negro
insurrection and social equality with negroes at the
ballot box held the Southern whites together in war
or peace. That "rising" was a false alarm but the
terror of these risings made Southern fathers and husbands
desperate as to remedies. It is the secret of
lynching instead of a legal remedy. It was "born in
the blood and bred in the bone," and a resultant of
domestic slavery in the Southern States. It was at
the bottom of the East St. Louis riots. It is working
like leaven in a thousand localities where unsuspecting
people live today. Therefore I affirm that the negro
question is unsettled and the end is still out of sight.
This irritating side of the slavery issue is still rampant
throughout Georgia, and spreading in north and west.
I heard the cannon in Rome, Georgia, twenty-five
miles away, when Georgia seceded. I was only three
miles distant from the railroad the night Mr. Jefferson
Davis passed through to Montgomery, Ala., to be made
President of the Confederacy. If it had been in day
time I should have seen him. I saw Georgia troops
reviewed by the Governor at "Big Shanty" when they
were drilling for the last time before leaving for Virginia.
The battle of Manassas was going on when they
passed through our town on July 21, 1861. The wires
were working telling about the battle and the women
were sobbing with arms about the necks of soldier boys
who were bidding them a final good-bye at the depot.
The only brother I had was a cadet at Marietta Military
Institute and he volunteered with the Gate City
Guards of Atlanta sometime before he was sixteen.
That boy-beardless, slender, tenderly raised, immature,
a child in years, left his mother in gleeful delight,
anxious to go, craving excitement, and knowing
nothing whatever about camp life or the dangers that
were in front of him. His mother's face was quivering
with suffering and anxiety, a part of her very life
was carried along with that heedless youth, and her
anxiety never lessened until her son surrendered with
General Forrest, at LaGrange, at the close; of the war.
The most serious thing about war is the slaughter of
boys. It is the boys of the country who must face
the enemy. They lose education. They risk the vices
of camp life, they encounter the diseases that swoop
down on them, and generally bring home enough of
the evils to wreck physical and moral health for all
time. They are the "seed corn" of any nation and
the crop fails. The political leaders force a country
into bloody strife and three-fourths of the army are
young men and boys who had absolutely nothing to do
with bringing it on, without any real knowledge of the
evils resented or principles fought for.
If our political leaders in January, 1861, had placarded
the walls in Milledgeville with our intention to
fight for the perpetuation of negro slavery the convention
would have stepped backward, but to show
the exceeding haste and folly of our times the members
of the secession convention, as before noted,
placed no other grievance or policy of defense on their
official minutes.
There was scarcely a week of war time that we did
not feed soldiers going or coming. I knitted socks,
gloves and sleeping caps continuously. We had wounded
soldiers to stay with us, we carried food to trains,
when wounded soldiers were being transported to
points lower down. For a number of days after the
bloody battle of Chickamauga the trains were packed
with wounded, a number dying on the way. We made
a daily business of cooking and carrying baskets of
good food to help them along. Some of the most tragic
episodes of my life happened in trying to relieve
the distress of the time. It would take a larger book
than this to set them down in detail.
In the spring of 1864 it was evident that Cherokee
Georgia would be overrun by the Federal army. The
Confederate troops were at Dalton, and Gen. Sherman
was preparing to leave Chattanooga. We decided
to refugee southward, secured an old farm four miles
from Macon to make a crop and left our home
with fifteen colored slaves in charge. I never saw the
home any more until August, 1865. When I reached
the gate I picked up the springs that had been a part
of my dead child's fine baby carriage, also the arm
of a large parlor mahogany chair that had been also
burned. Desolation and destruction everywhere, bitter,
grinding poverty - slaves all gone, money also.
We certainly paid the price while we were in refugee
condition. General Storeman made his raid on Macon,
expecting to reach Andersonville where the Federal
prisoners were located. We fell in his line of approach.
They tethered their horses in our lots after
midnight. When day light came the face of the earth
was covered with "blue coats" mounted cavalry.
They did not capture Macon but our place was inside
their lines all day and succeeding night. They took
all they cared to have and trampled down crops before
they slipped away. They surrendered eight or
ten miles from us to General Iverson.
Sherman's army and Wheeler's cavalry overran us
in the month of November, 1864. When it came to foraging
one side was nearly as bad as the other. Sherman
had so little opposition that he chose his own direct
route to Savannah. The Confederacy was cut in
two and a line of lone chimneys marked the burned
path he made from Atlanta to the sea. It was very
astounding to remember all these reverses and yet we
were constantly told we would certainly succeed, and
we clutched at every item of news that indicated a
success. Our politicians still were speechifying. Hon.
Linton Stephens made an address in Macon in which
were criticisms of the administration on the futility
and fatality of conscript legislation as it was worked
out in the Southern army.
With drastic regulations as to conscription, and
every male from sixteen to sixty liable to service, the
armies dwindled away. Yet there were men in plenty
- officials galore, and exempts in abundance.
I cannot go into minor details but must not fail to
note the surrender of Macon, which completed the surrender
of the sovereign state of Georgia, and which
occurred a very few days or hours before Appomattox,
early in April, 1865.
There was at least one newspaper still printed in
Macon and we had to go there for news and to mail
our letters. Having heard nothing but rumors for
several days, I decided to ride horseback and find out
if General Wilson was really advancing on Macon. I
hitched the horse in East Macon, walked across Central
R. R. bridge (city bridge having been burned),
and made my way to Burke's book store on Mulberry
street. Mr. Burke had formerly lived in Cass County
(We were angry with General Cass and renamed it
Bartow, after General Francis Bartow was killed at
first Manasses battle) and was our friend. As I approached
the store door, nearly level with the street,
I saw a gentleman sitting close by outside in a split-bottomed
chair. His face seemed familiar but I was
not certain, so I requested Mr. Burke to return to the
door with me and tell me about him. He had on plain
clothes, plain hat, etc. Said Mr. Burke, "that is Major
-General Howell Cobb, commander-in-chief of the
military forces of the State of Georgia." He proceeded
to tell me that whiskey barrels had been broken
in (I could smell it in the gutters) and a squad of
Macon citizens had gone out to meet the victorious
General Wilson who was reported twenty miles away
early that morning, with rapid moving cavalry and attended
by hundreds of negroes, who had been gathering
behind him since he had occupied Columbus. The
citizens expected the worst and that squad of citizens
were asking for protection from loot, rapine and the
torch. Mr. Burke advised me to get back to my refuge
shack without delay, which advice I followed and
in haste. I still wonder that I had the temerity to undertake
that lonely ride. It was a deserted road,
much of it still in forest growth, and the poor little
horse was slow. As I went along, grieved and depressed
by our condition, I remembered that Major
General Howell Cobb had been one of the most active
fire-eaters in the secession convention, one of the many
who could not wait even a few days to discuss the risks
and dangers which everybody knew would assail us.
Not a corporal's guard did he bring forward in Macon
to meet the advancing foe; and yet as commander-in
-chief of all of Georgia military forces he could have
called to the colors every boy and man from sixteen
to sixty in that section by conscription. (From what I
then saw I was strenuously opposed to conscription
for Georgia boys in 1917. I had no objection to allowing
volunteers to go to France or to serve in airplanes
if they volunteered for such service, but I did my little
best to convince Georgia readers that it would not do
to force our soldiers into airships or to send them
across the Atlantic ocean to dictate to foreign governments
or fight for kings or queens or command the
sort of rulers they should have in the future.) The
army of General Wilson reached Macon in the afternoon
and poor old Georgia was done for. Although
the state had sent many thousands to army service and
had borne with patience the failures, mistakes and defeats
that had been forced on her by lack of statesmanship,
yet in the hour of her deepest humiliation the
commander-in-chief of Georgia's reserves had nothing,
not a man to offer to stand between her innocent women
and what an invading army might inflict upon
them. The issue of slavery became too frail a support
in that gloomy period of the South's history for protection,
and I still wonder that we still had no influential
statesmen who might have grasped the facts and
stood for something else besides war, where hundreds
of thousands of white men were forced by conscription
into bloody combat to defend that slavery contention.
After Macon surrendered we also understood that the
Confederacy had collapsed. The final surrender at
Appomattox fell on dull ears. The capture of President
Jefferson Davis and the bringing of himself and
escort to Macon made a ripple of excitement for a few
days, but we realized that the game had been fully
played and all was lost. Billions of values disappeared
and nobody but thrifty speculators had a dollar
to spend or to begin the struggle again or start in
business with bitter poverty and starvation in front
of them.
We must also chronicle the lack of statesmanship after
the Southern politicians were convinced that they
had unwisely rushed Georgia into secession. For
more than fifty years this subject has been discussed
in Congress, on the stump and by churchmen, and
newspapers. It filled congress with small men, of the
demagogue variety, both North and South. It has retarded
the South's progress after the slavery issue was
settled so far as slave ownership was concerned. It
has been stirred and exploited in every national election.
If the ownership of slaves was a curse to the
South, according to Mr. Tillman, the enmities and injustices
of Civil War hatreds, along with sectional
animosity and race evils, have been a curse to the entire
Union. And the end is not yet. As I write these
lines there is bloody race conflict in Pennsylvania. It
promises to be a lively issue in the progress of the
present war as an internal disturbance from Maine to
California, from the Lakes to the Gulf. The children
of the Southern States are being unwisely taught by
Southern agitators, women as well as men, that the
political issues of the Civil War are still germane and
worthy of adoration. They are instructed to call the
Lost Cause a glorious cause. They resent any change
in public opinion, because the change would mean
their own retiracy to back seats in politics and from
public attention. They are barnacles on the ship of
state, and they have inoculated hatred to "D-n Yankees,"
as a creed to be eulogized and fostered. The
curse of slavery is still following hard upon the footsteps
of our nation's progress because of hybrid races
of mulatto and mestizo varieties. Every nation that
has a recorded history went to decay when honorable
marriage was trampled upon and the South went to
defeat because of violations of the moral law. As a
rule, slave owners were careful of the health of their
slaves. "The profit in it," made them careful. There
were bad masters, many of them, but the increase of
slave property before the Civil War attests the good
feeding and housing of the slaves. The crime that
made slavery a curse, lies in the fact that unbridled
lust placed the children of bad white men in slave
pens, on auction blocks, and no regard was shown to
parentage or parental responsibility in such matters.
I remember well a noted home in Middle Georgia
where a rich man lived in open alliance with a colored
woman and where Governors and Congressmen were
often invited to dine and where they were glad to go.
These visitors understood conditions in the Dickson
home. They knew there were children there born of a
slave mother and the law of Georgia forbade such
miscegenation. These facts are of record because of the
contest over the valuable Dickson estate in the courts
of Georgia and the colored children were given the
money because the owner acknowledged the progeny
in his will. There were other men of distinction in
Georgia who also defied the marriage law of the state
by keeping up two households on the same plantation,
one white and the other colored, and both women were
afraid to make public outcry.
Therein lay the curse of slavery.
It is continually urged that "Southern civil war
soldiers were not thinking of their slaves because few
of them had any." It is a serious arraignment, because
those who had no slaves were finally forced to
go, because of rigid conscription laws, and very few
of the large landowners who urged on the war were
killed on the battle fields. They were active as a rule
in legislation passed by the secession convention, and
as herein shown devoted to slaves and slavery and its
perpetuation and protection.
On page 293 of Journal of Georgia Secession Convention,
you will find the following words: " The
General Assembly (of Georgia) shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves." These
were very superfluous words. Those who owned them
wanted more and those who did not own them were
looking forward to the time when they hoped to own
them. This secession convention had a great deal to
say of "slave-holding states" and while no general
assembly was allowed to pass laws emancipating slaves
no citizen might forbid or interfere with the bringing
in of slaves. One of the inducements offered to Maryland
and Delaware was worded thus: "Go on and raise
your own labor." This slave-owning Confederacy
was to be a close corporation, only slave-owning states
were to be admitted and by raising their own labor
there was nothing to hinder in commercial enterprises
because of this monopoly of slave labor.
"The profit in it" made these slave-holding states
arrogant, also very angry. Abolitionists were likewise
politically active. When the heat of the argument became
consuming, there was nothing left but the arbitrament
of the sword. Thus the South lost the slaves,
and the profit in them. Common sense should have dictated
a compromise. There was apparent lack of
statesmanship.
I am impressed that the slavery advocates expected
to retire without bloodshed. If they had been wiser
compromise offers would have been in evidence.
Nothing but the expectation of a peaceful separation
will explain the hasty methods used by the politicians
of the early 60s. And the end is still in abeyance.
[Synopsis of an address
delivered in Augusta, Ga, on invitation
of United Daughters of Confederacy in year 1900.]
"The pleasing introduction to which I have listened
this evening was delightful to me, and will be long remembered.
To one like myself, going down the sunset
slope of life, such kind words are like cooling
drinks in the heat of the day, and will remain with
me to keep this visit in sweet remembrance.
"I would be glad if I had the time to tell you what
I have gathered concerning Georgia women in Revolutionary
periods. I could present you with some of
our Colonial women who were noble patriots. I am
tempted to recite what I know from early Georgia
history of Mary Musgrove, known in General Oglethorpe's
time as the Empress of the Creek Nation.
Her father had two children, a son and daughter,
and he made choice of the latter as the reigning sovereign
of the then powerful Creek Indians.
"She had frequent dealings with General Oglethorpe
as a ruling chieftainess. She drew a pension
of $500 from the British Government for many years
before her death. In a settlement with the whites she
was allowed three Islands on the seacoast of Georgia,
two of which her last husband sold for $10,000 in solid
cash. She was given at another time $3,000 in gold.
Mary died on St. Catherine's Island and her dwelling
was standing as late as 1820. Mary's weak point was
matrimony. Every venture she made was only fairly
good, then bad and then worse. Her latest spouse was
an Episcopal clergyman who came out with General
Oglethorpe and who urged Mary to press her
claims as an Indian Empress to the limit. When Mary
was sober she refused to follow the preacher. When
she was full of rum she made a fool of herself as
generally happens.
Nevertheless there was in her the making of a great
woman. She is the most prominent figure in General
Oglethorpe's time, save this great English lord who
first settled in Georgia.
I might tell you a good deal about Nancy Hart, the
revolutionary patriot, in the early settling of Eastern
Georgia. She made her mark in brave, bold, strong
lines. She was a terror to the Tory factions of that
stormy time. One biographer says Nancy was crosseyed
and loved her dram. She could be all that is
charged against her, and still be superior to her ill-
natured biographer, who was doubtless a woman hater.
Nancy could handle a gun with the best marksmen
of her time. She did defend a fort filled with women
and children while the men of the neighborhood
were chasing Indians and catching up with Tories.
She loaded the cannon in the fort and when she discovered
a sorry fellow in hiding she brought him out
and put him behind the cannon to obey orders or she
would give him what he deserved as a slacker.
One critic says: "Nancy was a honey of a patriot,
but a d-l of a wife." Nevertheless Nancy raised
a large family of children and only moved westward
when game became scarce in the rich bottom lands of
the Savannah river.
Nancy enjoys the very notable distinction of being
the only Georgia woman who has had a county in
Georgia named after her. True it is, she married a
Hart, yet it was Nancy who captured Tories and drove
them to the camps of the patriots. Hart county should
have been called Nancy Hart county.
Before I begin to tell you what I personally knew of
Southern women in the Civil War, I shall tell you
something about a class of women who lived in plantation
homes, and who belonged there, and who raised
families and whose work in the fields and the kitchen,
in the loom-house and the dwelling, that we occupied
in the Southern States, and who richly deserve honorable
mention, and who contributed mightily to the
maintenance of the struggling Confederacy during
four years of bloody warfare.
I allude to the colored women, who were the cooks,
the nurses and the main reliance of the white women
in their arduous duties and unremitting struggle of
the early 60s, where numbers were to be fed and
clothed, nursed and protected, both black and white.
It was a marvel, an enigma in abolition latitudes,
that the slaves did not rise en-masse, at the beginning
of hostilities. They marvelled, still that they did not, as did
the Israelites when Pharoah
was buried under
the waters of the Red Sea. When the Federal armies
encircled the Confederacy and every day's supply became
scarcer and more difficult to gather, and the
cordon was drawn closer in and raids were always
threatened and many times were experienced,
it was astonishing that the slave population did not
refuse to serve and become unmanageable to their
owners. They could have "despoiled the Egyptians,"
and yet strange to say great numbers were not only
anxious to stay with their white folks when the surrender
came, and did stay after emancipation and was
a fact beyond dispute. In getting close to my subject
I cannot omit the part that thousands of these colored
women carried on in perfect or apparent harmony
with their mistresses in the big house, the business of
those households.
I was born and raised in Georgia. My active life
has been linked with the fortunes and misfortunes of my
native state. I was raised with the servants that
were in my home when I was born. My nurse, Agnes,
was given to my mother by her parents to be my nurse.
I loved her dearly and she often gave proof of her love
for me. When she took unto herself a husband
he lived on another plantation and came to see her
every Saturday night with a pass. When she became
the mother of several children and her husband's master
would not sell Tom at any price, Agnes told us
she would like to go with her husband, and she did
go (at a sacrifice) to oblige her. But when I married
Agnes came to me and begged that I should buy her
and her family. She loved me so well that she was
willing to go anywhere to live near me. The affection
was strong on both sides, but there was more money at
stake than I could command.
My sister's nurse came to her in the same way. Minerva
took to herself a husband in the family at home.
They had their cabin and a big wedding as a starter
in married life. To the day of her death she was
equally devoted to my sister and I am going to say in
this connection, that the strong affection that existed
between the whites and blacks will give the answer to
the question. "Why did not the negroes rise and
struggle for freedom when the Federal armies were
pressing the Confederacy to the walls?" As I stand
in this presence and measure my words in the sight of
Heaven, I believe we owe the security of Confederate
homes to the affection that prevailed between those
who had lived together so long and the confidence that
both had in each other.
When the majority of white men were in the army
and plantations were crowded with slaves large and
small, there were fewer disturbances than occurred before
or since the Civil War. I recall my black mammy
who belonged to my father, a childless black woman, a
cripple from white swelling since she was eleven years
old, who was the most capable and satisfactory house
servant with whom I have been associated during my
long life. My first recollections are of Mammy. I
remember a little stool in her cabin that was kept for
my use. I can see in memory a little child intent on
learning things Mammy could teach her, to knit, to
sew, to card cotton rolls, and trying to do what Mammy
did. I never heard an ugly word from her lips. I
never heard my parents utter a cross word to her. I
can still see the walls in her cabin festooned with
strings of red pepper, bachelor buttons and ropes of
chips of yellow pumpkin. Her small looking glass was
encircled with cedar twigs that had been dipped in
flour and the happy child would fall asleep in Mammy's
lap and take a nap on Mammy's clean bed when
the housefolks were gone to town or off on a visit, or
at church. I have never eaten anything more appetizing
than Mammy's cooking where we ate together.
The best that I had was shared with her and her husband,
Uncle Sam, on Saturday nights always brought
chestnuts, chinquapins, red apples or bird's eggs and
such like and placed them in the "till" of Mammy's
chest, and there I was sure to find them on those
delightful visits to Mammy's cabin. I had some temper
then and later on, and one time I got impatient
and slapped Mammy. I knew I had committed a serious
offense but I was too stubborn to say so. I went
to the big house, crept into my little bed and suffered
as I deserved to suffer until Mammy came in, to get
her orders for next morning's breakfast, and broke
the news of my late insurrection to my mother. I was
glad. I wanted to get it done and over with. I had
to beg Mammy's pardon, and also have her hug me
once again to her bosom in token of a better peace.
To her dying day she was a true and faithful friend.
These personal allusions will, I hope, illustrate what
I have intended to convey at this time. When Mammy's
lame leg made an invalid of her, her meals were
always sent from the table and arranged by my mother's
hands. Her clothing was good and made for her
regularly. She knew she would be cared for and was
grateful for the affectionate kindness. Kindness begot
kindness and I do not believe any living human could
have persuaded Mammy to consent to an injury for
those she had loved so well.
There were just such colored women scattered all
over the Southland. I take pleasure in paying tribute
to their fidelity and general excellence for seeds of
violence might have been quickly sown if the soil had
been receptive.
There was more or less of self interest in the slave
owner's attitude to such faithful ones. They were
valuable as property in ante-bellum days. Their health
was looked after, they had abundant plain food
and they were provided with good strong, coarse
shoes and heavy cloth garments in cold weather. There
was no stint as to fuel and the doctor came when they
were sick.
I chose to begin my lecture on these efficient and
willing workers and I will further say they were accustomed
to use better speech and copy better manners
from the white folks at the "big house" as house
servants.
I know slavery had many and glaring evils. There
were bad men then, also bad men now, but the colored
women on the farms were glad to go to the mistress for
protection when raiders came along and the roar of
the enemy's cannon could be heard in the distance.
It is proposed to raise a monument of either marble
or bronze to the memory of the good slaves, and I
hope it will be done. That much money could hardly
be spent in a more satisfactory way. With Joshua,
who made his wind-up speech after the twelve stones
were placed in the river Jordan, we can also say:
"That this may be a sign among you that when your
children ask their fathers in time to come what mean
ye by these stones" - this story can also be told. The
Northern people had an idea that Southern white women
were constitutionally lazy, because of idle habits
and enervating climate. Doubtless we had plenty of
idle people as in other sections but the wife and
mother on an ante-bellum Southern plantation was
rarely one of such idle ones. Sometimes there was a
housekeeper who was most frequently colored, but
the mistress of a plantation household had to be efficient
to keep things going with the necessary amount
of economy and caution.
For one thing I will mention the prevalence of a most
generous hospitality. Invited people came, of
course, but the great majority came when the notion
took them. There were nurses also and carriage drivers
to come with children or invalids. It required
administrative talent, executive ability, and unwearying
patience not to mention economy to conduct such
establishments, and give satisfaction to guests and
hostesses. Such a household had hotel appearances,
without hotel remuneration.
There was something in these things that might be
compared to feudal times, but I never expect to see in
any station of life, where so much entertaining was so
gladly given, and so little expected in return, except
in kind. Wealth accumulated sometimes, but it was
the increase in slave property that counted up. More
negroes meant more land, then more land required
more negroes to work it.
Generally the planters squared off their store accounts
once a year, at cotton selling time, but Xmas
was the time of great eating and sometimes drinking,
when neighbors and friends had great spreads of
everything good to eat for visitors.
When young folks married they were settled off
with land and negroes and then they traveled the same
old circuit. More negroes to cultivate more land,
then more land to raise up more negroes to work it.
I had foresight enough to see and know that these
responsibilities were becoming formidable. I could
as I believed, foretell a halt on a machine that kept
spreading over ground, getting more difficult to manage
year by year, but like the rest of the Southern women,
I was only a woman and nobody asked me for
an opinion.
It was a great agricultural section of country that
the Civil War broke upon, like a thunder clap from an
almost clear sky, with a four-years of hail storm along
with it.
Upon nobody did the storm fall more dreadful and
unexpectedly than upon the women of the South. At
first there were volunteers, but there was actually no
preparation for equipping an army in the Southern
States. The clothing problem was a difficult one.
The women proceeded to send their blankets to the
army and cut up their woolen carpets to help out the
blanket proposition. We scraped lint from all the
linen of worn towels and table cloths and stripped the
sheets into bandages for the wounded in hospitals.
We knitted socks and sleeping caps, and mittens, incessantly.
We sent all the good things like jellies and
preserves to the army. I had two serviceable dresses
of fine wool cloth with five or six whole widths in the
skirt according to style. I fashioned them into fatigue
shirts for the boys in the army and wore cotton
homespun frocks at home. When the war closed I
had a silk dress, but not a woolen one to my name.
For more than two years after the war my best street
attire was a home-spun and home woven linsy
frock,
the wool clipped from a few sheep that we had
brought back from a refugee home, and the weaving
paid for out of my earnings as a poor school teacher.
The winter stockings on my feet were knit by my busy
fingers at odd times, and the shoes that carried me
through two hard winters were fashioned by a
country shoemaker, and made of leather given by a
refugee friend who once owned a tannery near the
Tennessee line. This was after the Civil War, remember,
when there were plenty of Northern made things
in all the stores, but money was scarce, provisions
were high, and the old home had been dismantled and
all I could spare was needed just there - to start up
housekeeping in even a very plain and comfortable
way.
After the blockade was effectually established during
the Civil War, the South was thrown back on native
supplies. At one time a famine of salt was ominous.
The sea supply was inadequate and the salt springs
in Virginia were more than once raided.
On all big plantations salt had been lavishly used
from time immemorial. Where sixty or seventy fat
hogs were slaughtered annually as occurred in our
ante-bellum home, to provide pork and bacon for a
large slave family, the ground floors of these meat
houses were full of dissolved salt. The dirt was dug
up, thrown into big hoppers and water passed through
the salty dirt into long troughs. We skimmed and
boiled and reskimmed and boiled and then evaporated
the water, securing quantities of gray salt that could
be used to cure meat. I experimented with the salt
and finally produced a little salt that could be used
for butter.
The salt scare penetrated my entire being, and what
we would have done without salt still perplexes my
mind. The scarcity of sugar was felt after General
Grant succeeded at Vicksburg and cut off Louisiana
sugar.
But Georgia, near the southern limit, grew all the
sugar cane that was possible. Cane syrup was so good
and sorghum was a universal crop to provide
"longsweetening." Some poet should sing the virtues of
this sorghum. It tided us over a very hard time in
the Confederacy. All silver money slid out of sight.
We had bushels of Confederate paper and as many
"shin plasters," which were of great service as equal
parts of a dollar.
Coffee played out completely in farm homes. We
had all sorts of substitutes - parched wheat, parched
rye, sweet potatoes cut in small cubes, first dried in
the sun and then cooked in an oven like coffee. Okra
seed was the best of them all. For tea we gathered
raspberry leaves and the great majority had sassafras
root tea. It was healthy and plentiful. Sweet potatoes
filled an immense place in the Civil War. They
were roasted in the fireplace, baked in the ovens, fried
in the skillets, boiled in the dinner pots, puddinged
for dessert, with long sweetening to make it toothsome.
Wheat flour was scarce, and we had every
sort of corn cake that might be contrived from the
"ash cake" of the cabin to the "Dixie cake" of the
big house, where it was made to look like pound cake.
From the time the roasting ears could be prepared
for the table until the lye-hominy was plentiful in
frosty weather, we had corn bread every day in the
Southern homes. Lee's soldiers were well satisfied
when they could get plenty of boiled corn in the
trenches, and the folks at home made no complaint
if the "boys at the front" were fed.
After Stoneman raided from Atlanta towards Macon,
in July, 1864, I knew a nice family who had
nothing whatever to eat unless they chewed bushes or
dug up roots to quiet hunger. After the raiders had
passed them they gathered up the scattered corn left
by the cavalry horses, washed and rewashed it and
boiled it into hominy and kept going cheerfully until
their needs were made known to more plentiful
neighbors.
It was a serious time in homes, where hunger had
never entered before.
And those long, waiting, dreary winter nights! Oh!
those long weeks when a battle had been fought and
no letters from the army came to relieve the
anxiety at home!!
And the gude wife wrote the letters
Perhaps your mother,
like mine, has passed to her
eternal reward, or mayhap she is still here to tell you
how awful it is to be overrun by an invading army,
to be driven to seek shelter in refugee homes, to see
the hand work of a lifetime scattered and disappear,
and to know that those dearer than her own life were
still battling at the front with big battles impending,
and newspapers full of casualties, and lists of the
known dead coming along with awful certainty and in
great numbers.
My mother had only one son, a cadet at the Marietta
Military school, not yet sixteen, a beardless boy, and
he did enlist and left that anxious mother with a smile
on his face, eager for the excitement and the fray. He
spent his first winter in West Virginia, without tents
and with deep snows. His mother couldn't sleep at
night in her warm bed because this heedless boy was
lying on the ground, with a rubber blanket under
him, and a wool blanket over him, and every day was
a long day, that she did not hear from him and with
the heedlessness of youth he only wrote when he wanted
something, and he might die and be buried weeks
before she could hear from him. The anxiety of these
faithful women of the South can never be described or
appreciated by outsiders.
When the South lost out and the will of the military
was the law of the land, the sense of helplessness
of Southern homes was a dreadful burden to bear. A
country without law is a country to get away from. I
was in Macon, Ga., the day that Georgia was surrendered
to Federal troops in April, 1865. The utter
helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most
tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.
But for the fortitude of the women of the Confederacy,
and the resolute courage of the plain privates,
the bottom would have dropped out just then. The
story of Southern women will never be told until the
final chapter is written of their heavy trials with
poverty, with poor help, with no money to educate
their children and no privileges of travel or education
in new methods, in labor-saving, etc.
I am going to close with a tribute to a dear woman
who was reared in a lovely and refined home, and
made a lovely and refined home for her husband and
children, until war's rude alarms came to the home
and took off the husband and father.
She was obliged to get away when Sherman began
to march on Atlanta. She was more than two hundred
miles from home when the civil war ceased. She and
her three or four children started back, with a small
wagon, one horse, and a colored driver, who was glad
to go home also. The driver walked beside the horse,
the small children rode in the wagon and the blessed
woman walked the most of the way in that tedious
trip. When I saw her first, after some months of absence
from my own home, she was the brightest, the
cheerfulest, and as I thought, the happiest person I
had met in a long time. The husband had also a weary
trip from Virginia, a footsore trip a good deal of
the way, but as she said, "I am so happy over his return,
I am so happy to be at home again, reunited to
my dearest ones, and so happy over peace, blessed
peace, I have everything in life to be thankful for."
One more and I am done. After the war had been
over several years, we had a little family on our farm,
consisting of a widowed mother and her industrious
son, over 21. Their whole dependence for a living lay
with this well-meaning son's wages.
She kept the house, had his meals ready and did
some knitting to sell, and quilting for neighbors. She
and her husband had a number of children when he
was called into service. The county authorities paid
out some money or some supplies to her until Sherman
came along and everything was in chaos. She
lived in the country where wood could be gathered
and she had a good Irish woman and some railroad
track hands for neighbors, when small pox broke out
in her home. When two had died and the Situation became
extreme because everybody but the Irish people
who were immune from the disease, after inoculation,
were afraid to go near her. A relative advised
of her forlorn condition, with every child broken out,
brought her some provisions in a sack and laid the
sack inside the fence and talked to her from the door.
He brought her word, also, that her husband's remains
were in a coffin and lying on the depot platform
and must be buried right off. She did not know that
he had been sick in camp at Charleston until that
hour. For two or three days she had to watch night
and day, only relieved by the faithful Irish woman
who came in occasionally as her daily duties permitted.
It was this boy now living with her and the
support of her old age. He had a bad case of confluent
small pox and would have choked to death but
for her incessant care. What a heroine, was that woman,
in my eyes?
And there were thousands of such women in the
mountain regions and wire-grass plains that suffered
as she did. It was a dreadful price to pay for war!
In the days that are coming somebody will write a
full story of the South's hero women. Did not Emerson
speak aright, when he said "the heroic soul
does not sell its justice or its nobleness. It does not
ask to dine nicely or to sleep warm. The essence of
greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty
is its ornament. It does not need plenty and can
very well abide the loss." I salute this organization
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy! In the
name of their brave mothers it is a privilege to oblige
them.
As Mrs. Browning wrote:
"The sweetest lives are those to duty wed,
It has been my good
fortune to be officially connected
with several large expositions, and as that association
was a liberal education to me, in regard to our
commercial progress as a state and nation, I deem it
well to publish some data, that affected me personally
while the story of our commercial progress was being
officially recorded in the statistics of those periods.
After the city of Chicago was accepted by Congress
as the place where a national exposition would be held
to commemorate the discovery of America, by Christopher
Columbus, Congress also decided to allow the
women of the nation to elaborate women's work and
to share in the duty of selecting the juries which
would award medals and certificates of merit in a competitive
examination of such work during the fair.
There were to be two women selected from each state
and territory, to become a Board of Lady Managers
with a per diem allowance for maintenance and traveling
expenses, when on duty in Chicago. To my surprise
and gratification, I was notified by General Lafayette
McLaws, of Augusta, that he had selected me
as one of the two Georgia women to act as Lady
Managers for the State of Georgia. I hold in grateful
and dutiful respect the memory of this gallant Confederate
general, who illustrated the courage and
patriotism of the state on many hotly contested battle
fields and who died full of years and honors, with
faithful service to his country. He was one of the
World's Fair Commissioners and authorized to make
such a selection.
The first call for the assembling of this Board of
Lady Managers was duly published and the members
met in Chicago on November 19,1890.
Fatigued with the travel and occupied with a shopping
effort, after I reached the city I did not meet any
of the Lady Managers until we assembled at 10 A. M.,
at Kinsley's Hall, to begin the organization and map
out the future activities of the Board.
Less than fifteen minutes before the President of
the National Commission called the meeting to order,
I was told by my good friend, Mrs. John A. Logan,
widow of former Senator (and General) Logan, that
I had been selected as Temporary Chairman and must
preside until the permanent chairman, also to be president
of the Board of Lady Managers, would be chosen
by ballot. I protested, that I had never presided over
any large meeting of any sort in my life, that I had
no manual of parliamentary tactics to refer to, and
no time to collect my thoughts, and while I was grateful
for the compliment, I was afraid to allow my name
voted upon, because of inexperience, etc.
To make a long story short, I was quickly elected to
the position and had barely time to scribble down a
few words of grateful thanks for the honor, until I
was escorted to the platform and the gavel placed in
my hand. There were two women from every state
and territory before me, and nearly a dozen from the
city of Chicago, and many of them had been doing
duty in large organizations for years past, and so far
as I could judge by their names, capable of doing good
service as presiding officers.
I had thrills and nervous chills, and I could feel the
perspiration racing down my spine, although the
weather was cold enough for the Arctic zone, on the
outside.
I was sufficiently collected to request President
Thos. W. Palmer, of the Men's Board to remain with
me for a short time and direct me, until I recovered
from the agitation consequent upon this novel and
trying experience. The ladies elected a temporary
secretary and we entered upon the business of the
day.
It was not until the noon hour of the succeeding day
that we elected Mrs. Potter Palmer to the Presidency
and Miss Phoebe Cousins to be secretary, and I was
permitted to relinquish the gavel, and step down to
a seat beside my Georgia colleague, Mrs. C. H. Olmstead,
of Savannah, over whom the Georgia banner
had been placed in the arrangement of seats on the
day before.
Perhaps my readers will be interested if I copy
here the hasty address that I made after my election,
and my rival for the position was Mrs. Isabella Beecher
Hooker, of Connecticut:
"Dear ladies of the Commission:
"As a Southern woman I certainly appreciate this
compliment at your hands, and my own inexperience
gives me more serious concern than at any time in my
life before. I can only promise to do my very best, in
this unexpected position. I must rely upon your good
will or I shall make a dismal failure of the job. My
heart is full of kindness to every one of you. I know
no South, no North, no East, no West. We are all
dear sisters engaged in a work of loyalty and patriotism,
under the grand old flag in the home of our fathers.
"I have no friend to reward, no foes to punish, I
am simply your humble servant in a very important
place, and I feel my insignificance and my inexperience
very greatly at this hour.
"We are here as an official body, clothed with some
authority. We are allowed I suppose to make our own
rules, and we have elected some officers for a little
while. It is the first time in the history of the Republic
that the female sex has been recognized as competent
to attend to any sort of public business for the
National Government. It is the very first recognition
of woman's services as a citizen and a tax-payer
by Congress. Therefore I feel the necessity as an individual
of making haste, very slowly in all matters
concerning our permanent organization. Let us set
an example that others may feel in years to come an
example of prudence, of patriotism, of generous good
will to every member of the body and of faithful devotion
to our duty. Let us take no step forward, that
we shall regret afterward. Let us remember we are
on trial before this great nation. There is a large class
in this country who are inimical to us, judging by the
newspapers who suppose that we are supernumeraries,
if not superfluous appendages to this World's Fair
Commission. For myself I feel this is woman's grand
opportunity. This is to show to all concerned that we
can be relied upon for faithful, effective and devoted
work in all departments connected with our World's
Fair Commission. Therefore, again entreating your
kind assistance in discharge of the duty as temporary
chairman of which I had not the faintest conception
an hour ago, I pronounce this Commission in session
and ready for business."
It was gratifying when the ladies gave me a rising
vote of thanks for my courtesy and impartiality, during
my short term as a presiding officer. After we
adjourned that day for a recess, a South Carolina delegate
asked me for a correct copy of the little address
to send to the Charleston News and Courier. I told
her I had nothing but the scribbled notes on the backs
of two envelopes that I found in my hand bag, that
eventful morning and the published report was fairly
good.
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker was standing nearby
and heard what I said. With characteristic impulse
she turned on me, and cried out. "Would you have us
believe that you did not carefully prepare that finished
speech before you came to the meeting? I am
more than astonished to hear you!"
At first I thought I could not restrain a very harsh
retort, but I recollected that any dispute would quickly
go to reporters and that I would be posted as having
a quarrel with a member of the Beecher family-
the North and South in early conflict, so I held myself
down, when I replied, "If you will kindly accept
Mrs. Logan as a witness, she will tell you that
it was impossible that I should have known, that I
was to be nominated for temporary chairman until
we met in this hall, and my colleague can tell you, that
I scribbled off what I read within a few minutes before
I was elected."
"A kind answer turneth away wrath" as we are
told, and that episode or something else, turned Mrs.
Hooker into a friend and agreeable co-worker so
long as we were members of the Board of Managers.
When our history committee were collecting the materials
for a concise story of this world's fair commission
so far as related to our scope of woman's work,
the chairman said they retained my address because
"it was good, and wore well."
With such early experience and such unexpected attention,
I made no effort thereafter for place or power
on the board, and my chief duty lay in assigning space
in the Woman's Building and in writing the story of
Woman's organizations which occupied space therein.
There were more than sixty of such active organizations
and the South was connected with only one or
two. In that early day the Southern men were prejudiced
against anything that savored of women's
rights, etc. Nothing that Northern and Western women
advocated was palatable to our politicians and
preachers. There was not a woman's club in Georgia,
until after that world's fair, when one was inaugurated
in Atlanta, during the Cotton States and International
Exposition, which opened in the year 1895. The
Chicago Exposition was so much of a success that
other expositions were inaugurated in somewhat rapid
succession. Mrs. Potter Palmer was a fine president
for the Woman's Board and my association with the
Board has given me some very delightful friendships
as the years rolled on.
I can hardly realize that twenty-nine years have
rolled along since that cold November day in Chicago,
when I was suddenly precipitated into a high office,
over my protest, and where I am still satisfied there
were many better qualified women for the temporary
chairmanship. I am glad I was able to perform with
satisfaction to the ladies and feel grateful still for
their kindness. As chairman of the assignment of
space committee I gave two months of arduous duty
to these locations. A surveyor made plats of every
part of Woman's Building and every foot and inch
was accounted for in distributing the space. I had
abiding interest in the organization room because I
had sufficient foresight to understand that they would
not only survive the exposition, but would continue
to rapidly increase, as has happened, after every
vestige of the "White City" had vanished. We decided
to make the decorations uniform, and the partitions
were made by large gilt railings with hangings
of robin-egg blue silk manufactured at a silk mill in
New Jersey. My interest in these organizations possibly
induced Mrs. Palmer to select me as historian
of their display. They furnished me with a brief recital
of their beginnings and their success in Chicago
during the Fair, and I edited their papers. Although
the history has never yet been published owing to the
fact that the gigantic undertaking consumed not only
all the allowance provided by Act of Congress, but
also took over the savings of the Woman's Board to
settle the debts which we had no share in piling up.
I have a copy of my work, thus preparing the story
of Women's Organizations in 1893 and I am still hoping
something will occur to publish an official account
of their status, at that early day.
Time and space will not allow a more extended notice
of woman's work twenty-nine years ago, at this
writing.
I was also chairman of the committee on agriculture
and we made diligent search for the percentage of
woman's work among farm exhibits, but everything
was submerged in men's work. Since the Indians occupied
America, women have had active service in
crude agriculture, and have done their share up to
date in domestic service, yet there was still no regard
given to her activities. The Bible saying: "A man
and his wife are one," read correctly for the man was
the only one.
While I was finishing up
my story of the organization
room in Chicago in midsummer of 1894, I was
notified that I had been selected as one of the five
women to initiate or inaugurate a woman's board in
Atlanta to carry on a Woman's Building with elaborate
attention to exhibits of woman's work for this
great Southern exposition.
In organizing the full board which numbered more
than fifty ladies, I was elected for the position of
chairman of executive committee. My health and
strength were taxed for the service but I held on to
the end. I still think we had the most loyal and
enthusiastic crowd of Southern women that ever were
gathered together to make a notable success of this
Atlanta exposition.
A goodly company of the Chicago notables made us
a visit, including President Higgenbotham and Mrs.
Potter Palmer, and they gave us unstinted praise for
our zeal and exhibits. The impetus then given to Women's
organizations has never slackened. The "Atlanta
Spirit" is shared equally by its citizens, of both
sexes, up to this good hour.
I was also an official
visitor when Nashville was
alive with enthusiasm, in 1897, being chosen by the
Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture to look over the
exhibits. We were delightfully entertained, had an
official banquet given the delegates on Georgia day,
and I made an address in Woman's Building to the
Confederate veterans who were holding their annual
reunion at the same time. I had made a similar address
the year before at Baltimore, before the U. D. C.
convention when I urged the Southern women to devote
their energies to the education of the illiterate children
and grand children of the dead Confederate soldiers
as the very best work that could possibly be
given with their time and money. I retain pleasing
recollections of the many thanks and encomiums that
I received at both places, because of my effort to initiate
the undertaking. One enthusiastic Tennessee
lady had my Baltimore address printed and circulated
all over her state, before the Tennessee Centennial
opened its doors to the public.
I was selected as a juror
for this mammoth exhibition
held in St. Louis in 1904. In placing the jurors
I was given a place on the general committee of agriculture.
There were several subdivisions of minor
rank and importance, but the jury to which I was assigned,
examined and adjudged the great industrial
efforts of the United States, including irrigation. We
gave attention to silos, and every agricultural appliance
that was a fixture on farms. We also examined
the individual Missouri exhibit that was one of the
most telling features of the exposition. The jury to
which I was assigned had, as a member, a professor
from the University of Berlin, who taught agriculture
in that institution. I was chosen as secretary and
wrote the report of this ranking committee, on General
Agriculture. The work begun at stated hours, and
held on well into the afternoon. I had no time to devote
to sight-seeing as we were confined to three weeks
and had no leisure for such things. A hasty lunch we
secured in the Agricultural Building, and I generally
found myself at an English lunch counter where
delicious bread called "Scones," was cooked by electricity.
Buttered, when hot, they were good enough
for the most fastidious. It was a four-mile street car
ride to our boarding place in the city, and I could
fill a good-sized newspaper with my varied adventures
in street car travel, when I had to sit sometimes on
my big hand bag on the floor or hold on to strap to
keep my feet in the ever-moving crowd that was getting
on and getting off.
In my rush to get a street car seat, when I left my
boarding place to take a South Bound train to go home
I had started at 4 P. M. I had nothing better than a
seat in the rear doorway on my traveling bag, and it
was long after dark when I reached the terminal station
and then the scramble began to get my ticket validated
and also my trunk checked - the second time.
Red tape ruled all the arrivals and departures. It was
after ten P.M. before I finally found my berth in
sleeping car, and I feel sure I walked a full mile, up
and down about and around before I got away from
that jam in that depot.
More families were separated and children misplaced
than I had ever seen before, and a friend of
mine, who started home a few days later, with two children,
never got away from the same depot until morning
light appeared. I was a visitor at the Philadelphia
Centennial in 1876. I was in Chicago off and on
for four years, 1890 to 94. I saw the immense jams
where millions were filling the streets, but St. Louis
and the Terminal Station was a long ways ahead of
everything in difficult dealing with crowds, where
people were rushing hither and yon, and generally lost
or separated from each other, that I ever witnessed.
I was too advanced in years to attempt the trip to
San Francisco Exposition. I had wholesome dread of
immense crowds, where human life is so exposed. In
Chicago I saw an immense cold storage building burn
to the ground, where many persons, including a number
of fire-fighters, dropped into the flames like flies.
But I feel glad that I
have seen so many good
things, great things, and priceless paintings and ornaments,
that could never be inspected by such as I am
under any other conditions or circumstances.
"She is an old woman
who has been a 'new woman' for fully
thirty years. Pleads for textile education of women. Believes
that Georgia's factory girls should have every opportunity.
By Isma Dooly.
"I believe that
one of the greatest movements that Georgia's
earnest women could undertake at present would be to co-operate
in their determination to secure textile education for our
poor factory girls."
"The speaker was Mrs. William H. Felton, Georgia's well
known 'stateswoman,' and characteristic of her, she supplemented
this utterance with her reasons for thus expressing herself.
"This class of young women is one to which no helping hand
has been extended, and I believe that the time has come now
when not only justice, but the development of our state's textile
interests demand that the cotton mill women, as well as the
cotton mill men, be equipped for usefulness and future profit
to themselves and the commonwealth."
"I am delighted to see that textile education has been provided
for our boys at the Technological institute, but what
about the textile education of our girls? When, at the request
of The Constitution, I visited some of the cotton factories of
the state to refute a slanderous statement made in a northern
publication relative to the status of the women therein, I found
that the vast majority of the operatives were deserving women
and girls; almost seven-tenths of the laborers employed being
females. It would seem, therefore, that the prosperity of our
state in textile industry demanded that educational advantages
be given to the women as well as the men, especially since the
former are in the majority, and uneducated labor on the part
of women is as detrimental to progress as it is on the part
of men."
"Mrs. Felton reasoned that under the freest constitution, ignorant
people are still slaves, and that to leave the hundreds
of women working in the factories like mere machines of manual
labor, while the men are given the advantages of superior
training, is incongruous with laws of progress, relegating laboring
women to a condition scarcely removed from slavery.
"'I feel every day,' continued Mrs. Felton, her voice faltering,
'that I will not be here many years longer to fight for these
poor women who have learned to call me their 'friend,' and I
shall never cease while I have the strength to do it to plead for
their rights. Nothing in my life has touched me more deeply
than their gratitude. Last year from their pitiful paltry wages
some in the cotton factories of Georgia contributed $60 toward
a fund with which they desired to buy me a present. 'No,' I
replied to them, 'I do not wish a gift, but when I am dead
let the money buy the marble tablet that will mark my last
resting place.'
"Mrs. Felton's views on any subject are always interesting
to the people of Georgia, and there are few women better known
north and south than is she.
"From time to time she has come before the public in the
press, expressing her views on all subjects that interest the
thinking minds of the day.
"Whether on the rostrum before the more enlightened audience,
before political gatherings in the rural districts, or
through the columns of the daily press, Mrs. Felton when drawn
into controversy has always proven herself the "stronger man
of the two."
"Although a woman, and a woman with all the impulsiveness
characteristic of her sex, she has never in the history of
her eventful career made a statement that she has had to retract.
Whether meeting with general approval or not, when she
takes a stand in any matter, political or otherwise, before expressing
herself at all, she forms her opinion of it on the firmness
of the conviction that she is right. With this basic principle
underlying all she does, with a masculine vigor of intellect,
and with over thirty years' experience as a participant in
Georgia's public life, Mrs. Felton is well equipped to discuss
with any man or woman the social problems of the times.
"Notwithstanding her very active life, and the trials and
tribulations that have come into it from the days of the surrender
up to the present time, Mrs. Felton is what the world
would call a well preserved woman. During her recent visit to
Atlanta her friends were struck with her health and strength.
Although nearly seventy years of age, her eyes are as bright
and beaming as those of a woman one-third her age, and her
snowy white hair is combed smoothly back from a brow that in
its beauty shows very few lines of care. Her prominence in
public life, her active participation in politics, and the amount
of work she accomplishes in the outside world may suggest that
she is held aloof from the general pursuits of woman in the
home, but such is not the case. She is distinguished for the
perfect order maintained in the domestic side of her life, and
her excellent housekeeping is never neglected for, or hampered
by, her public work.
"She is an old woman who has been a 'new woman' for
thirty years, and that long ago advocated in the face of a universal
prejudice the same lines of progress agitating today the
women's organizations of her state. Whereas, she sympathizes
with the principles of these, her residence in the country prevents
her taking active part in their daily operations.
"Mrs. Felton has taken her stand in public life as an individual,
assuming responsibility as such and making for herself
a name that will be inseparable from many incidents making
interesting Georgia's history of the closing days of the
nineteenth century.
"The keynote of the good she has done and tried to do is
doubtless her sense of duty which has been dominant in her
every undertaking from her earliest school days up to the
present moment.
"In discussing the striking incidents of her life not long
since, she remarked:
"'I am a country raised woman, and have spent the most
of my life upon farms. My parents gave me the best education
that the state and their means would allow in the early
fifties.
"'I was an ambitious young person, and always sought to
be at the head of my class in literary studies, in music and in
drawing.
"'I shared the first honors in my college class when barely
seventeen, the youngest of the lot, and kept my place in piano
and guitar music. I have always been pleased to know that my
dear parents were also pleased with my progress, for I esteemed
their pleasure to be the highest medal or token of approval
that was ever granted to my efforts. As I look back
on my past life there was never anything more precious to me
than their loving smiles and shining tears of delight that
greeted me at the school examinations and commencements when
I was passed on with the plaudits of my teachers and my father
and mother could say: 'Well done, my child.'
"'How careful those old-fashioned teachers were,' continued
Mrs. Felton. 'How genuine their methods! I was expected to be
thorough in my work, to know what I studied before I left the
book, and to be able to give a rule and a reason for any subject
that I was examined upon in my school days. I recall
again how we were 'rooted' and 'grounded' in the primary
studies; how I was required to know every rule and every exception
to a rule in the English grammar before we went further;
every table, rule or measure in arithmetic, before we went
to algebra or geometry, and common spelling was the recreation
of the entire school from Monday morning till Friday
night. There was no parade, no show of learning, it was plain
matter of feet work -'Get your lesson, and never forget it'
that was the alpha and omega of my school life from start to
finish.
"'Out of school my school of life began early,' said Mrs.
Felton. 'I married at sharp eighteen and was a mother
after nineteenth birthday. For eight or ten years my
life was so absorbed in my children that it was cloisterlike,
months elapsing, sometimes, when my feet were never outside
the front gate. I had my music and my books to enliven the
monotony, and I now discover that I was placed by the Almighty
in a domestic training school, with close and rigid discipline,
that I might not only have time to love and nurture
my little ones, but also to broaden a girl's mind into the
mature experience of an earnest woman who had the opportunity
to look up 'through nature unto nature's God.'
" 'I read everything in reach - history, fiction and even a
smatter of medicine, with a little babe in my lap, and my key
basket at my elbow, because I was also housekeeper for a large
family, directing every day's expenditure and outlining every
day's supplies. I was only one of the many wives and Southern
women who had oversight of domestic affairs on a large
plantation, and I believe the experience of such Southern women
in ante-bellum days compassed results in cultivated and
refined hospitality that the world will never know again by
reason of the lack of such extraordinary conditions and
surroundings. When the civil war broke out I had two little boys,
with a baby girl 'under the daisies,' and a heavy burden of
responsibility, care and anxiety for the people at home, and
sympathy for those in the field."
The weariness in Mrs. Felton's tone seemed to die out when
she arrived at that period of her discourse, and she reviewed
her life during the war with the same fluency and brightness
with which she handles every subject that interests her.
"'Those four years of bloody war turned many a raven
lock as white as mine are now,' she said. 'We cared for refugees
until we became ourselves refugees, and fled before Sherman's
army. It would require volumes to tell the story of privation,
suffering and death, because I, too, came back to a
devastated home, a childless mother, with poverty staring me in
the face, and the necessity of becoming a wage-earning woman
before me, and with no opportunity for earning wages save a
return to the schoolroom and music room in the capacity of a
teacher. I sometimes went hungry because my food was poor
and oftentimes scanty, but an Allwise Heavenly Father led me
into the unwonted path of loving other people's children and
brought comfort and gladness to a lone mother's bereaved
heart while she taught and helped along these innocent and
impoverished children of a war-stripped section of our country.
I had often wondered before this time of my life why it was
that I should have been so eager to perfect myself as far as I
could in music and literature, when my arms and heart were so
full in care of my own babies, but in the exigency that thus
happened to me after the surrender I saw the benefit and the
blessing. I was able to teach the higher mathematics and
helped to equip our school of eighty pupils with efficient and
valuable services in professorships that would be difficult to fill
at any time, and especially where no money for salaries was
available in the later sixties, when everybody was poor.
"'Within two years we were able to raise our bread and
meat at home, and I went into the old time occupation of a
farmer's wife, with rigid economy and utmost saving 'to make
both ends meet.' Two other little boys came to gladden my
life (one to stay with me but a few months), when Dr. Felton's
name began to be mentioned for congress in our district."
With Dr. Felton's political career began his wife's, and to
the onlooker there has been no more interesting figure in Georgia
politics for the last thirty years than Mrs. William H. Felton.
"Relative to her first steps in politics, Mrs. Felton resumed:
'There was an unacceptable democratic nominee and the result
was an independent candidate in the year 1874. Dr. Felton
announced himself in June, and from that time until the
election in November I was in the thick of it.
" 'Without a daily newspaper, and only two little weeklies
that hot canvass was made by Dr. Felton on the stump and my
individual work with my pen. I wrote hundreds of letters all
over fourteen counties. I wrote night and day, and for two
months before the close kept a man and a horse at the door to
catch every mail train three miles away. How I lived through
that ordeal I can never tell. The like of this campaign was
never known before or since in Georgia. At one time health
broke down, but I was propped up in bed with pillows and
wrote ahead. I made appointments for speaking, planned for
speakers, answered newspaper attacks, and more than all, kept
a brave face to the foe and a smiling face to the almost exhausted
candidate. Dr. Felton spoke three times a day on an
average, and that meant three fresh shirts a day. But I had
those shirts ready when he rushed in, all packed and ready as
he rushed out and away into that fearful exhausting struggle.
" 'The congressional count was in doubt three entire days,
Dr. Felton was counted in and out time and again, and the
wires were kept hot to know the result. At last he came in,
in spite of all, with his eighty-two majority.
" 'When I had time to think of myself, I had lost flesh like
one with a dreadful fever, my dress hung on me like a bag, and
I could neither eat nor sleep for days from excitement and
fatigue.
" 'But success is a great tonic," observed Mrs. Felton, and
her bright dark eyes looked as exulting as they must have when
she heard the good news of her husband's election many years
before.
" 'I was up and ready for a six years' struggle in and out
of Washington, where I still wrote letters, wrote for the newspapers,
worked for constituents before the departments, doing
the work of the present clerks to congressmen, and without expecting
a cent, but just for the love of the work and loyalty
to Dr. Felton's interests. In some of the campaigns I traveled
with him all over the district. In other campaigns I 'stayed by
the stuff,' and planned the campaign. The history of my life
during that period would surpass a novel in startling surprises,
because the fight on the independent congressman never ceased
or abated one iota. As soon as the enemy left the trenches and
took to 'counting out,' then we were defeated. Until they
adopted the 'counting out process' our little band was invincible.
" 'You want to know when l really entered public life.
" 'I did not enter; I was shot into it, as by a catapult, and
I learned politics in front of Gatling guns and Mauser rifles.
The foe left nothing undone that human ingenuity could devise
or tricky politicians could muster up. As soon as I could get
an inkling of their respective political histories, I made it lively
for the gentlemen, and it was an unequal but vivacious struggle,
with one woman versus some dozens of north Georgia politicians.
When convict lease politicians attacked Dr. Felton, I
searched the records and made the lease and the lessees step
around lively. When the state road lessees entered our politics,
I posted myself and flung hand grenades until the whole thing
got in a blaze.
" 'Whenever they showed heads above the ramparts, this
sharp shooter in woman's form deliberately picked them off
for public amusement and feminine revenge.
" 'Did they attack me?
" 'Yes! times without number, but I have always been
careful to know I was correct in my statements, and then I
had nothing to fear. About a dozen years ago I joined the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. I introduced a resolution
pledging the union to a reformatory for youthful criminals
and a separate prison for women convicts in April, 1886.
The organization authorized me to memorialize the legislature
on these two reforms that summer. When my petition was
read before the legislature the ball opened. Dr. Felton, as a
member, championed the reforms, and the whole pack, 'Tray,
Blanche and Sweetheart,' opened on us both. I heard myself
denominated as the political 'She' of Georgia.
" 'I was sneered at as a reformer and vials of wrath were
poured out on my spouse, who was helping me in my work as I
had so long helped him in his political work.
" 'I sat in the same hall five days later and listened to Dr.
Felton's reply that will never be surpassed for strength and
powerful invective so long as the English language exists. I
forgot myself in admiration of my defender and his marvelous
defense. I saw that audience also forget itself and rise as one
man to cheer and shout in praise of the speaker. Such a day
as that marks a milestone as big as the Washington monument.
The reformatory for juvenile convicts had a small beginning
and only a woman to start it, but such as it was, I had the responsibility
and the honor of agitating and launching the
craft into sailing waters. More than six years later I was
gratified to find that the convict women were quietly separated
into other camps and I felt certain that had Senator Joseph E.
Brown lived a few years longer he would have made a reformatory
system for the juvenile criminals under his control.
" 'What of my prohibition interests?
" 'I expect I was the first Georgia woman to take the platform
to urge voters to remember their homes and their children
in prohibition contests. I do not mean before conventions or
before lecture going people, I mean a public appeal on the eve
of elections, when men's hearts were raging for and against
and the ballot alone could make a verdict. I am practical or I
am nothing. It is a waste of time to talk to people who are
of the same mind as yourself in such a crisis. But it means
a great deal when you can face the foe with logic unanswerable
and pleading for their own homes and their own children win
them to your side of the argument. I have been sneered at
from pulpits, jeered at in print and have had lectures pitched
at me from editorial columns, but the shining tears in a mother's
eye who is grateful to me for her son's sake will outweigh
and overtop an army corps of such advisors as have criticized
me for this work. And there is appreciation where I have
had least reason to expect it.
" 'During a session of the Georgia legislature some years
ago I was invited to make an appeal in Atlanta for prohibition.
The hall was packed, and the reporter who misrepresented me
in next morning's paper was obliged to coil himself up under
the little table before me to find a place for himself and his
pencil.
" 'Next day when I visited the state capitol to hear the debate
in that body, a member offered a resolution inviting me to
a seat beside the speaker, because he said: 'I was a woman in
whom the state took pride.' "
"In reference to the changes that have privileged woman to
speak in public, without meeting with narrow prejudices, Mrs.
Felton remarked:
" 'I would be amused, if I were not so sympathetic, to witness
the readiness of our 'new women' in these latter days to
address public meetings and conventions. My mind goes back
to the time when it meant much in opposition and adverse criticism
to make the venture.
" 'I recall that several years ago when the Normal and Industrial
school was still in embryo, and the demagogue was
bleating against the project from Dade to Chatham county, I
felt impelled to give a large public assemblage in my county
a plain talk about their duty to their daughters as well as to
their sons. I had no preparation for the task save an eager,
earnest longing to do something for the tens of thousands of
poor girls all over Georgia who had no schooling save the miserable
little makeshifts of common schools in the rural districts.
But I could not sit still and listen to the demagogue's plea of
the state's poverty while the coming mothers of the nation were
steeped in ignorance because of their own poverty when the
state was wasting thousands in trifling ways.
" 'I secured time for a hearing and I am still at a loss to
understand the happy effect that was so surprisingly educed.
When a young lady met me at the steps of the platform, and
with flowing tears, thanked me for the 'first word she had
ever heard which supposed that others like her were considered
worthy of the state's protection and care for higher education,'
I felt almost strong enough and happy enough to go at that
time to the governor and beg him to put the idea in his forthcoming
message.
" 'I guess the idea grew apace, for when the legislature met
it not only got on its feet, but helped elect another governor
only a few years later who was in favor of it.
" 'I might consider myself an 'ice breaker' in this Southern
country of ours," concluded Mrs. Felton, as she glanced at her
watch and arose to start for the train to Cartersville. 'I must
have had crude but novel ideas not familiar to Southern latitude,
but as I survey the 'new woman's' field of action at the close
of the nineteenth century, I find that I have been 'breaking
ice' for the last quarter of a century, and although I was
forced to stem the current with my rude bark, I find the tide is
floating in a convoy of elegant and cultured women who are becoming
leaders of thought and public opinion."
During the six years
term of Dr. Felton's active
congressional service I met many distinguished and
notable people in the city of Washington. I have
shaken hands with every President since General
Grant went into the White House, except President
Arthur. Among the many persons I remember distinctly
was Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines, who was born in
1805, in New Orleans, widow of General Gaines and
daughter of rich Daniel Clarke. Clarke was U. S. consul
while Louisiana was under French rule. When
he died he left vast property to his mother, Mary
Clarke. Later it was discovered that he had been married
to a French woman who left two daughters. The
youngest, Myra, was adopted by a General Davis, in
ignorance of her paternity, and she was educated in
Philadelphia. In 1832 she married a Mr. Whitney
who in some way became acquainted with the facts of
her birth. A will was also discovered where Clarke
acknowledged Myra as his legitimate child. After a
fierce legal battle in the courts, the will was sustained
and her legitimacy thereby sustained and in 1867 a
decision was given in her favor to property valued at
$35,000,000. Then she had to dispossess the people
who had purchased the property.
I saw her a number of
times during the 70s in
Washington City, while she was fighting the city of
New Orleans for her property rights.
I had the story of her
eventful life from her own
lips. She was over seventy years at that time. In
1890 New Orleans officials compromised and settled
with her. She married General Gaines in 1839 and
died in 1885, at the age of 80. Her struggle to clear
her name from illegitimacy kept her nearly all her
lifetime in the harrassments of courts and the facts
are surprising beyond anything Dickens ever wrote of
Wards in chancery. Mrs. Gaines was a small-sized
woman, active and vigorous when I met her in the
old National Hotel in Washington, then nearly eighty
years old. She had snapping black eyes and flitted in
and out like a woman under fifty. Justice Clifford
of the Supreme Court gave me some of the notable
facts in her legal struggle which lasted over a half
century. Mrs. Gaines had indomitable pluck and
never despaired of success in her law suit.
Both were on Supreme
Bench when I first met them
and was privileged to call their wives my friends.
Both were very large men, Judge Davis being the most
corpulent of the two.
Judge Clifford was from Maine, although born in
New Hampshire. He was attorney general under
President Polk, but placed on Supreme Bench by
Buchanan. He was the most uncompromising democrat
I ever knew. As member of the electoral commission
of the famous 7 to 8 which seated Mr. Hayes,
his indignation was monumental because of the result.
While on his way to Washington, two or three
years later, his mind gave way on a railroad train, and
he lived for months as a little child followed around
by his nurse. His wife was an elegant lady, gentle, refined
and with gracious speech and manners.
Judge Davis went to Bloomington, Illinois, when
the land was young, his law fees he invested in real estate,
which made him a very rich man in a few years.
When the electoral commission was appointed or elected
by authority of congress, everybody expected
Judge Davis to be one of the Supreme Court members,
in fact the fifteenth man with the scales of justice
held in his hand. He did not want the place. He said
to me that it would be an unthankful position because
one side or the other would be furious at the results.
I spoke to him on the morning that his election to the
United States Senate appeared in the newspapers,
while the excitement over Hayes and Tilden was simmering
hot. He said he would accept the honor given
him by the State of Illinois, but I fancy he saw an
easy way out of an unpleasant dilemma by laying
down the ermine and avoiding the 8 to 7 difficulty. It
was natural that Judge Davis should be timid about
antagonizing the Republican party. Although he was
essentially the great Independent of that era, and was
looked upon from the standpoint of independentism in
making up the electoral commission, yet Mr. Lincoln,
his personal friend, had selected Judge Davis for the
Supreme Bench, and as Mr. Lincoln's appointee he
felt disinclined personally to overthrow or antagonize
the Republican party. Judge Davis was a timid man.
He could have made a ten-strike for the presidency at
that period of his life. If he had sized the situation
he would have been nominated by the Democrats and
Independents, indeed by everybody, save the Radical
Republicans in 1880. But he flinched and he disappointed
the ardent hopes of his friends because he
made no reputation as a Senator and gave up what he
could do best, namely declare the intent of the law in
a dispute between litigants.
The last time I saw him was on his wedding tour
through the South. He wrote me of the train on
which he would pass through Cartersville, and I went
as far as Kingston with the elderly groom and his
bride. I had been quite well acquainted with his first
wife, also a splendid woman, of rare culture. When
she died in 1880 he prepared a memorial volume of
her funeral obsequies and sent his and her pictures
along with it, in remembrance of our friendship covering
several years of her life.
Judge Davis was a man of conscientious motives.
He preferred to feel right rather than be president.
He was immense in physical proportions. His valet
often told of the number of years in which Judge Davis
had never enjoyed a glimpse of his own feet. His
man dressed him and looked after his general comfort.
Both his wives were small women, neither weighing
above 125, and Judge Davis would have tipped the
scales at 300, more or less.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, I sat frequently in
the gallery of the House of Representatives that fateful
winter of 1876 and 77, when debate was furious
over the election of president, and Mr. Hayes could
only get in by one vote if several Southern states were
not investigated, and Mr. Tilden would certainly be
president by a handsome majority if election returns
in either South Carolina, Louisiana or Florida were
overhauled. It was a crisis such a one as had never
been seen in this Republic since guns were first fired
on Fort Sumter. When the excitement was at fever
heat, and Mr. Beebe, of New York, mounted his desk
to thunder against usurpation and fraudulent counts,
Chief Justice Morrison Waite sat behind me in the
gallery, watching the proceedings. His face was tense,
his features hard set in his absorption. I understood
very well that the Supreme Court would be the last
resort, if the electoral commission failed. I also fancied
we should have an 8 to 7 Supreme Court if the decision
was left to that body, and Justice Waite was
not fond, as I discovered from his conversation with
others, of Mr. Beebe or the clamorous democrats. It
was far from funny at the time, but it is amusing now
to recall the bouncing Beebe leaping on the top of the
desks. Mr. Springer chasing up and down the aisles
with a button-hole bouquet on his coat, and breathing
out fire and slaughter if the count was not agreeable to
justice and equity. Mr. Henry Watterson was talking
about his 100,000 unarmed democrats who would
silence the raging waves and cry out "Peace be still."
Speaker Randall was hammering away with his gavel
to preserve order, and on the other side, Grandsire
Hoar and warlike Garfield, and the plumed knight
from Maine, were holding their respective commands
in quiet defense and reckoning ways and means by
which to claim everything and even then, with everything
claimed, grabbed and held by main force, with
an iron hand on the army and navy, with the Treasury
open to their call, they could only get or claim or
seize the presidency by one single vote or majority.
And genial Mr. Cox! How like to an oasis in the
desert, was this dapper little man, in the midst of this
confusion worse confounded. No matter who got angry
or who became sulky, or who threatened or who
cavorted, Sunset Cox would get up a laugh and the
whole layout felt better. He and his admirable wife
were among my first Washington acquaintances. He
was candidate for Speaker at the opening of the 44th
Congress, and ran against Mr. Kerr and Mr. Randall
for the Democratic nomination. He came to call on
me, supposing I might grease a cog in his speakership
wheel, and presented me with his then new book of
Winter Sunbeams, written in lower Europe while he
was seeking health. The letter, with the book I keep
as a relic, always unique and immortal as was the author's
fine originality.
The last letter I had from him was the year before
he died. He had a lecture nearly ready for Southern
travel, and he wrote to Dr. Melton for some specimens
of darkey humor to be ingrafted in his lecture. My
spouse, always foreign to frivolous speech, could not
recall any incidents that he felt were pertinent, so I,
with less strenuous mind, furnished several and Mr.
Cox wrote me he would "try them on," in Richmond,
Va., when the lecture season was begun and he
thought they would fit admirably. I recall one personal
experience of my own with a housemaid that you
will pardon me for repeating, and which Mr. Cox
accepted with manifest glee as his letter stated. In
the days just after the war, nice shoes were in demand
with price according to style, etc. I indulged myself,
despite a lean purse, in a delightful pair of well fitting
gaiters, kid tops, with side buttons. They were
high day Sunday and quite restful from war time
leather and domestic cobbling. My housemaid was
named Harriett, a little black, slick tongued darkey
girl, who had simply growed like Topsy, without any
raising. A colored revival caught Harriet and she
professed religion or come through, as she explained
it herself. She was to be immersed on the following
Sunday and must be fitted out for the occasion. Having
as usual overdrawn her wages, I undertook to
contribute to the baptismal rig that would be necessary.
Harriet explained that she must have shoes to
wear down in the water, and then dry shoes for the
later toilette under the tent, when she was expected
to march and sing with the purified and sanctified to
the altar of her church.
I bestowed a pair of half-worn, low-cut shoes but
Harriet was not happy. She had seen the buttoned
gaiters in the dressing closet, and she hankered after
them. Once or twice she asked if I could not sell them
to her, and wait on her for the pay, but I thought my
no was emphatic and dismissed the subject from my
mind. On Sunday all the colored people on the premises
went to the baptism and the cook wandered in just
before sun down. "Was Harriet baptized?" I asked
her. "Sure she was Miss Becky," was the reply.
"Did she look as nice as the rest of the girls' " I
enquired.
"Bless your soul, ma 'am she looked nicer, and I bet
Sam a nickel dat she is a wearing your bery button
gaiters right dis minute and a shouting like mad all
ober dat meeting house. She done gone plum crazy."
To make a long story short, she had stolen my shoes
to wear in the baptizing procession and I was in a
state of suppressed indignation until Harriet crept in
on Tuesday afternoon, for she was physically exhausted
with her Sunday performances, and was obliged
to sleep them off.
When rebuked about the theft of my shoes, Harriet
was well prepared to answer.
"Now don't say narry nother word about dem shoes
Miss Becky, I'se gwine to work em out wid you. You
aint gwine to lose narry cent by dis nigger. And when
ye finks about it right straight Miss Becky, I'm sure
you didn't want yer nigger to look de bery worsts in
dat baptising crowd. I know you giv me dat par of
de low quarters. Yessum you did, and didn't I say
I was much obliged to you Miss Becky? But de was
wet when I com up a dripping to de tent, and I just
couldn't ware 'em wid dat clean white skirt what you
giv me. You aint gwine to lose nuttin tall by dem
button gaiters Miss Becky, and you can't possibly
ware em any more, my mistes for two buttons busted
off, while I was a trying to pull em on my wet feet,
down at de tent. You never did see sich an illmannered
crowd as went to dat baptising in all your life.
Some folks never did hate any raising no how. Aunt
Dicey say I was de best looking of all dem folks and
I'm sure I had de mos' manners.
"I tole Polly jest now when she was cavortin bout
your shoes, dat I lay she wont look half dat well when
her sins is all washed away in Jordan's wave. She
is no count nigger herself, only fit to tell lies on her
own color. I jest could tell tales about your kitchen,
Miss Becky, dat would mak you sick, shore as yer
born. Polly hab a fambly to feed, bet y'r life. You
jes put dem shoes down on my count Miss Becky, I's
shore good to pay my debts, sometime er odder. I'm
gwine to bring yer fresh bucket water from de well
and bring yer cold drink, Miss Becky."
But I have wandered far away from Hon. Sunset
Cox. After Mr. Kerr died Mr. Cox was Mr. Randall's
only opponent to succeed him in the speakership, but
Mr. Cox was told by Tammany to go to the National
Democratic Convention and fight Mr. Tilden and he
had to go, and while he was absent as directed by
Tammany, certain factions resented Tammany's interference
and the nomination went to Mr. Randall,
who was an all-round speaker and a great friend to the
South, and a friend to Mr. Tilden. Those were notable
days for New York when Mr. Hewitt, Mr. Cox and
Hon. Fernando Wood led the forces. Mr. Hewitt was
Mr. Tilden's "right bower" in the presidential crisis,
and if Mr. Tilden had been as courageous as his
great manager, he would have been president. The
cry went forth that stocks and bonds would go to zero
if there were war clouds in Washington, and like the
young man who kept all the commandments, Mr. Tilden
was a rich man and he turned sadly away, when
the time came for nerve and pluck. And his Felton
nephew got mixed up in some pecuniary transactions
with certain politicians and Mr. Tilden was advertised
as the uncle of his nephew in the public prints.
All the same the speakership was non est for Mr.
Cox ever afterward, and he never reached the Senate
either although he was full of genuine wit and extraordinary
literary talent, he somehow found his light
hidden under a bushel in a political way, as he expressed
it for the world guaged him simply as a funny
man, and a funny man precluded a statesman.
Mr. Wood was one of the old time democratic politicians;
stately, dignified, well dressed, with no nonsense
but a great deal of liberal hospitality. His receptions
were elegant affairs, the swell occasions of the
winter.
Mr. Hewitt was a man of dignity, self-poise, substantial
and sterling in mind, body and estate. He
has always been conservative and having married a
daughter of Hon. Peter Cooper, the great philanthropist
and greenbacker, it might have been expected
that Mr. Hewitt would have been somewhat a copyist
of Mr. Cooper's ideas on finance and philanthropy,
but Mr. Hewitt is sui generis. His course in Congress
was Mr. Hewitt's own, not imitative. He was the
great headlight in Mr. Tilden's campaign, as before
said, and it is understood he risked and spent a cool
hundred thousand of his own money to help him. After
the electoral commission was set on its feet, the
excitement was intensified if such a thing was possible.
The meetings were held in secret, but I chanced
to be sitting in the House gallery one afternoon listening
to the debate with a thin house and idly glancing
down at the members below, on the republican side, I
saw the green baize doors part and Mr. Hoar came in.
As the commission was known to be in session and Mr.
Hoar was a member of it, I knew instantly something
was up. Florida was the first disputed state on docket
in alphabetical order, and whatever was done with
Florida would indicate the general trend of affairs.
Instantly members begun to gather to him. His satisfied
smile was ominous. In less time than it takes to
tell it, the news flew over the building that the commission
refused by a vote of 8 to 7 to go behind the
returns in Florida, and it would not be counted for
Mr. Tilden. Mr. Hoar was anxious apparently to tell
it. His colleagues breathed freer. The democrats
were stifling with suppressed indignation, but the
deed was virtually done, and the rest of the count was
easy enough. The democrats fastened the manacles on
their own hands by the commission. They could not
repudiate a machine, manufactured in a democratic
House by a democratic majority. Some malcontents
raised a racket in the House and in the newspapers.
Some of the few statements were even insulting to
democrats, but Mr. Tilden dropped his candy when he
accepted the commission idea, and Mr. Hayes' lieutenants
backed by General Grant's threat to call out the
military, won the fight, with hands down. Some were
in favor of butting heads against a stone wall, but the
commercial politicians proceeded instanter to get on
the good side of Mr. Hayes, and also proceeded to
cream the milk by political trades in Southern latitudes.
I had been admitted to the House gallery by
ticket for weeks upon weeks before the inauguration.
If a ticket was not at hand Speaker Randall sent a
note to doorkeepers for me, and I went early and sat
late to watch the proceedings, but it was more difficult
to obtain an entrance on Inauguration day to the
Senate chamber, where the preliminary exercises were
held.
The day was raw and cold, but we swallowed a hasty
breakfast and started before 8 o'clock to the Capitol
to get a seat. As I sat in the Senate gallery, Mrs.
Hayes and some of her friends entered from the opposite
side and I fell in love with her frank, open,
honest and to me, beautiful, face at first sight. I felt
the country was safe so far as she was concerned.
From first to last she wore well, always the same, without
frills or furbelows of affectation or cant. She was
the good wife and good mother and a generous hearted
woman in every relation of life. Of course it was a
proud day for her when her husband entered the
chamber, but she was neither haughty or flustered,
and her fine face lingers with me still as I drop this
little tribute in memory of her excellence.
The army and navy officers were in full uniform,
the Supreme Court wore the silk gowns, the ambassadors
wore their native costume, and the young Grand
Duke Alexis of Russia was there in plain military attire.
General Grant and Mr. Hayes would have made a
good team in point of girth and statue, built on the
pony order, but about the same height and ten pounds
would have covered the difference in weight between
the two, who sat facing the audience on a sofa in front
of the clerk's desk, until the incoming new senators
were sworn in with due attention to red tape and official
dignity.
When the crowd started to the front of the Capitol
we put out for the hotel to glimpse the procession
which we had omitted to get a seat in the senate. The
jam on the avenue was terrific. The sidewalks were
packed from walls to gutter. Pickpockets were active,
policemen's clubs went whack, whack over the heads
of the disorderly. Twice we were unable to step along,
the jam of people was so dense; but at last we made
our way into the old National Hotel and had a reserved
window on the front to watch the crowd. It
was a sight worth seeing and despite the fact that
more than one half the people had voted for Mr. Tilden,
the crowd was orderly and conservative. The
scene after dark was thrilling. It seemed as if millions
of people were on the Avenue in solid mass, and
the fireworks were gorgeous. There were a great many
people with anxious hearts nevertheless. A spark may
kindle a great conflagration, and everybody felt better
when things quieted down, you may be sure. Mr.
Hayes made us a good president and he felt kindly
to the South and many Southern men. He made no
pretensions to brilliancy of any sort, but he was a careful
president and cautious person who would do
no harm, if he could do no good. He came to Georgia
when he was chairman of the National Society of
Charities and Corrections, several years after he became
ex-President and was as cordial and simple in
his manners as any plain, intelligent citizen. Prosperity
did not elate him nor did private life make him
unhappy. The country might have gone much further
and fared much worse, because he was a safe man. I
saw so much more of Mr. Hayes than General Grant
that I was partial to the former, but the military leader
will be a headlight in history while Rutherford B.
Hayes will be forgotten. So much more of glory halos
the military captains rather than the captains in politics,
although President Hayes was himself a Brigadier
General in Federal army. Mrs. Grant had all
opportunities to be spoiled by attentions to White
House residents, because the toady and the
sychophant
flourished like a green bay tree in the days immediately
succeeding the war, but she was everywhere recognized
as a good wife and mother. There was a cast in
one eye, or maybe both that made her eyes look oblique
or crossed, but her fine clothes and fine position
and hospitable entertainments were enough to make
her a very popular hostess during their eight years'
term. She enjoyed her presidential life and good naturedly
said so, on every occasion, and it was a gala
scene on her reception days, when the White House
was thronged with callers, and you had to stand in
line and be crowded along to the place where the receiving
party stood, and your name was called out
and you begun to shake hands with the ladies who
stood near Mrs. Grant. It was an olla podrida
gathering, to be sure.
Fred Douglass and his white wife were often on
hand and the foreign element rejoiced greatly in the
show, display, music and profusion of flowers.
On the night before the Inauguration of General
Garfield, President and Mrs. Hayes gave a dinner
party to the Cabinet, who would go out of office with
the new administration. The Marine band in full uniform
played during the evening. A general reception
was held after the dinner. Just before the musicians
put up their instruments, they asked that Mrs. Hayes
make a selection as a good bye to their pleasurable
work for her. When the message came she kindly
took me by the arm and we stood nearby while the
musicians played "Full of Joy." At certain stops
they would each sing out "full of joy," and then the
band would fill the whole place with its flood of harmony.
"Thank you ever so much," said Mrs. Hayes.
"You have given me untold pleasure many times during
the last four years, and I am glad to have this
opportunity to thank you in person." When the musicians
retired she said to me "These have been four
very happy years to me, and I have enjoyed them
greatly."
Mr. Charles Foster occupied the same place in the
Hayes administration that Mr. Hanna did under President
McKinley, or Mr. Blaine with Mr. Garfield, and
Mr. Foster made scores of friends by his gracious,
jovial manners. Mr. Blaine was never so popular, at
least with me, but I shall never forget a reception at
Mr. Blaine's fine home where Miss Dodge, known to
literature as Gail Hamilton, received with Mrs.
Blaine, who was her cousin. I was very fond of Miss
Dodge's writings and with true North Georgia bluntness
I told her all about this predilection in favor of
her efforts. We had a lively little chat, at the end of
a grand piano in one of the drawing rooms, and her
homely face remains in memory, along with the hearty
enjoyment of that cold February day when the mercury
was below zero on the outside. Her bright mind
and ready wit, must have given rare enjoyment to
Mr. Blaine, and some critics have said that she helped
no little when the great man aimed to thrill the Northern
heart with a great big speech in reply to somebody.
Mr. Conkling's speeches were fine, and his method
was a strong case of treating his enemies with contempt
when he should have chased them with brickbats.
I chanced to be sitting in the Senate gallery on the
evening before a session of Congress adjourned, and
the night before when it was reported in the newspapers
that Mrs. Sprague and Mr. Conkling passed notes
and sly glances from gallery to the floor, and vice
versa.
The gallery was crowded and some rapid young
folks were making more noise than custom or politeness
allowed. Sitting by Mrs. Sprague was Mrs. Senator
Cameron, of Pennsylvania, then a bride of a few
months. Mrs. Cameron was annoyed by the rude conduct
of the young people, and she beckoned to her husband
from the gallery to come up to her. He was
near Senator Conkling and both turned and looked up
gallerywise. Mrs. Cameron wrote a note and sent it
down by a messenger, and Don Cameron was glad of a
chance to sit beside his pretty new wife, who was a
niece of the Shermans. Not once did Mrs. Sprague
move out of her seat, nor did she send a note or do
anything else but talk a little to Senator Cameron
when he came up to them. I was an eye witness to all
of it, could have easily laid my hand on Mrs. Sprague's
shoulders, because I was immediately in her
rear. She had her two daughters with her, and her
conduct that evening, so far as I could see, was absolutely
without flaw. Now if I had been in Senator
Conkling's place, I'd have tracked that scandal monger
to the jumping off place before it should have been
passed with dignified contempt. It was atrocious that
this untrue thing should have been wired across the
continent, and I think it was a mistake not to hurl
brickbats, in the sense of exposing such a miserable
fake story. It was none of my business to volunteer
as a witness, as I was a stranger to all parties, but I
have always felt that somebody should have helped
that woman, who, being forced to leave a drunken, unkind
husband, for the sake of peace and her young
daughters, had therefore to run the gauntlet of public
criticism forever afterward. I have always allowed
a grain of salt to such published scandals, since
that time. The average mind is delighted to roll an
unsavory bit like this under the tongue and the higher
the target, the oftener the poisoned arrows fly at it.
I sat several days in the Senate chamber listening to
the impeachment proceedings against Secretary
Belknap. To recall this affair sounds like ancient history,
but there was no more popular woman in Washington
than the secretary's handsome wife, before the post-tradership
scandals came to light.
The callers on New Year's day, a custom observed
much more then than latterly, were loud in their
praise of Mrs. Belknap's charming grace and manners.
But the exposure came, alas, and the Belknap
home was closed for all time in the Capitol City.
I recall a grand reception at Sir Edward Thornton's,
the British Minister, whose elegant wife and
daughters were lovely in their hospitality to those
who were also cordial and interested in visiting the
legation. It was the event of the season, for guests
came from New York, Philadelphia, everywhere in
that latitude. Diamonds, point lace and silk velvet,
style and ceremony prevailed. The English servants
in livery were at the carriage when you alighted and
English maids were at your service until you were introduced
to the host and hostess. A full-length picture
of Queen Victoria in royal robes, faced the entrance,
placed above the first landing on the grand
staircase. Tea was served continuously for the guests,
poured from ancestral silver teakettles and handed by
maids wearing caps after the English fashion. Costly
crimson silk hangings lined the walls of the large
drawing room, and a full band played for the dancers.
It was a fairy scene, and fully repaid one for
their trouble in getting there.
Leaving my party card after the reception, I was
again surprised to have Lady Thornton and her
daughters make me a formal visit at my hotel, but it
served to convince me that a lady can be an unsophisticated,
sweet-spirited lady whether she lives in a
palace or in a little cottage.
I had a sickly little boy to occupy my hands and
heart, and my society visits were strictly limited, but
it was both comical and entertaining to meet the Japs
and Turks at Supreme Court receptions, always given
at that time, by the Judges' wives on Monday afternoons.
The Japanese were always alert. No matter
where you went you would find these natty little people,
dressed like Europeans and looking out for novelties.
I recall an experience in the diplomatic gallery
of the House to which I had been admitted by the
thoughtful kindness of Speaker Randall. The only
available seat was one on the carpeted steps going
down from the door, near the bottom, not exceeding
two feet in length and less in width. My street dress
for the winter had rows of silk buttons down the back
as well as front, with silk cord laced across. When the
excitement increased in the hall there was some hand
clapping all about me. Finding something playing
tattoo on my spine, I turned about a find a little
Japanese attache working his little feet industriously,
and as I did not speak his language I could only look
imploringly and point to my back. As he was in his
appointed place, and I was perhaps an intruder in
the diplomatic gallery, I wisely decided to wear fewer
buttons next day and say nothing. This brings to
mind also my seat on the immense official platform
when Chicago welcomed the world during its dedicatory
exercises in 1892, where my crowded feet were
almost in proximity to the neck of the Chinese Minister
Plenipotentiary, on that occasion, and I had
splendid opportunity to inquire why the Chinese have
such great, immense, bare necks, and are so spaciously
broad from ear to ear. That Chicago gathering
of notables was truly a show worth looking at. The
observation stand was erected for national celebrities
on the post office building, overlooking a main street,
and from which Vice-President Morton reviewed the
entire civic and military procession. The temporary
structure was simply piled high with dignitaries and
notables. My badge admitted me along with my ticket
of invitation, but I have often been amused to think
that perhaps I did not belong there among that solid
mass of congressmen, governors, foreign ministers, cabinet
officers, admirals, generals and such like, but I did
see the crowd and if anybody thought I did not belong
there with my lady companion they were too polite to
say so. I never saw such a congregated mass of people,
even in Chicago, save the day when Mayor Carter
Harrison was convoyed to his long home after his
assassination.
Just a few days before he was murdered in his own
house, he attended an informal luncheon in the Woman's
Building. As he was a popular mayor and
jolly good fellow, he was surrounded by the ladies
from the states and territories, to be introduced and
welcomed.
When my name was called, with clever gallantry,
he insisted that I should take his arm and show him
some of the wonders of the building, all the time asking
about Dr. Felton and recalling the funny things
that happened to himself in the 44th Congress, when
they were colleagues on some committee. Inside of
a week I saw Chicago pay him funeral honors of which
any citizen or ruler might be well proud. If public
grief ever can be exploited that was one time when a
big city prostrated itself in mourning and civic
lamentation.
In Chicago you might see
dukes and duchesses,
lords and ladies, some princesses, etc., and to
plebian
eyes, they look amazingly like other well-dressed people
abroad on a visit. These foreign royalties make
a specialty of languages, and one of the very neatest
and most taking papers that were read before the
crowd in the Woman's Building on opening day was
written and read by a Russian princess in fine, correct
English.
Mrs. Potter Palmer gave a magnificent reception
to the Duke and Duchess of Veragua, the lineal descendants
of the family of Christopher Columbus, and
the duchess, with her grown daughter, was gowned in
particularly fine clothes, but as her grace did not
speak English, nor could I speak Spanish we shook
hands and smiled. The smile was cosmopolitan, but
all the same I felt sorry I could not tell her I was
glad to see her in her native tongue. I was at home
when the Princess Eulalie came over to represent
Spain, as young King Alphonso's aunt, his father's
sister. The funny things that they told me about
which happened during her visit, I did not see but
also read about in the newspapers.
The princess would not have been quite so easy and
airish, I guess, if she could have foreseen the fate of
Cuba, Porto Rico
and the Philippines. This government
paid all her expenses at an enormous price per
diem, while she sojourned in Chicago so she got even
on one line if Spain failed on others. Doubtless she
couldn't help being airish and arrogant, but we should
go slow on toadyism, now and hereafter, in my opinion,
which however stands for no more than it amounts
to I hasten to say.
I did not live in the days of Revolution, of Whig and
Tory, but quite near enough to hear old people tell
of what this country endured to get rid of a monarchial
government, and I'll not compromise with royalty
so long as the "pomp and state at a palace gate are
what my spirit was taught to hate," and I'd think my
daughter (if I only had one to brag about) had as
many chances for domestic happiness with an honest
hearted, clean-souled poor American boy as with effete
royalty in foreign lands, no matter how long the
rent roll or the number of names recorded with the
title.
I rode in the procession which fled through the
streets of Chicago on dedication day, commemorative
of the landing of Columbus in the year 1492, four
hundred years after America was discovered. We
started at 7:50 A.M. and the cortege was so long and
the retinue so immense, the crowd so great, and the
notables so numerous, that my watch said 2 P.M. before
we alighted near the immense Mechanic Arts
building, which was said to cover forty acres of
ground. I sat considerably in the rear of the chosen
speakers, Messrs. Watterson and Depew, and of one
speech I collected a few words, of the other not one.
Somebody ate up all the luncheon and when I arrived
after dark at my boarding house four and a half
miles from Jackson Park, I was hungry, tired, yes
worn out, and as I had eaten a bit of toast and drank
a coup
of tea about six in the morning, and hadn't a
mite of supper or drink until 8 P.M., or afterwards,
I shall always indulge the notion that royalty have
hard times of it at coronations and on state occasions.
Those that dance will pay the piper and the greatest
variety or recreation that came to me that tiresome
day was when a Georgia boy belonging to the army
rode up to our carriage, standing still, until it could
move on, and called me by name. He was with his
command from a far-off state, but as water seeks a level,
two plain Georgia folks met many hundred miles
from home and were glad to shake hands and claim
acquaintance. A touch of nature makes the world
akin, and we were mutually delighted to be what we
were, without trying to be anybody greater or louder.
It was a great pleasure to see and become acquainted
with Mrs. Potter Palmer, the Lady President
of the Chicago Exposition. She was so handsome,
so tactful, so gracious in her manners, with
infinite charm that she was an ideal lady in any assemblage
where she might choose to appear.
She was remarkable in very many respects, and to
the day of her death she commanded admiration, esteem
and profound affection from all who knew her
best. I have very lately read a contribution to the
columns of the Saturday Evening Post, written by her
niece, daughter of Mrs. Palmer's only sister, Miss
Grant.
I saw Miss Grant occasionally during the Chicago
Exposition, but she was a girl in her early teens.
She married a Russian Prince and was lately in
Russia, during the time of the Czar's alliance with
the opponents of the Kaiser and after the Czar was
dethroned and the mountain of disaster fell on the
Russian Empire.
The letters to the Post, written by Princess Cantacuzene,
nee Julia Grant, were very interesting,
graphic, and of decided literary talent. Somehow I
could discern a good deal of Mrs. Palmer in what I
read and the influence she had in shaping the thoughts
and manners of her titled niece.
It was my good fortune at one time to see General
Toombs and Hon. A. H. Stephens together on several
occasions when they were in rare good humor, and full
of reminiscent talk.
Mr. Stephens once said to me that he believed General
Toombs was the greatest man he ever knew, the
all-round man, with his rare gifts of oratory and political
courage, emphasizing the fact of his magnificent
appearance and manly beauty, when in his prime.
I take pleasure, too, in remembering a visit that
Judge Hiram Warner made to Washington City,
where he called on us, and kindly told me about how
he was raided after the Civil War and actually hung
for a short time by the robbers who were trying to
extort money and valuables in his home. He was a
great man, a Georgia jurist in whom the state can indulge
in pride. Northern born, the South had no truer
public servant within its borders, than Judge Hiram
Warner.
I am satisfied that
history will write down Hon.
Jos. E. Brown as one of our great Georgia governors.
While he seemed always to get on the other side of
politics from us, he was a born leader of men, and for
a third of a century he managed Georgia politics. And
I am one who believes his wife had a great deal to do
with his success in life. Not many people know that
she read to him constantly in his leisure moments, and
when he was first made Governor, and he spent some
midsummer weeks at Rowland's Springs, a few miles
from our home, I have occasionally met them going to
and from town and saw her reading the newspapers to
him as they passed me. In his last days when he was
entirely unable to discern a letter in a newspaper, I
called to pay my respects, and she was even then reading
aloud to cheer him in his affliction. She had
a famous supply of good common sense, without any
fribbles of airs or pretensions, and I had a profound
respect for such valuable acquirements.
It Is a Shame
That We Take More Pains in Breeding Cattle
Than in Mating Human Beings - Men Go a Thousand
Miles to Get the Best Grafts for Orchards, But
They Allow the Veriest Scrubs to be Grafted on the
Family Tree - Breeding in and in Among New Hampshire
Towns Made an Idiot in Every Family.
(Reported by W. G. Cooper, for Atlanta Journal.)
"This title is not
an extravagant one. The subject of the
communication is as broad as humanity and as deep as human
soul. A gifted lady, who long ago passed through motherhood,
the sublimest of human tragedy, its holiest ministry and its
noblest sacrifice, speaks de profundis to her kind. The message
is to the twentieth century, because it is the business of that era
to right the wrongs of the past.
"At a recent meeting
of the Atlanta Woman's club Mrs. Felton
delivered the following address, which was listened to with
breathless attention, and at its conclusion a rising vote of
thanks expressed the feelings of the audience. It is an address
that should be read by every man and woman in the world:
paid American women the compliment of also saying they had
the courage of their convictions, that 'being pledged to the
spiritual side of life, any cause they decide to champion is
bound to succeed.' This is high praise, due to their sincerity
and ability. The history of women's clubs in America demonstrates
the attractiveness of the movement. There is a great
social force in your organizations - a force united to religious
and purely reform associations in a measure - nevertheless a
force distinct from either in plan - while the purpose tends to
the same result, namely, the making of better men and women,
the improvement of the home, and the betterment of society.
Feeling my own great indebtedness to the courage as
well as the sincerity and ability of great leaders of thought
among women, I ventured to bring to your attention today,
the consideration of some of the influences which affect life and
character, and in the beginning, I disclaim all desire to appear
as a scientist, or even an instructor in matters that will be
presented. I bring their importance only that thought may be
arrested, and that we may confer together for mutual benefit
and progress and to emphasize their power. When the census
returns in the last decade were tabulated, it was stated that
more than 700,000 defective persons were discovered in the
United States Think of it! Seven hundred thousand, who were
maimed, deformed in mind and body, the imbecile, the insane,
the blind, the deaf and dumb, the epileptic, and otherwise deformed
men, women and children. The majority came into
the world thus maimed - injured - and can I dare to say it,
maltreated by their progenitors. You understand they had no
volition as to this coming; they gave no consent as to this
forced appearance. Their disfigured human lives was not the
existence they would have chosen. They were born, forced into
the struggle, and in nearly all the cases, no relief could be
possible until they were removed by death out of this deformity
and wretchedness.
"The standing army of the United States consisted of 25,000
men before the Spanish-American war. It was a great
body of men, whether considered as to numbers, to expense or
mobilization, yet here in our midst, is an army of 700,000,
twenty-eight times greater, to be cared for, supported and endured.
Many of these unfortunates were hopelessly imbecile.
I saw a number of children who were born without mind, in the
deaf and dumb asylum of the state, twenty odd years ago.
They had no mental capacity. They were blank except to animal
appetite and passion If there is anything under the shining sun,
we as mothers should be thankful for, it is reason and
mental health in ourselves and our children To have human
birth and to be devoid of reason is simply horrible to contemplate.
I asked but few questions concerning these blighted
children, but the history of similar cases goes to show that
neglect, cruelty, sometimes diseased parentage, were the causes
ascribed. How can we understand these conditions! Is this
a curse that follows to the third and fourth generations? Did
the fathers eat sour grapes? Were the children's teeth on
edge?
"A curse that follows to three and four generations is
obliged to be an inherited curse! If it is entailed where shall
responsibility be affixed?
"I bring this subject to you, my friends, because of its importance
to motherhood, because the question is vital, and because
responsibility is great.
"Children are being born into this world every day - every
hour - yes, every minute. Their well-being is the great problem
of the times we live in. While their comfort or misery
may be an individual matter, they have great effect on society,
on the body politic. The investigation of this and kindred
subjects commends itself to women, because every child born
into earthly existence had once a mother. The murderer in the
electric chair, or on the gallows tree had his mother and that
mother bore for his sake, the heavy burden, laid upon maternity.
She may have been a worthy woman or otherwise, nevertheless,
she went down, well nigh into the valley of the shadow
of death to give him existence. This murderer came here an
innocent little child, in the likeness of its parents. Like produced
like. His physical being was undoubtedly a reproduction.
Whether his mind and nature was also the product of his parentage
who can say? If evil tendencies were engrafted into
him before he came here does he bear an the responsibility?
Shall he bear all the blame? If environment can be charged
with all the evil results, then the subject is equally interesting
and important, but the facts go to show that heredity is equally
prominent as a motor in shaping destiny. Who is sufficient unto
these things? I am always rejoiced to know that the mother
of a man, who is hanged - has died - been taken from evil to
come. Who can measure her agony or picture her grief as she
bends her poor knees in the governor's office to plead for such
a child's life? And friends, this is a subject no man or woman
can refuse to consider on the plea of personal protection.
"No home can protect itself from the entrance of disease,
sorrow, accident, death and misfortune. The wheel of life is
forever turning over. What is up today is under tomorrow.
So long as every human life must therefore be touched by those
around them, no exemption can be claimed, no life defended
from association or contact with others. 'Let him that standeth,
take heed lest he fall no one liveth to himself, no one dieth
to himself,' says the Bible. You may not accept heredity as a
controlling force in human life, and you may feel quite sure as
to protected environment, but this army of defective persons
perhaps now swelled to the million figures, must be accounted
for. How much of the world's deformity in mind and body is
owing to indifference as well as ignorance, eternity, alone can
answer. No one present can dispute the fact that a child, born
into a well-respected home with opportunity to associate with
respectable people, with books, education, discipline, moral
training, good example and cleanly habits has an infinitely better
chance to do well in life, health, and morals than the poor
waif, the slum product, germinated in a hot bed of sin and
debauchery, and brought up in constant association with others
equally unfortunate and under similar degradation. But it is
well known that all the bad people in the world do not emerge
from the slums. All the criminals were not born in the gutter.
And it is equally well known that some of the most famous
people in literature, science, invention and religion, were born
in most unfavorable locations.
"In spite of training, discipline, education, example and
entreaty, black sheep do come out of well-tended flocks; girls
and boys, men and women do go wrong where and when least
expected, and their reformation would seem to defy both grace
and gospel. There are homes where mothers tremble at every
step on the gravel, every knock on the door. They have kept
their own lives unspotted from filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
and an anguished heart moans, "Oh! God, why is it?" They
go burdened, beset with doubts, fears and vainly seeking an
explanation. They are racked and tortured, actually their pure
love is crucified and put to open shame. They would do anything
to save their children to lives of virtue and honesty, yes,
they would be glad to die to save them from ruin and disgrace
and count their own loss small with gain so great. Who
can give a formula for a problem so momentous as this, and
who is there that has been furnished complete answer?
It is a recognized fact
that the civilized world, after the varied
experience and record of centuries, has settled down upon
the necessity of one husband for one wife and a clean life for
two. The well-being of their offspring is the plea advanced.
There has been outcry against the seating of a Morman
representative
in the national congress.
Thousands of men and women affixed their names to petitions
asking that polygamy should be rebuked by the dismissal
of Mr. Roberts. Some twenty odd years ago a Morman sat in
the house of representatives and nobody talked about turning
him out, or not allowing him to come in. He was reported as
having four wives, but they did not appear as a quartet at receptions
and were not in sight from the galleries. He had
credit for large information and legislative fitness. I can recall
his face and figure still. What reason occurs to your mind
that one should be tolerated and the other dismissed? I can
find nothing that will explain, save that the women of the
United States were indignant at Morman debasement of women.
The world is growing wiser - has been awakened to the real
requirements of the marriage relation. Women have had the
courage of conviction and demanded the disenthrallment of women
in Utah. Public opinion thundered in the dismissal of
Representative Roberts. The case was made against plural
wives - the women of this country won it. It was a revolt
against the degradation of plural wives. The future of their
children was not the question, because Mormons claim there
are no illegitimates in Utah - no need for foundling hospitals.
Every child can claim its father and inherit his estate. It may
bear its father's name and the woman does not hide in shame
while the man walks abroad and marries a respectable girl afterward,
leaving her to bear the burden.
It was a question pertaining solely to motherhood and the
United States congress declared wives were no longer to be
classed as concubines nor slaves in a harem. She must stand
erect with equal dignity and respect, by the father of her
child. The discussion may still range about the size of her
brain, the amount of her pay in wage-earning, the scope of her
sphere, and her liberty to vote, but the question of plural wives
and harems in families has been stamped upon by the national
legislature.
"This Utah business calls to mind the error that prevailed
for centuries in regard to the status of mothers and the relative
position of women to mankind generally.
"I have been ashamed to know that women were selected in
foreign countries for breeding purposes. Queens have been
picked or rejected according to their ability to give birth to
heirs to the crown. Napoleon's downfall begun with his putting
away of Josephine for purposes of selfish ambition. The woman
was recognized only as a means to the end. She was expected
and exhorted to sink self out of sight when her owner
commanded her maternity, as he would the castle they lived in
or the money he wasted in war and debauchery. The women
were looked upon as goods and chattels, to be used or abused
at pleasure, without regard to the results in children.
"How much of the wrong, the injustice, crime, misery, deformity
and defects of the human race have been the outcome
of the mother in serfdom or in subject condition with the
debasement of one sex to the demands of the other, we can
never know, but we do bear witness to the evil traits, tendencies,
defects and deformities which have been coming down the
stream of time, which can be understood in that way and possibly
in no other. We do know that our great men, within our
knowledge, were not by a great majority the output of wealth
or luxury or learning, but nine cases out of ten the children of
strong, independent, well-balanced mothers in America.
"Christianity, the great elevator of the woman-status, has
struggled for 2,000 years against this aforetime subjection of
the mother, when all readers of our Lord's gospels must understand
the honor and respect the Christ uniformly gave to the
sex. Never a word against the woman, always tenderness, pity
and respect, from the love he bore his own mother, to pity for
the poor tempted one to whom he said, "Go, and sin no more!"
"In view of this long subjection, perhaps the question of
heredity may seem clearer to your minds.
"Pre-natal influences are powerful, potentially vivid. Some
times they are so strong as to photograph themselves on the unborn
infant. The mother's susceptibility to appetite, to fright,
to passion, has been pictured in this way without a doubt.
Common sense and medical science would indicate the necessity
for giving the mother a living chance to imprint the beauties
and protect her from the accidents, the mishaps of human life.
When such is so complete who can dispute for
an instant the opportunity to print upon mind and heart the
likes and dislikes of its mind and heart the likes and dislikes
of its matrix, when the mother possesses the race-endowing
function, evidenced in life-giving existence?
"In modern parlance the mother is called the child's first
teacher. She holds even a much nearer and more exalted relation
to her child. When she can and does sometimes, photograph
her own peculiar thoughts and appetites, written in such
plain lines that she reads without hesitation, then I say she is
more than instructor. If this woman shall have been so maltreated,
tormented and bullied that her child reflects the mind
and temper that possessed her, at a crisis in its pre-natal existence,
where will responsibility rest or wrong-doing be punished?
If this great army of defectives carries not only the
mark of its defective birth but the mark which Cain declared
was heavier than he could bear? Is not this subject one of
such importance that no parent can afford to ignore it? 'Murder
of the innocents' might be the title over which the artist
could portray his impression of the awful crime and of modern
Herods, against the unborn child, and which in turn the doomed
man should necessarily hand down to his successors. Again I
ask, is not the curse that follows to the third and fourth generation
an inherited curse? Where would we find strength to bear
this burden as parents except for God's promise to show mercy
unto thousands who love and keep his commandments?
"A little reflection and study brings to view more and more
of the influences of heredity and environment. Children in
early youth begin to show their peculiarities and predilections.
"The example of parents is the primitive line of instruction.
They incline to the same food, the same attitudes, the
same tricks in speech, tones of voice; they begin to walk in
their elder's steps as soon as they balance themselves for walking
at all. They intend to do everything they see their parents
do, as nearly as inexperience can follow experts. Their imitations
are exceedingly comical. This is true in mind and manners
also. A child that hears no vulgar words in the home will
be shocked when it encounters vulgarity outside. An incautious
father who utters oaths before his little children may expect
to hear baby versions of what is to them a very smart
speech. The silly mother who repeats gossip before her child
would be surprised to hear the glib assertions in the school
room and play grounds. These young ones go poll-parroting
for two reasons, namely: They believe all they hear at home -
youthful faith is strong until deceived - and inherit the tendency
to talk more than is good for them. They catch at good
things with the same readiness. A father who impresses honest
dealings with others upon his boy's mind, his son is not
going to forget it. He will remember it when his father is cold
in his coffin. His good name will be treasured, and maybe,
it will be all the dead man could bequeath to the survivor. No
matter where that boy goes or where he dies, he will remember
his father's good name with satisfaction. It is better than
riches, truly, because the riches can take wings and fly away,
but that pleasing memory will be sweet in poverty and death.
"But when a child has no pleasure, either in the example
or counsel of its parents, it is in stormy waters, without chart
or compass. Heaven pity the poor mariner with whirlpools all
about him! Save the poor girl who floats with the tide of folly
and imprudence and is lost in the breakers!
"The older I grow, the more I see of the dangers that imperil
human existence - the more fearful parental responsibility
appears to me. My ignorance even now appalls me, when
I discover that I, too, rushed in where angels would fear to
tread. Marriages are so hastily contracted. The parties can
know nothing of the real character, temper, habits or whims
of each other in the heyday of courtship. The seamy sides of
matrimony are reserved for later periods. Then it is too late
to rectify fatal mistakes. Divorces leave scars, and where
children are involved the bleeding wounds are left open. I
could not say that a woman should not have protection and
peace if there were children involved, because her own life is
given to her with its individual responsibilities and she is accountable
for her disposition of it, but I do say, the children
of a divided household are always sufferers, because as before
said every child needs the best efforts of both parents in unity
for its well-being. And a son born of a mother who has been
bullied, maltreated and cowed into submission will become like
his father, or, he will turn upon the author of his being with
indignant dislike, as soon as the facts are made known to him.
"There is nothing in life so absolutely candid in its observations
and declarations as a young child with average intelligence,
when it begins to take the measure of people about it.
The mind is as soft as clay, to receive - as hard as marble to
remove. Time nor stress of weather will efface early impressions.
It is the general oversight or misconception of parental
influence before and after birth which has kept the world so
full of sin and misery since creation. We can never hope to
have a perfect physical or moral race until the conditions of
reproduction warrant it. Immorality is moral decay. Uncleanness
is perpetuated. How many families do you know
which, after twenty-five years, can present a clean bill of
health, without inherited disease, insanity, deformity, drunkenness,
immorality or crime? The proper training of children
has been much discussed. No word truly meant or spoken ever
fell on barren soil, but the beginning was omitted. We start
in the middle, when we omit the foundation of the building.
We act as if everything can begin in haphazards, provided we
can prune the scions about the main tree. I tell you the preparation
for the child will go a long way toward a successful
after training. It is astonishing how much time is given to
other subjects, while so little is said of the responsibility of
assuming parental duties. This race-endowing function of
motherhood-with its life-giving existence, is the greatest
mystery, and at the same time the grandest work committed to
humankind. We may never know how like produces like, in nature
or in animals; nevertheless we witness the miracle in every
reproduction of its kind wherever seen. The Almighty Father
selected the woman as the custodian of the child in the most
critical period of its existence. After all these thousands of
years the woman still loves her baby, works for it and does
her best for it under difficulties. When I hear silly people
prating about superiority in sex I call to mind this trust and
confidence. The Lord was willing to trust the mother. He
knew her loyalty to the maternal instinct. There is another
fact worthy of mention: No stream rises higher than its
source. Your mother gave you capacity to understand and
appropriate. Education and opportunity may make you more
learned, but she gave you that capacity. Whatever you are
she could have been under the same influences. 'Man that is
born of woman is of few days and full of trouble,' but if you
had not been molded - fashioned into shape by your mother,
you would still be floating about a molecule in the vastness of
eternity. It ill becometh the creature to think little of its
creator. She gave you all she had to give. You could not
have what she had not to bestow. I have looked at a ton of
coal and a little diamond. Both have value, both are carbon;
but it does provoke a smile to hear the ton of coal boast of
its size and strength as evidence of its greater worth, usefulness,
elevation or superiority.
"Your mother would have made you perfect if conditions had
warranted it. Like the mother of Zebedee's children, she
is bold enough to ask for thrones for her offspring. You would
all be rulers, presidents, even earthly archangels, if she reached
the limit of her desire.
"But she did as much for your sister. The accident of sex,
with the same parents, never lifted one to honor or lowered the
other to dishonor. The Ganges river was used in old time to
drown girl children. It would be a good place to carry worthless
creatures to at this time - if this plea of superiority held
good - in the eyes of eternal justice. No honorable father ever
looked in his daughter's face and thought her inferior in anything
that constituted excellence and high character. There is
distinction, there is difference, but the law says a girl must
have equal share in the estate of her father. There is difference
between a carload of coal and in the sparkling gem on
your finger. There is strength in a bar of steel and in a watch
spring - both made of iron. There is beauty in the giant oak
and there is beauty in the vine that encircles it; both grow in
the same soil - had the same origin.
"For the mother to do her duty she must be instructed. Ignorance
is discounted, as it should be everywhere. She should
understand, at least some of these duties and responsibilities
before marriage. Young women, like young birds, are crowded
out of the old nest sometimes; sometimes they dislike old maidenism;
again they want an establishment; they are ambitious
like their brothers; very frequently they entertain visionary
ideas about being worshipped as goddesses; they eschew common
things and propose to be happy forever on syllabub and
rose leaves in their new alliance. They actually know less
about the care of infants and the duties pertaining to motherhood
than anything else under the shining sun. If the young
mother has common sense she will learn, but through the hardest.
If she is hysterically silly, she will remain so and a burden
to herself and everybody else. And she is to be pitied as
well as scolded. It speaks loudly for either the indifference
or cowardice of modern mothers when the girl leaves the home
roof before her own mother has discharged her duty to this
child, whose happiness is, or should be, as dear to her as her
own life. How can she - pure and guileless girl - know unless
she has a teacher who can speak with the tenderness of whispering
angels and the firmness of a judge on the bench as to her
inevitable future? What instructor so capable as her own
mother? That innocent, ignorant child deserves plain-featured
advice in this crisis of her life and every consideration
as to health, responsibility and the probable burdens of motherhood
should be carefully presented, not only for the daughter's
sake, but for those to come after her.
"How many poor young birds flutter in glee out of the home
nest, only to fall on the ground and die! Boys, equally with
girls, should be advised by loving parents before they enter
upon the high and holy estate of matrimony. If a young man
is sensible he will appreciate it, and if he is not, then the
mother will have delivered the whole counsel of a parent in
the sight of God and in view of the issues involved. As a rule
the romance has been allowed to obscure the realities. The
disagreeables have concealed themselves under the sensibilities,
highly overwrought.
"The marriage relation is generally viewed from an exclusively
selfish standpoint, hence so many failures and disappointments.
Better a thousand times be very lonely in single blessedness
than to be very unhappy in married misery. The happiest
woman in the world, in my opinion, is the wife of a true, good
man, who sympathizes with her, cheerishes
her, loves and
protects
her. Together they can raise their offspring in unity of
purpose and with an eye single to their real progress and prosperity
here and hereafter. A cottage would be a palace of content.
Neither poverty nor riches would affect their abiding
trust in each other, the only sound basis of their respect and
affection. But it is a thousand times better not to marry at all
rather than live in a hailstorm of discontent or blighting frost
of mutual dislike and antipathy. Under such conditions no parent
is qualified to do the proper thing either to themselves or
their children. Food, raiment, money, opportunity may be
there in lavish abundance, but that household has broken or
lost its mainspring, like a good-looking watch that won't keep
the time. With genuine affection authority would be its insignia
of love and respect. Obedience would be the perfect type
of loyalty. But in a household where discord prevails unrest
settles down like a cloud on young and old.
"The records in New York city in the year 1897 showed 13,000
divorce cases for that year alone. These unhappy families
were exploited in the divorce court and their cases adjudged.
This did not include the thousands who didn't go there, who
made no outcry for appearance's sake, perhaps for the sake of
children, nor did it include high-life divorces, where rapid exchange
of partners was carried on. Cruel treatment and drunkenness
was the plea in the most of cases. Infidelity to the marriage
relation, desertion and refusal to support came in frequently.
Think of the havoc that prevailed! "Impure as a
drunkard's blood" is a medical axiom of long standing. Children
inherit other blood impurities, such as cancer, scrofula,
goitre, consumption - why not drunkenness! We are very strict
in quarantining against infectious diseases. A man who
walked down the street, broken out with smallpox, would have
a brief exercise before he was taken up. Yet many cases are
reported where other infectious diseases have been carried into
the homes of clean, pure-hearted women, and sadder still into
the life-blood of her own dear innocent children, where she had
no protection for herself and scant relief to them. Like the
frogs in Egypt, these evils go up into fine houses sometimes, as
well as down into hovels. I tell you the greatest problem that
confronts the human race is not its food, clothing, transportation,
commerce, sound money or tariff. It is the protection of
motherhood, the foundation, the basic stone in the welfare and
happiness of nations. We cannot have a truly prosperous people
or nation until the conditions of reproduction warrant it.
The man himself is manifestly of greater value than all the
things he needs for sustenance or pleasure. To this neglect
of motherhood, the great force, the only human force this side
of heaven, with gifts for life-bestowing existence, we can
ascribe ten thousand ills and failures, and who can measure the
losses, the disappointments, the defeats and disasters that have
occurred from the neglect and oversight? The greatest burden
upon our civil government is the protection of innocent,
honest, law-abiding people, from the guilty, dishonest and lawless.
The expenses of courts, juries, prisons ,etc., are a terrible
burden upon the taxpayers. Add to these expenses the
hospitals, asylums, sanitariums for defective classes, and you
can appreciate these results, arising from unhappy conditions
of reproduction in human life. How many criminals were insane
when a crime or felony was committed - who can tell?
With the delicate structure of the human brain acted upon by
impulses perhaps inoculated before birth, who can tell when
and where insanity lay dormant until struck by passion?
"When medical philosophy assures us that a single glass of
intoxicating liquor will increase blood circulation until the
pulsations are rapid and abnormal as in fever, what can be expected
of a brain that is surcharged and violently inflamed?
When overloaded digestive organs have been known to produce
sudden death because of the defective physical structure
and condition of the victim, who will dispute the excessive susceptibility
of the human brain to disease and attack?
"After the system has been exposed by inherited disease and
dissipation, and both brain and stomach are in inflamed condition,
how easy, how rapid, how fatal are accidents to the
delicate machinery of the human brain? I notice the plea of
insanity is almost the universal plea in defense of a murderer.
Who dares to say it was not a proper plea? When you recollect
under what conditions the great majority of human beings
find their way into existence, why not insanity? I take
it that reputable attorneys would not urge what they know
to be a sham or fraud. I know there are brazen instances of
what seem to be premeditated, spite, hate, all things revengeful
and diabolic. Who knows, save Omniscence?
"The child and its life reminds me of a fort built with
defenses on one side and no barricades on the other. In front
there are churches, schools, courts, training and example. On
the other side, the unprotected side, there are the bad tempers
of its ancestry, diseased blood, proneness to evil, weakness in
concealed vital parts and the intricate brain machinery liable
to accident in a thousand ways.
"The enemy does not usually train his guns on the protected
side. He has only to throw a bomb, or light a fuse,
or touch a concealed but live wire and the unexpected explosion
occurs. Sometimes a tap on the head upsets the whole man
in his mind. Then again, through his appetite, perhaps an inherited
craving for strong drink or opium, the train having
been laid years and years before he was born: the match can
be struck which opens to the fire-fiend the least defensive point
in the poor victim's life. The mother, herself the heir of ancestral
entailments, is tortured to witness the ruin as the forces
of evil fling themselves en masse upon the character and happiness
of her offspring. Parental love is the only enduring
thing in the dismantled fort. It will go anywhere that poor
child goes. By God's grace we discover in the records of eternity
that God's love for fallen man and woman's love for her
child have kept the race from eternal ruin. Who knows how
the guilty man or woman reached this place of exposed depravity?
This subject is of vital importance to us all. We know
not what a day may bring forth to show the exceeding
instability of any process of reasoning based upon the hidden
things that hereditary transmission may develop. It is important
in every light that can be thrown on by the citizen, the
philanthropist, the patriot, the legislator, the Christian or the
parent. When people can be induced to think a great step forward
has been gained.
"Arrest of thought
is necessary to begin any reform. It
has been said there is no salvation without suffering. Surely
there have been such heavy burdens borne by the loving mothers
of the great human race as to merit attention to the necessity
for better general conditions in the great responsibilities of
motherhood.
"Kippling
has
recently given evidence at once of the goodness
of his heart and the quality of his genius by writing a
poem which will be sold in behalf of the fund for the benefit
of the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in South Africa.
It is an appeal in the style of the "Barrack Room Ballads"
for the women and children "Tommy Atkins" has left behind.
The last stanza reads:
"Let us manage so as later we can look him in the face,
Each stanza has a
separate refrain, of which the following
is a sample:
Cook's son, Duke's son, son of a belted Earl.
Let me paraphrase
Kipling in a few words:
Let us act so as later we can look the mother in the face,
"The statement may
sound radical, strong, but I am going
to say that no child should come into this hard world to suffer
unless it has a decent home to be born into, with clean blood in
its little veins. I do not charge my Heavenly Father with a
desire or willingness to punish the innocent.
"Eternal justice can never stand as the author of evil. The
unborn infant which is to come here without its own consent has
a vested right to a living chance and if its parents gave it only
its physical being it should still have a living chance, or it
should not come here at all. If parents are so obtuse, so indifferent,
so criminally negligent to this great trust, then they
should have a guardian, and be declared unfit to attend to the
business. There are some restrictions in matrimony, but less
than in any known public business on this earth. There is inhibition
in some places as to kinship, but it is not strict enough,
because the effete monarchies of Europe will demonstrate the
impotency of mating among near relations. Having placed some
restrictions others should follow without serious difficulty.
Every man who handles public money must give a bond. I
don't care how good or honest he may be, he has to give security
in a shape of collaterals, or some men worth the bond must
stand for him, or he can't hold the position. I am not prepared
to offer to you the size of the bond or the number of
security signers that should go with a marriage certificate, but
I am sure there should be enough to make it binding. I cannot
measure the value of human life in cold cash. I cannot
weigh domestic happiness by the pound or in English sovereigns,
but I say there should go with a marriage license a bond
for proper performance of its obligations. I like that old English
style of publishing the banns. There cannot be too much
advertisement of the intention when bigamy and seduction prevail
in the land. A health certificate should have been required
a hundred years ago. Any man or woman who had genuine affection
for a life time marriage tie would not object to a health
certificate where so much is involved.
"I expect I have seen the marriage ceremony performed a
hundred times, most of them in our home. All sorts of people
rush into matrimony. Any man or even youth who can beg or
borrow one dollar and sixty cents - ten cents for revenue
can marry if he will. The ordinary who issues the license is
only concerned that the age of the parties will escape punishment,
and the permit is issued.
"Certainly, the high and holy estate of matrimony should
have as many safeguards as an insurance policy, or as public
moneys, or transfer in real estate. The recording of the marriage
certificate is the only protection to name or property that
the children of this marriage are given. That amounts to
nothing when a worthless father forsakes them in penury, or a
degraded mother throws them into the home of the friendless.
It fatigues the indignation to see the indifference of public
opinion to the heavy burdens that go with a population, swelled
to mammoth size, by allowing all sorts and conditions of people
to spawn these misplaced children upon tax-ridden communities.
"No man will purchase real estate without examining the
title away back to make sure he can hold it. He will not hand
over a check for the purchase money until the deed is in reach
of his hand. But children are mated every day to absolute
strangers and inquiries concerning character or habits wouldn't
amount to a row of pins, in the absence of proper and binding
security. A man can get up a petition on any subject and
signed by anybody. I heard of a joker once who carried a paper
incriminating the signer, who put his name down without
reading it. But when a bond has to be made with money value,
I tell you there will be care and investigation. In eastern countries
where cattle and flocks were considered purchase money,
for either bride or groom-the sheep bleated and the cows bellowed
in the new owner's home before the marriage feast was eaten.
"But our present civilization permits two children sometimes,
who know no more about raising a family than the loose straws
in a last year's bird's nest, to enter into marriage, and if it
were not for the kind Providence watches over the sparrow's
nest in a mountain pine, these poor birds would perish
in the first untimely frost. We apply improved methods to
everything under the heavens, save protection to motherhood
and security for the offspring. Inexperience rushes in blindly,
where present and eternal happiness is imperiled. Sadder
than all the results of unfitness are handed down from generation
to generation. Cattle breeders take no risk. It must be
the best or none. Fruit men will go a thousand miles for
grafts that are well guaranteed. Yet the diseased, the deformed
are given a license to marry and families are increased
with absolute disregard for the rights of the unborn generations.
We make furious outcry against importation of the
slum denizens of foreign countries, without raising a hand
to stop the rapid increase of defective classes already here.
'Saving at the spigot, flowing at the bung,' would parallel such
a fatuous policy. Because motherhood bears the very unequal
burden, I bring these things to your notice. The lifetime nature
of the marriage relation is the plea I offer - the future of
our children is the menacing danger, the children that come
after them, is the reward or the punishment, which will come
from either good or bad laws. Woman's responsibility to her
Creator, to herself, to her children, will in coming years make
her apply her forces to reform as has been before exemplified.
It is a crying shame that a little 10-year-old girl in Georgia is
deemed qualified to protect a woman's dearest possession from
rapine and seduction. From my point of view maternity would
rank higher than anything in creation below our eternal salvation.
The best efforts in legislation, the greatest expenditure
in philanthropy, the most abounding patience and charity in
religion and social economy could find ample scope in the greatest
work known to human kind.
"The mother's work comes next to the divine. She needs
heights and depths of love and purity to qualify her for a proper
preparation, and to sustain her proper energies. Her child
is a part of her own life. She gives it a place in the world.
If she is a slave her child is a slave. The child is lifted up or
lowered down by the home it is born into. It shares with her,
receives from her, inherits from her. Oh! mother, the very
breath which the Lord God breathed from His own mouth into
the first created being when Adam became a living soul! The
Lord Almighty placed the burden of maternity upon the woman,
He laid the burden of example and support upon the man.
What did He say of His servant Abraham? "I know he will
command his household after him to do justice and judgment."
What did He say of the high priest Eli? 'His sons made
themselves vile and he restrained them not.' Eli's wife was
not blamed, poor soul!
"This burden of child-bearing is one the angels might desire
to look into; this burden of example is woefully neglected in
the training, raising and uplifting of the race.
"Oh, what wrongs are inflicted on some misguided young
mothers! How heavy her burden when she is left stranded and
her betrayer goes abroad with liberty to wreck another woman's
life!
"An aged statesman, now deceased, once advocated the code
duello in my presence. He said there were some wrongs that
the law could not remedy, some wounds money could not heal.
'If I had a young daughter,' said he, 'and her betrayer left
her in shame and humiliation, I could not live on the planet
with him. He would have to go or I would know the reason
why. I could not shoot him down, like an assassin from behind.
I could not go to the court hourse
for a money value on
her
wrecked life. I would meet him, let him understand what he
had to answer for, in open day.'
"Betrayal is like death, past helping. What should be the
punishment, when a poor girl is deceived into a sham marriage,
and everything she holds dear in life has been worse than wasted
on a villain! And what is there left in life for man or
woman who has an unfaithful life partner?
"These matters are discussed every day. They fill the daily
newspapers, the court records. Alas! there are daily reasons
for such discussion! Church and state are constantly concerned
in the making of better men and women. We have exhausted
the punishment side of the question. The preventive side has
not been explored to the root of the evil. Turn in the light
on the degraded homes, protect the mother from cruelty and
abuse, rescue the children from vice and debauchery, guard
the marriage permits as you guard public moneys, and when a
moral question comes before you, take the side that leans to the
security of mother and child, because human life begins there.
"It has been said that the German emperor always feels aggrieved
against his mother, the Empress Frederick because he
came into life with a withered arm. He was a defective creation;
he resents it; he charges it up to his mother, as is reported.
Shall mothers bear the burdens of all the defective
persons, all the criminals, all the vice, all the unhappiness?
"May God help us to help ourselves and each other!
"In closing I desire to express my pleasure in the prospect
of a reformatory for juvenile offenders - here in Fulton county.
Pardon a little personal experience. Nearly twenty years ago
I discovered there was in Fulton county records, the history
of a little fifteen-year-old colored girl, who had been convicted
in the superior court of theft and sentenced to five years in the
state penitentiary chain gangs. She was prosecuted by a negro
woman, the only witness a nine-year-old colored girl. She was
accused and convicted of snatching fifty cents from the younger
girl, who carried home some washing and was paid a half
dollar for her mother.
"That girl lay in jail months waiting trial. She was sent to
the chaingang and fastened to the general chain every night
along with hardened criminals - veterans in crime. An ex-justice
of the supreme court gave me facts upon facts to show
why a reformatory was needed. I did my little best, and the
newspapers had a monkey and parrot time of it in beating me
down. I found there was but one organized body of women
in Georgia, except foreign missionary societies, in the respective
churches. I went to Macon, joined the Woman's Christian
Temperance union at its state convention and made my debut
as a public speaker, in behalf of this reformatory idea or policy.
My heart went pit-a-pat. I was scared and tearful Rev. W.
H. Potter, then editing the Wesleyan Advocate, exhorted for me
- he of blessed memory! My resolution went through, and the
next winter the memorial was presented to our law-makers.
There were said to be at this time 137 youths in the chaingangs
under sixteen years of age. There were nearly half a hundred
negro women and girls in the same place. These women were
represented as crime centers, the vilest of the vile. I plead with
all my strength for their removal. When an avalanche of protest
was hurled against the reformatory movement, I'd shake
off the debris and rise again to the rescue. I had only a little
pick and shovel to meet the ice gorge of apathy and organized
opposition. When I felt as if I could not stand any longer, the
memory of that poor forsaken colored girl would come over me.
She was in degradation so vile that a woman's soul was horrified
to think of it. I thought the sentence, so disproportioned
to the offense that I could not forget it. How much kinder it
would have been to have shot her before she donned the stripes.
What was she when she was released - if death did not relieve
her? It was seed thrown on the waters. I was glad to see the
Recorder came to your assistance. The pulpit waked up and
thundered. God speed the movement to a successful finish.
"Once upon a time an ignorant British sailor had an ear
sliced off by a tyrannical naval officer-dressed in a little brief
authority. That missing ear waked up the British nation to
reforms in the navy, that scores of petitions failed to put in
motion. My poor little colored girl did not move the recorder
and the ministers I know, but some other child did do it, and
I look for a realization of the hope that has been a lively one
with me for twenty years and more. No state, county or town
can afford to do without a reformatory. Juvenile offenders
should not be herded with veterans in crime. Women should
not be confined with other convicts. In the very nature of
things they will find lower deeps in vice, if lower deeps can be
found. Heaven speed the day when justice can shake hands
with humanity and point to reformatory influences along with
punishment. No sovereign state can in justice delegate either
the reforms or the punishment to other and private persons.
The criminal laws should have due regard to moral laws. May
God incline our Christian men to investigate!
"Oh, ladies, when you remember the thousands of juvenile
convicts who have been for so long time in Georgia, familiarized
with punishment, and removed from the influences that go to
improvement of mind and heart and conscience can we wonder
that the courts are always busy - the jails full, the asylum full,
crowded, packed and yet the cry is abroad in the land, 'No
money to build reformatories?'
"In view of the
influences which have moulded the lives and
hearts of these erring and unfortunate beings, the malformation
of human kind in mind, body and inheritance, which has
been transmitted from generation to generation, how needful
to put aside the trivial happenings of a day all minor duties
and responsibilities and begin a rescue movement at once?
What patience, charity, brotherly kindness, benevolence and
tender pity should attend the efforts, 'Do not for one repulse
forego your purpose that you resolved to effect,' says
Shakespeare. I wish you great success with your reformatory
movement - then I trust your example will be followed in
every county in the state. Thanking you for this patient
hearing, and grateful for the kind attention which moved you
to call me to your aid, I leave my subject to your earnest
consideration."
After long experience
with politics and politicians,
I am convinced that it is prudent (if not palatable)
to make a clear statement of all matters in which you
have been involved and to protect one's self thereby,
from malign influences after you are dead, when you
are not able to present the facts (because death has
intervened and thereby hindered a proper defense of
name and motives, and when there is perhaps nobody
to speak for you) for yourself.
In the progress of this claim, presented to the U. S.
Congress, for damages inflicted on the Methodist publishing
plant in Nashville, Tenn., by Federal occupation
(and abuse of their military authority), I had
been familiar with the subject, all the time, during the
war, and after the war, particularly during the 44th,
45th and 46th Congresses, while Dr. Felton was member
from the 7th Congressional District. In fact I
was petitioned by one high in Methodist authority to
champion the claim, as sectional animosity was great
at that period, and it was believed that I might
persuade where others had failed, to get a satisfactory
hearing. I declined to attempt it, because my husband
had made a worthy record against lobby work,
before Congress and state legislatures, and my motives
might have been misjudged in the endeavor to
aid the M. E. Church South in its continuous effort
to recover the claim, with the large amount of money
involved. I mention this to show that I was not ignorant
of prevailing conditions, in regard to this matter
but fully aware of the methods used by lobbyists in
Washington city, and their quality and quantity, and
my belief that those who were found trying to persuade
senators and representatives to vote for claims
where money was involved took considerable risks, as
to reputation and motives, in so doing.
In the beginning of the year 1898 this claim matter
appeared in the Congressional Record which I read
diligently. I understood that Mr. Stahlman, as promoter,
was on the ground and I had some knowledge
of the gentleman, when he was pushing a claim for
"betterments" on the state road, and when the legislature
of Georgia was getting ready to again release
the W. & A. R. R. and my suspicions were then
aroused, as to his peculiar motives and purposes.
Mr. T. B. Felder had published a statement in Atlanta
papers of Mr. Stahlman's activity in securing
votes for a certain member of Congress from Georgia,
and I had felt convinced at that time that Mr. E. B.
Stahlman had abiding interest in another member of
Congress, nearer my home. The signs of the times
were ominous; and I was more than ready to believe
that he had some mammoth scheme on foot in Washington
city and was at hand to make his Georgia members
vote for it in Congress. So I determined to keep
an eye open on Mr. Stahlman and the men that he
used in Georgia for the interests of certain railroads,
and his various schemes before Congress. Perhaps
this explanation will be ample to explain my abiding
interest in Mr. E. B. Stahlman and the two Georgia
Congressmen who were his most obedient, whenever
called upon.
On July 19, 1895, a lobby contract was entered into
between Barbee and Smith, book agents in Nashville,
Tenn., and E. B. Stahlman, to collect the aforesaid
Methodist Publishing House Claim, and they agreed
to pay him 35 per cent of whatever amount he could
get out of Congress.
The parties also agreed to keep the contract a
secret. On March 7th, 1898, Barbee and Smith, in a
telegram to Senator Pasco, of Florida, said that the
"statement that Stahlman was to get 40 per cent was
untrue and you are hereby authorized to deny it."
Pasco had written them that a "slanderous report" was
prevailing that Stahlman was to get as much as 40 per
cent and thus they replied.
So far as known this indirect falsehood was the start
of the disreputable lying that later prevailed before the
Senate of the United States.
On March 7, 1898, Senator Bate of Tennessee wired
Barbee and Smith that if Stahlman was to get 40 per
cent or any other fee it would endanger the passage of
the bill in the Senate. Barbee and Smith wired: "The
statement is untrue and you are hereby authorized to
deny it." Twenty days afterward the bill became a
law, and eight days later they paid Stahlman the
thirty-five per cent, amounting to one hundred thousand
and eight hundred dollars, out of money paid
by check on treasury of the United States.
The agents of a great church, in a matter affecting
the whole church, sent deceptive messages, which
did deceive senators when the claim was acted upon.
The messages were designed to deceive and were manifestly
untrue. Nevertheless the book agents and the
book committee were the persons who deceived the
senate and accepted the claim money, and these facts
and the lying telegrams were published afterwards
in the Senate proceedings, and were all laid before the
Baltimore General Conference which began its sittings
on May 1st, 1898. The book agents made their
report to the conference and the book committee made
its report to the conference and Barbee and Smith
were re-elected as satisfactory book agents. We had
no information in Georgia as to how and why the General
Conference covered up the Stahlman matter, and
the delegates consumed nearly a month in official
deliberations.
About the time that the delegates began to scatter
to their various homes, I was a fellow traveler on the
W. & A. R. R. with Rev. Joe Jones, elder brother of
Rev. Sam P. Jones. The latter was a delegate to
General Conference from the church in Cartersville,
to which I had belonged for nearly half a century.
Rev. Joe Jones had been a school pupil of mine, also
Rev. Sam P. Jones, in the strenuous days, immediately
succeeding the war. As we chatted together on the
train, Joe gave me to understand that the General
Conference had done a dirty piece of business accepting
the publishing house claim money, paying more
than a third of the money to the lobbyist, E. B. Stahlman,
after the book agents had lied about giving any
fee to anybody, etc.
As soon as I could get to my writing desk I wrote
to a Tennessee editor, and asked for information, and
had a prompt reply. The letter was dated May 24,
1898. "We cannot get an airing on this matter in the
secular press here, unless it is first started elsewhere.
In interest of common decency and honesty I suggest
that you write up the matter and put it in Atlanta
Journal in your own way and that will open the ball."
On May 26,1898, I had the following from Mr. Cabiness
of Atlanta Journal. "Your letter received and
will appear in the Journal. I return the enclosure as
suggested. The matter is even worse than I thought
it was, and smacks so perfectly of the worldly lobbyist,
that I do not see how the church can come out of
it with any credit."
Some one in Atlanta, Ga,
sent a dispatch to Washington
(City) Post on May 27 that "Mrs. W. H. Felton,
wife of ex-Congressman Felton, and one of the
leaders of state W. C. T. U., had declared that a large
amount of the claim money had been paid to a lobbyist,
and that Barbee and Smith had sent a telegram to
Senator Bate, of Tennessee, that no claim agent was to
receive anything from the amount."
My article to Atlanta
Journal was written May 25,
and promptly appeared in that paper, with a large
heading and the following preface: "Mrs. Felton
protests. She has written a card to the Journal in which
she sharply criticizes the church authority for the
methods used in securing the war claim. Mrs. Felton
charges the preachers with using the arts and tricks
of lobbyists to rob the taxpayers. Dr. Lovejoy is a
member of the book committee of the conference. An
effort was made to see Dr. Lovejoy and procure from
him a statement, but it was stated he had not yet
returned from Baltimore. Mrs. Felton's letter is given
in full in another column."
I now append the
letter:
"To the Editor of The Journal:
"On March 8, 1898,
the bill appropriating $288,000 as a war
claim demanded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
passed the senate.
"While the debate was in progress Senator Tillman, of South
Carolina, asked if a large sum was not to be paid out of this
claim, if passed, to attorneys.
"Senator Bate, of Tennessee, arose with a telegram in his
hand, received from Messrs. Barbee & Smith, book agents, who
brought the claim before congress, as the representatives of the
church. Senator Bate said: 'On Saturday last, when I heard
the report that claim agents would get a large proportion of
that money, I sat down and wrote Messrs. Barbee & Smith. I
wished to have in my possession a statement from them which
I could use, either in private or on the floor of the senate, if
necessary, and yesterday morning I got this reply: 'Letter
of 5th received. The statement is untrue, and you are hereby
authorized to deny it.'
"Messrs. Barbee & Smith are full-grown and 21. They told
the truth or they told a falsehood. But delegates went to the
General conference bent on finding out what was done by Barbee
& Smith, and I am reliably informed that the book agents'
report to the General conference admits the payment of one
hundred thousand and eight hundred dollars ($100,800) to the
attorney, or lobbyist, or claim agent, who according to previous
contract, was to get 35 per cent what was obtained from the
government. The General conference has adjourned and the
salaries of Messrs. Barbee & Smith have been raised from
$2,500 to $3,000.
"No debate concerning this matter was reported in Georgia
papers during the session of congress. If any objection was
made, inquiry instituted or reproof given there was no mention
of it.
"I said nothing during the Livingston-Felder campaign,
when this lobby work was en tapis.
I had no concern as to
whether Congressman Livingston helped the claim agent or
the claim agent helped him. I didn't care a sliver whether
Messrs. Barbee & Smith got down to lobby levels or not - and
I confess I was not surprised to find some of our Methodists
in authority in such close pursuit of the dollars, at all times
and in all places. But when the General conference met and
adjourned and approved the payment of 35 per cent of that
war claim to claim agents after that telegram of denial was
recorded in the United States senate, I felt the time had come
for one humble Methodist to wash her hands and shake her
skirts clear of that nefarious proceeding, as officially recorded
in the United States senate.
"The claim agent's profits are his legitimate property and
custom gives him all he can make if he can find people willing
to employ him, but I do not forget that the present constitution
of the state of Georgia makes lobbying a crime before
the courts, punishable with fine and imprisonment.
"I think the time has come for the Georgia Methodists to
rise up and ask the legislature to repeal that statute, or otherwise
ask the United States government to receive again that
war claim money obtained under false pretenses. It is bad
enough for politicians to condone lobbying but it is a preposterous
business for preachers to engage in, and they should
be told of it, in very plain speech and with more direct action later.
"I have read very carefully the debate that took place on
March 8, at the time when Messrs. Barbee & Smith exploited that
telegram of positive denial. The Methodist church was put on her
knees before congress, begging for money to keep her
worn-out preachers and their widows out of the county poorhouse.
That beggar role was worked for all it was worth. And
now when I find out that the claim agent was pumping up tears
for that supposed class of our citizens, meanwhile holding a contract
that he should get more than one dollar every time he
pumped up three out of the strong box of the nation, I feel
as if the great Southern Methodist church has been dragged
through the mire and filth of humiliation and falsehood to very
little purpose. I am ashamed that so much was done to humiliate,
and I loathe the falsehood that made their success possible.
I have no disposition to discuss the claim agent, nor do I care
whether he got the pay out of the mission fund, the school book
fund or whether the 35 per cent was delivered at the very counter
at which Messrs. Barbee & Smith cashed that cheek on the
United States treasury for $288,000.
"But I do care that I, in common with the rank and file of
Southern Methodists, are now placed before the United States
senate in the attitude of swindlers, because the avowal was decided
and complete that no money would be paid to claim
agents, attorneys or lobbyists for pushing that war claim on the
present congress.
"That money which was paid afterwards to claim agents
should be refunded, in honest fairness. It will burn whatever
it touches until restitution is made. The Lord Almighty does
not do business after that fashion. He is not so poor as to
need the contemptible trick of pleading poverty to enrich his
preachers in any such style.
"I do not blame Messrs. Barbee& Smith for their official
part in this matter. Doubtless they obeyed their superiors in
office - however much I may contemn their individual weakness
in doing evil that supposed profit might follow, but I do
not hesitate to say that the General conference in failing to
rectify the mistake of these persons has placed the entire
responsibility upon the body itself. It is now their act. Their
agents, Messrs. Barbee & Smith, have been protected, and the
odium of that false telegram lies at the door of the only legislative
organization of the Methodist church.
"Of course such people have nothing in common with temperance
women. Of course they turn the back of their hands
to evangelists.
"In the light of that telegram to Senator Bate, by which
senators from forty-odd states were led astray from the facts
and the truth, the controlling majority of that General conference
was better pleased with lobbying than temperance women
or revival sermons.
"It will be sometime before the stain of such a falsehood
will be eradicated from the official pages of our church and
our national reputation. The time to remedy the evil has surely
passed, because that lying telegram has been assumed and condoned
by the General conference at Baltimore. If protests
were privately made, the edict prevailed - 'Division and silence.'
"I fancy that august body in session, with the odor of that
Barbee-Smith telegram in their nostrils, with saintly attitude
and pious ejaculations, as the claim agent raked in the 35 per cent!
Alas! Alas!
"If those senators who heard Senator Bate read it, could have
attended some of their discussions as to where the remainder
could be placed, to make most noise, either in China
or Nashville, they would have wondered where were the starving
old preachers and agonized widows who figured before the
senate after the fashion of Cuban half-breed
reconcentrados
when jingoism was in the political saddle some two months
ago. What a spectacle for men and angels!
"And what a game for
preachers to play at! Actually raiding
the United States treasury by the arts and tricks of claim
agents (the new name for lobbyists) to rob the tax payers!
"And Messrs. Barbee
& Smith are to get $500 each annually
for being so sharp in politics! Thirty-five per cent to the
claim agent - $1,000 per annum to these sharpers in canonicals,
$50,000 for a similar book concern plant in China (and as much
to some other schemes far and near) this war claim vanishes,
like 'butter before the sun' and we have nothing left but that
malodorous incident in the United States senate, where Methodist
preachers added falsehood to trickery to get in reach of
the money to be thus spent in ventures and experiments, like
other tricksters and traders in politics. Alas for the honor and
good name of the Methodist church!
"MRS. W. H. FELTON.
"Cartersville,
May 25, 1898."
Before this article was
mailed to Atlanta Journal, I
wrote a polite note to U. S. Senator H. C. Lodge, of
Massachusetts, and told him of the facts which I had
gathered, and very soon afterward I received a reply,
thanking me, and Senator Lodge next day rose in the
Senate and called for an investigation and the battle
was on. The Washington Post printed a communication
from me, as soon as I saw what a Methodist pastor of
that city had said of my article in the Journal,
and I reprint the same in this connection;
"Mrs. W. H. Felton
Wants a Full Investigation of the Matter.
"Editor Post: I find
in Saturday's Post a dispatch
from Atlanta, Ga, in which my name is mentioned, accompanied by a
card from Rev. Mr. Duffy, in denial of the statement that an
immense sum was paid in lobby fees as soon as the United
States government gave the Southern Methodist Church $288,000
as a war claim. If Rev. Mr. Duffy had examined the report
of the book agents - Messrs. Barbee and Smith - made to
the late General Conference at Baltimore, he would have curbed
his denial, and perhaps remained a wiser man in regard to his
church affairs. In my opinion, there is no set of men in the
United States who are so prompt to resent any supposed insult
to its ministry as the Southern Methodist preachers, but I also
believe there is no set of men under the shining sun who are so
easily imposed upon by their brethren in the pulpit. I have
been a Southern Methodist for over forty years, and I have had
opportunity to know.
"That war claim was passed through the United States Senate
after Senators were solemnly assured that not a dollar would
be paid out in fees to attorneys or claim agents. Senator
Pasco and Senator Bate produced telegrams from Messrs. Barbee
and Smith denying the report that any money would be
paid out to any such person or persons. Zion's Outlook, a religious
paper, printed in Nashville, in an editorial declares that
the report of Messrs. Barbee and Smith to the General Conference
shows that 35 per cent, or $100,800, was paid to such a
lobbyist, claim agent, or so-called attorney as soon as that claim
was passed through Congress. A delegate from my section to
the General Conference assures me that he personally examined
that report, and that fact is disclosed, namely, that Messrs.
Barbee and Smith did report such a payment to the conference
and the book committee of the conference admitted they had advised
payment to its claim agent before Congress. Now, with
all deference to Mr. Duffy, I think the United States Senate
should be informed of the truth or falsehood of such declarations.
"For the honor of the Southern Methodist Church, I would
be glad to know that the truth had been uttered on the floor
of the Senate when Messrs. Bate, Pasco, and Morgan gave
such solemn assurances that not a dollar would be paid to lobbyists
or any other sort of an agent in this matter. Lobbying
has been the curse of legislation, both State and national, in
these latter days, and while it is difficult to find the guilty parties
those who contract with lobbyists, as well as the lobbyists
themselves, there should be no difficulty in getting at the truth
of this matter from the preachers of the Southern Methodist
Church. Goodby to religion or pulpit influence when ministers
get down to lobby levels, and especially when they can send
telegrams containing incorrect assertions to such a body as the
United States Senate, such as were sent to Senators Bate and
Pasco.
"If Messrs. Barbee and Smith, the book agents of the church,
sent a misleading telegram to either Senator Bate or Senator
Pasco, those Senators owe it to themselves and the dignity of
the Senate to find out the facts as here indicated, and relieve
themselves from odium by exposing those who used them for
such an infamous purpose, and for obtaining money from the
government under false pretenses.
"As an humble Georgia Methodist, I wash my hands of this
transaction, as one of the membership, and I enter my protest
against keeping that money thus obtained. Politics are confessed
to be a dirty business in the main, but preachers and
preaching should either be cleaner in men and methods or the
world should be relieved of both - for a swindler and hypocrite
is less tolerable than a plain swindler to deal with. And
while I am at it, I want to know if the profits of that Southern
Methodist book concern in Nashville, Tenn., are applied to and
'distributed to all alike in the Northern church and the Southern
church - to the Republicans and Populists, and Democrats
and Prohibitionists, all are treated alike,' as declared by Senator
Bate in his appeal for this claim-before the Senate?
"If the Northern
Methodist preachers get any of that superannuated
fund, I wish one of them would rise up and admit
it.
"I do know that with
a long and varied experience with the
people in this country - that statement boldly made (and doubtless
made innocently by Senator Bate), astonished me not a
little.
"If that book
concern has been supporting the
superannuated preachers of the Northern church - their wives
and orphans - some of us never heard of the fact before - never
"Messrs. Editors: I
beg for honest dealing in this matter.
In the name of God and humanity do let us retain faith in the
pulpit, if it is possible. I am mortified, ashamed and humiliated
that the Southern Methodist Church is placed in its present
attitude before the Senate of the United States. I trust Senators
will demand a prompt investigation, and with an au revoir
to innocent and ignorant, Mr. Duffy, I am,
"Yours respectfully,
"Cartersville, Ga."
"Rev. Jefferson W.
Duffey, of this city, pastor of the Mount
Vernon Place M. E. Church, South, who attended the recent
conference at Baltimore, denied that there was any talk over the
disposition of the claim recently allowed by Congress. He said
that while he did not attend all the meetings, he surely would
have heard the rumors had there been anything in the air in
regard to the matter. 'Whether Mr. Stahlman, who has been
very active in pushing the work, is a member of our church
or not I do not know,' said Dr. Duffey, 'but it was my understanding
from a talk I had with Mr. Barbee some months ago,
that he was to be allowed only the expense incurred in carrying
on the work. One day I was told that the expenses had been
$100 for telegrams, but the nature of these dispatches I did not
ascertain.
"The gentleman, I
think, deserves a great deal of credit for
his success, as the matter had been on the dockets for a good
many years, but it has always been my understanding that he
was not being paid for the work. Messrs. Barbee and Smith,
who have the matter in charge, have too much discretion to use
any but honorable means to secure the claim."
To fully explain the
enormity of the deception used
by the book agents, in support of the war claim, I will
also append in this connection, what was said by Senators
Bate and Pasco, when the vote was about to be
cast, on March 8,1898.
"Mr. Tillman -
Before the Senator takes his seat I should
like him to tell us what he knows about the disposition of this
money, and whether the attorneys are to get any of it.
"Mr. Bate - I take
pleasure in saying that as I heard such
a rumor whispered around yesterday or the day before, I
received a dispatch, as also did the Chairman of the sub-committee
of the Committee on Claims, from Barbee and Smith, who
are the head of the concern, stating that there was not a word
of truth in the statement that the fund was to be diverted in
any such way. A great deal of work has been done about this
case, but this is a grand, great church, and the country is full
of sympathy for it; and men of intelligence want to see this
church sustained, and they think the claim a proper and just
one, and that it should be paid.
"Mr. Tillman - Then the money is to go to the church, and
not to attorneys"
"Mr. Bate - It is to go to the church, and it is to become a
part of the plant, if I may so speak, and the proceeds of it
are to be given over to these unfortunate preachers. That is
the way of it.
"Now, Mr. President, I am just upon the threshold of the
facts in this case, for they are numerous; but the hour is late,
and I do not want to detain the Senate, and we want to get a
vote this evening. If, however, there is any question desired to
be asked by any Senator, I will take pleasure in answering it;
otherwise I propose to now leave the matter to the Senate.
"Mr. Pasco - As to the question asked by the Senator from
South Carolina (Mr. Tillman), it is proper to say that I heard
a rumor that was whispered about the Senate chamber during
the last few days to the effect that some claim agents would get
a very large proportion of this amount. On Saturday last, when
I heard that report, I sat down and wrote Messrs. Barbee and
Smith. I was thoroughly satisfied that the report had no foundation
whatever in fact, but I stated the matter at length to
them, and stated that I wished to have in my possession a statement
from them which I could use either in private conversation
or on the floor of the Senate, if necessary; and yesterday morning
I got this reply to my letter:
"Letter of 5th received. The statement is untrue, and you
are hereby authorized to deny it.'
"I made the statement fully in the letter, which set forth
that some agents here would get a very large percentage of the
amount. I knew that was not possible, because they had no authority
to make such a bargain. I knew that they had too much discretion to make
such a bargain, of course, and I suggested to them that they should
give me the statement which they have, and I am satisfied that there
is no foundation whatever for the report.
It is also fair and eminently just that Senator Bate
should be quoted from the Senate records. Replying to
a question from Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, Mr.
Bate said: "I want to say in this connection, that
this fund is to be distributed to all alike, to the Northern
church and the Southern church, to the Republicans
and Democrats, to Populists and Prohibitionists,
all treated alike. It goes to the poor, broken down
superannuated Methodist preachers and it cannot be
diverted into any other channel, because the organic
law of the church forbids it."
Senator Lodge rose and
attempted to amend the
bill by forbiding
the payment of any sum to claim
agents above five thousand dollars, and it was voted
down, because "no claim agent would get a single dollar
of the claim money." It made me smile to see
how Mr. Stahlman, through his friends in the Senate,
rushed to that conclusion, to prevent the five-thousand
-dollar limit. Having adventured so far, with
well concocted falsehoods, it didn't hurt to tell another.
These statements appeared
in the Congressional
Record.
These published
statements were carried to General
Conference, as before stated, and it is astounding to
know that the members of the General Conference
covered up, condoned and tacitly endorsed these
falsehoods, before the Senate.
Before closing this
article it is well to state that the
investigation called for by Senator Lodge soon began
to hear the testimony of various witnesses. Every
day brought out more humiliating disclosures. Mr.
Stahlman was made to testify and when fairly cornered,
confessed that he, "like Peter," had told a
falsehood. It is presumable that he did not lose any
sleep over the effects of the lie; he had substantial
gains tucked away in his pocket and he had nothing
to lose in reputation, with those who heard his confession
or with the crowd that paid him.
The Methodist Church South is still suffering and
will continue to suffer the effects of this episode in
ecclesiastical jobbery. The chairman of the book
committee has been thrust upon the church as a
bishop, although it is understood that he was the adviser
of Barbee, who was the active member as the book
agent. The money, what was left, (less than two-thirds),
was not applied to the relief of republican or
democrat or populist or prohibitionist, to Northern
preachers along with Southern preachers. The salaries
of Barbee and Smith were raised and so far as known
the money that was gained in this disreputable way
has been like "Achan's wedge of gold," nothing but a
burden to the organization.
After many pros and cons, the bishops decided to
keep the money and when the next General Conference
met in Dallas, Texas, the majority went with the bishops
and in conclusion I can very easily declare,
"Great is Diana of the Epheseans."
P. S. - I had a letter from one of the most prominent
members of the North Georgia Conference. "I
can give you some facts, not known to the public, some
of them in black and white. ** That Barbee and
Smith demanded an investigation at the hands of the
General Conference is false! Nor was the labored report
ever put before the General Conference - only
seen by the committee on public interests. The General
Conference was systematically kept in the dark.
I have a letter from one high in authority who admits
he throttled one of our North Georgia Conference delegates,
who was about to spring it before the General
Conference, and says he would do it again."
(Such people will bear watching. While I am
here to do it, I propose to place my share in the exposure,
where other people can see it.)
I addressed a letter to
Hon. H. C. Lodge, and his
secretary acknowledged the receipt. Mr. Lodge introduced
the resolution to investigate the matter immediately
and the exposure was complete.
The House of
Representatives had passed up the
claims without hesitation under Mr. Stahlman's direction
and his Georgia troops fought nobly. It was the
Senate of the United States which called a halt. I
will not attempt to copy here the criticism that followed
the exposure in the Senate, or the order given
by the various conferences in Southern Methodism to
return that ill-gotten money to the U. S. treasury.
They are all matters of official record and cannot be
questioned or denied.
After the legislature
assembled I received an official
communication from that body asking my acceptance
of an invitation to address them in joint
session on the subject of our common schools. Perhaps
it was the first time in the history of the state
that a woman was accorded such an invitation. It
gave me delight to signify my acceptance. A reporter
from one of the daily papers thus discoursed on the
meeting and the address:
[When the invitation was given, it is well to state a zealous
legislator interposed to say that the time of the body was too
precious and expensive to waste either, on permitting a woman
to address the legislature.]
"Mrs. W. H. Felton, of Cartersville, addressed a
joint session of the General Assembly of Georgia in
the Hall of the House of Representatives. A splendid
audience greeted Mrs. Felton when she was introduced.
Every seat in the gallery was taken and every
seat on the floor was occupied. There were many
ladies present, and on account of lack of room in the
gallery, many were forced to stand. The members
of the house and senate rose and stood as Mrs. Felton
walked down the aisle to the speaker's rostrum. Gov.
Candler occupied a chair on the rostrum. President
Clark Howell, of the Senate, introduced Mrs. Felton
with the following words:
"There is a great deal of discussion and contention
as to who is the smartest man in Georgia, but it is
universally conceded that the woman who is to address
you today is the brightest and smartest woman
in the state. I have the honor of presenting to you
Mrs. W. H. Felton, of the County of Bartow."
Mrs. Felton advanced to the front of the speaker's
stand and said: "Old age is susceptible to compliments.
I will gladly swallow the taffy just handed
to me."
[I had only a few minutes to glance over that crowded
hall and woman-like I wondered if I could possibly acquit
myself to the expectation of my friends in that audience,
and my invalid husband at home. I had for a long time
been writing about things that I believed the people of
Georgia needed, and now I had a chance to talk to the law
makers. Would I make good? I had no time to appreciate
compliments - I was thinking. I made up my mind to
speak for the poor white children of the state, with emphasis.
Only a woman without a vote, I had a hard task
before me, so I forgot about my appearance or whether my
bonnet was on straight and tried to do my best.]
"After thanking the General Assembly for this
great and unwonted privilege, I must tell you why I
gladly accepted your invitation to talk to you concerning
the 'Infirmities of our Public School System,' as
applied to the common schools of the state. You are
guardians of all the public interests of Georgia. You
have been selected, yes elected by the people, to protect
these interests. It is your bounder duty to perform
these tasks to the limit of your ability. As I speak
to you you will understand that I am a person without
any political influence. I have no vote to give
any one of you, I cannot occupy any public office, and
it seems I am only a small taxpayer and nothing else,
so far as I am estimated by law makers of Georgia.
Last spring, sitting quietly in my own home, engaged
busily in domestic sewing, a very pretty young
girl walked in and asked for the loan of a small cooking
vessel. She said she, with her father and small
brother, had walked from a county lying on the Tennessee
line and they were seeking work, hoeing cotton.
She was a white girl with pleasing features. At some
time in the past there had been good blood, gentle
raising, because the indications were in her form and
face. She told me she was seventeen years old, had
never been out of Georgia, and, gentlemen, she had
never been to school a day in her life. She was born
and raised in a county that had thirty-nine public
school teachers last year. The state paid out in her
county between four and five thousand dollars last
year to schools and school teachers for free schools to
educate just such as this girl. Here was a young
white woman seventeen years old, a tramp on the
public highway, who had never received one cent of
this money in her life. With thirty-nine public school
teachers in the county she was born in, and had always
lived in, with a plentiful supply of tax money
to pay the thirty-nine, this girl had never gone to
school a day in her life. This public school system
was in force when she was born and has been in force
ever since. She has no mother, poor child! Her
mother lies under the sod and this child, this seventeen
year-old white girl, was over a hundred miles
from her home, hunting work in the fields. She was
being dragged along by a no-account father, and they
had barely a quilt to sleep on, until I provided that
girl with something softer for her own use. Then and
there I promised myself that I would, in the fear of
God, and in fear of nothing less, plead that girl's
cause in the newspapers, before public schools, woman's
clubs, in temperance meetings, everywhere.
Gentlemen, I thank you for this opportunity to plead her cause on this
occasion.
I come to you today to ask you face to face why that
girl had no educational chance, in the state of Georgia,
that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars
to educate just such as she? There are thousands of
such cases. They are all about us. I hold in my
hands the school commissioner's report, made to the
Governor and to you, gentlemen. What about it?
The school commissioner says: "Their condition is
pitiful. Apparently they can do nothing but hoe
small potatoes, corn, hang together a few rags for
clothes, and beat their dirty linen with paddles. Their
homes are wretched hovels, their surroundings are
forbidding and their minds are sunken in a kind of
pauperism out of which it seems impossible to arouse
them."
Here's another sentence. "The child of the mountain
districts and our pine plains cannot come here
to lift its white hand for a way of escape." Legislators,
here is an aged white woman in your presence
today; I lift this worn white hand in their behalf and
I dare to say to you that these things are insupportable,
when you consider the vast sums of money taken
from the taxpayers to furnish education to these children
of the mountain and the pine plains. Why has
not this money reached these helpless ones?
When this invitation to address you was passed in
both House and Senate, a legislator rose to complain
at the waste of time and of money to give me an hour
to plead for these helpless ones, in this hall. Compare
the few dollars that are consumed while you sit
in your seats to hear my appeal; with the out-going
flood of tax money that was taken from the taxpayers
at the limit of the law, and fails to get to the needy
children of the mountains and the plains.
Where is that economical gentleman today who was
willing to shut out from your presence the humble, but
earnest, friend who couldn't vote against him if she
wanted to and who has never opened his mouth to call
a halt on this egregious waste of public funds while
he draws his four dollars a day from the state treasury?
I never cost the state a penny in my whole life,
unless you decide I am consuming it while I stand
here for an hour or less to tell you that this waste of
tax money is an atrocious shame, while these poor
children are thus deprived of its benefits.
I have no fault to find with the officials who are in
charge of the school business of Georgia. It is only
their business to execute the orders of the Legislature,
hire the teachers and disburse the money. I went, by
invitation, before the Georgia Educational association
last June, and said to the teachers whom I respect and
honor, what I am now going to say to you. I
shall not touch upon any of the state's educational
interests save the poor common schools in the rural
districts. That subject is gigantic. Help me by your
sympathy. I have been a real friend to education all
my life, I am a friend today of good, faithful teachers
as I have ever been, and what I say of the system
is based upon what I know personally, and from what
the official report declares and what the Governor tells
you. I do thank Governor Candler that he dared to
tell you and the people of the state some plain facts
on this line. He may be harshly judged for doing
it, and I may suffer in the same way.
Gentlemen of the General Assembly, we know full
well and we both understand, there are two sides to
the question of common schools in Georgia, namely,
the side of those who send children to school, and of
the teachers who are employed by the state to teach
the schools, and the commissioners and school boards
who manage and disburse the school fund, and the
other side of the taxpayers who are forced by the
state's demand to raise this school fund, to be thus
disbursed for support of rural schools. Every year
you are appealed to on the subject of appropriating
more money to expend on this common school system.
I have noticed these appeals in times past, but so far
as I can recollect, I know of no speaker who has been
asked or allowed to discuss the taxpayer's side of this
question, unless you will graciously hear me at this
time.
There is something singular in this omission or
oversight. There are continued addresses on the needs
of this and that school, pleadings for more taxation, to
raise more school money, but the people who pay the
taxes are not here to tell you of their burdens and
their difficulties. Yet, gentlemen, the mutterings are
loud and deep, and have been growing in intensity for
a great many years past.
Georgia began with the
"free school" taxation for our
schools in 1871. We have had the system on us
for thirty years. And since 1871 we have raised by
various means and from various sources, eighteen million
eight hundred and forty-four thousand of dollars
in round numbers ($18,844,000) for common
schools in Georgia. That money is gone - sunk out of
sight forever. We have been piling up money for
common schools for thirty years and the cry of more
money has been heard unceasingly.
This money has been demanded for the common
schools, not the university or branch colleges. It takes
no count of the money raised for local schools, by
municipal taxation, nor the Peabody fund, but it is the
expense account of the common schools system of the
state of Georgia, in less than thirty years time.
In the year 1874 we had 350 state convicts to lease
to contractors. In the year 1901 we have something
like 3,000 or upward, without taking into notice the
misdemeanor camps, county chaingangs, etc.
The state set up the common school system to thwart
the evils of illiteracy and ignorance.
This cry for "more money" has been swelling, increasing
and reverberating all over Georgia for these
thirty years past, but we have surely increased criminals
for the state penitentiary in about the same ratio
that we have swelled the school fund from year to
year, until the people who own property to be taxed
are trembling under present and prospective burdens
for this extravagant and unsatisfactory school system.
Whenever a measure to curtail expenses is presented
to the General Assembly, the interested people begin
to gather, and button-hole the members, because, gentlemen,
we have made teaching a profession, composed
of state officials and we have in round numbers something
like ten thousand common school teachers who
hold state positions paid by the state in Georgia, three
thousand of them colored and the rest are white. If the
Supreme Court of the State had not placed protection
over the treasury last summer against the demands
of the system, there would have been precious little
money in sight to be returned to your attention or
consideration. But I need not explain that matter
further.
These appeals for more school money have become
demands, and influence popular elections.
I tell you gentlemen there is no comparison in individual
wealth and taxable property between the
states mentioned no more than between Canada and
Kamschatka.
We have three thousand negro teachers to pay
as well as white ones. In Bartow county nearly
one half the white children of school age did
not attend school last year, while two thirds
of the negro children did attend. We want no
comparisons with Massachusetts, Rhode Island or
New York, on taxation. Our conditions are different
altogether. This new report says "Nobody knows,
except those familiar with it, the distressing situation
in which they (school teachers) have been placed this
present year." Gentlemen, a great many of us do
know how difficult and distressing it has become in
many sections to raise this tax money to meet the expense
here noted. Bartow county calls on us now
for fifteen dollars on the thousand for tax money and
men who own farms are obliged to move to town, to
educate their children, these rural schools are so very
common and generally worthless. We are generally
poor in Georgia, while they are rich in the states thus
compared with us. We have some other difficulties
which I will mention later.
This common school
business has a maw like an elephant.
It is forever hungry for more money. There
were a million and a quarter dollars fed to the common
schools in the country places last year, and as
much will be fed this year, and there are colleges all
around, cities have their own local schools, and no
mention is here made of the millions already invested
for colored education in our borders.
The school commissioner
says we had six hundred
and sixty-five thousand of school age in 1898. He also
says we increase twelve or fifteen thousand annually.
I am safe in saying we have seven hundred thousand
now. He says eight-ninths of these children are in
the rural districts. Of all these seven hundred thousand,
eight live in the country to one in town. Don't
forget this estimate, gentlemen, because it is official.
He also says they go to school less than one hundred
days in the year. I understand him to mean we provide
country schools for less than one hundred days
in the year. But, gentlemen, that does not mean that
700,000 go to school one hundred days in the year.
Nothing like it. Less than half attend at all. The
commissioner says less than forty per cent attend. I
have the figures to show that nearly one-half the white
children in Bartow did not go last year, while two-thirds
of the negroes did go. I am not complaining of
any individual, as I told you, I am discussing the system
itself. The fault is in the system. So great is this
lack of attendance that the commissioner in his last
year's report uses the following words: "The right to
tax the people for the maintenance of the schools carries
with it the right to compel every parent or guardian
to send the children to school. Less than forty
per cent of the children attended school the entire
school term. There always have been and there always
will be, perhaps, people who are indifferent
about the education of their children. In order to
reach the children of this class of people a compulsory
attendance law must be enacted."
I have looked over the advance sheets of his forthcoming
report but I have failed to find a further mention
of compulsory attendance but these were brave
words and true words, because something must be
done to improve these rural schools or quit the
business.
Your executive strongly condemns the present system,
when he told you it was unwise, unjust, unheard
of, and unfair, and especially unsatisfactory. This is
a serious indictment, because it is true, and has become
a very serious business to those whose labor or
real estate is taxed so heavily to support it.
Gentlemen, the time has
come to look into this business
in a dispassionate way. Because I see and feel
that a revolt is pending. I come to you to talk as a
mother or elder sister might do of a trouble that menaces
the family. You know, gentlemen, there is no
way to avoid the harsh compulsory taxation placed
upon us for this school business. You know it must
come, on demand or a fi. fa. will be issued and the sheriff
will sell property to raise it. There has been law
enough to take the roof from the heads of the last one
of you in this presence if you fail to pay your share
of this direct tax levy. When the state puts its iron
hand in your pocket and take therefrom a portion of
your income and forces you to disgorge under pain
and penalties, what rightfully and honestly belongs to
you, under the plea that such tax money is needed to
protect your life and property (and you know it
would be gross tyranny to claim this authority under
any other plea), then I declare without hesitation that
you should apply it to the place where it will do the
work the state promised to do, or that money should
be returned to you, and the waste checked for all time
to come.
"The present
system will never be satisfactory to
either teachers or taxpayers, because it is unjust,
unwise, unfair and unheard of, in any other state in this
union. It is unwise because it makes free schools unpopular
with the taxpayers. It is unfair and unjust
because it makes a few counties bear all the burdens
of state government, and after doing this, contribute
to the payment of pensions and the support of schools
in all the other counties."
The greatest injustice which the Governor did not
mention, is levying a direct tax on the labor and property
of this country, and failing to do good work with
it. The state is unjust to the taxpayers on this line.
The failure is confessed, and the disappointing results
speak for themselves.
We raise money and pay
teachers about ten thousand
of them, to educate the illiterate and less than
forty per cent of children go to school. The state is
unjust in making the taxpayer turn over money which
cannot be applied to a purpose.
The lash of compulsory
taxation is laid upon the
back of the man who has by thrift, economy and
industry earned some property to tax, and no obligation
whatever is laid upon the man, whose children are to
be educated at public exense
, and he fails to accept
the benefit.
The obligation should be
mutual, gentlemen. The
responsibility should be mutual. The pains and penalties
should be similar. The duty of school attendance
should run parallel with the obligation of compulsory
taxation, or the unjust and unfair system
should give place to something better, or be promptly
abolished. It is the manifest failure to accomplish
the work proposed that is disgusting taxpayers. The
Governor is right. The fault is in the system itself.
It is the gross injustice of compulsion laid upon one
class to benefit another class, that refuses to accept
the benefit.
In the year 1900 our
worthy county school commissioner
desired to open a school near where we live.
We agreed to open a vacant house to accommodate the
school. He employed a competent teacher from Tennessee
to teach four months at $25 a month, if an average
of 15 pupils each day could be secured.
That many and more were promised, but the school
absolutely frittered out at the close and although
there were more than thirty names enrolled, a bare
average was sustained by serious effort.
The opportunity was not appreciated. The children
did not attend. The teacher was there ready,
eager, willing, but the flimsiest and most silly excuses
were rendered for non attendance.
The same effort was made this year. It went to
pieces in less than two months.
Gentlemen, it will never be any better until a remedy
is applied to non-attendance and more money to
pay teachers will not do it, ever. The thing is so absolutely
free that a chromo will have to be offered to excite
curiosity and provoke a trial of the teacher. It
is a waste of money.
I have some neighbors adjoining our lands.
One sends two children to Cartersville school, four
and a half miles, and on the first day of every month
for nine or ten school months, he hands over four
dollars to pay tuition. I have another neighbor and
he sends four. The first day of every month he pays
three dollars for three and two for one, five in all.
Another neighbor sends three, all to the same place,
and pays four dollars for the three. Another with
six children can't send to town and they get no schooling
at all. This is what is going on under my own
personal knoweldge
, and yet Bartow county is considered
one of the best counties, and Cartersville one of
the best towns. These men all are farmers and all
pay taxes, at the rate of $15 on the thousand. If you
could only gather in the amounts of money paid out
by taxpayers to educate their own children, you would
open your eyes.
No wonder people rush off to town to get into
schools that have interest and vitality in them. Eight
ninths of the children live in the country and from
what I gather, eight-ninths of the rural schools are not
worth the value of a dried apple.
Friends, legislators, this farce ought to stop if it is
not improved. It would be a comedy if it was not a
tragedy. It reminds me of a farmer feeding wild
hogs that he has never seen since they were littered.
He takes a basket of corn and hollers for the pigs, and
the bushes rustle and the corn rattles on the dead
leaves, but no hogs come in sight. The birds, the
crows, the squirrels and wild game get the corn, and
the hogs are as wild as when they first saw daylight.
We have been scattering corn for thirty years and the
wild pigs are no more appreciative than before.
The mistake in the last
thirty years has been to use
a Bible metaphor for unappreciation, casting pearls
before swine. There is absolutely no obligation laid
upon the parent or guardian who is expected to patronize
these schools.
The crowning injustice lies in the fact that this
money is extorted whether the pupils attend or not.
There is absolute compulsion at one end of the line
and no compulsion at the other end of the line at all.
The indifferent parent has it in his power to defeat
the intent of the school law by his refusal to accept
the benefit. Only forty per cent of these patrons or
guardians are favorable to the opportunity, for we are
told less than forty per cent attend the schools. The
application of the money is a failure.
Compulsory taxation presupposes compulsory
attendance. There is no equity in compulsion to raise
taxes without compulsion to apply them. There is no
principle in republican government more strongly emphasized
than ownership of what one earns, honestly
acquires and properly inherits. This enforced taxation
to benefit those who can to be benefitted
is simple tyranny.
I do not care from what
standpoint you view it,
it it
persistently unjust. There should be proper
obligation
on the other side to meet the obligation imposed
by the state. And there should not be a penny
more extorted than can be usefully employed. Georgia
should furnish brains enough to work out this
problem and patriotism enough to apply the remedy.
Gentlemen are you not responsible for these improvements
and failures?
Let us suppose that it
is my child which is suffering
for a common school education.
The state compels you to furnish the money to do
it, not one dollar of which you can or do owe to me
or mine. The state says that illiterate child must be
educated because illiteracy and crime go hand in hand,
and its parent is not able to do it.
You must do it, or have a fifa issued to raise that
school money out of your property. If you and yours
become homeless, this child must be taught by public
school teachers, paid by the state, and that real estate
is subject to the school tax, no matter how many times
it is sold and resold by sheriff or marshal. I say it
will be no greater hardship to compel me to send that
child to school, than to wring its tuition out of your
honest labor or earnings. Unless I am made to send
that child to school, when I refuse to do it, your money
will be worse than wasted. You are wronged in every
sense of the word. I am no better than you when obligation
to accept is laid upon me, especially when it
all accrues to my benefit.
I saw a newspaper paragraph in a leading journal a
few days ago on this subject. It said:
"I'd like to see anybody get up and tell Mrs. Felton
it was time to send her child to school."
Gentlemen, when the money is wrung out of your
pockets to send my child to school, you should have
the authority to fix the time and what is more apparent,
to make me pay for negligence if I fail to send it.
When you are thrashed to the place where your
money is taken from you, to benefit my child, it is
cowardly for me to cry out if I am made to pay a
fine for the non-attendance of my child. There is no
more equity in thrashing you to the paying place
than in thrashing me to the school house.
If I hide out that child in the cotton patch or cotton
factory to earn money for me, while you are paying
its tuition under compulsion from the state, you
should demand the payment of a proper fine from me,
because I refused to school the child.
As before said, the state compels your school tax
as a preventive measure. The state says it is easier
and more humane to support school houses than jail
houses. Under no other claim can this compulsory
tax be demanded of you, and the conclusion is imperative.
You should be remunerated in some way. If I
defeat the intent of the tax law, by non-attendance,
the state should, in fair dealing and honesty, refund
you the money or compel the child to go to school, or
put the officer on me until the fine is paid, or abolish
an unjust system.
Some will say, I am the best judge of what my child
shall do. No, gentlemen, the state tells you that you
shall provide a teacher for my child, and it should
tell me "send that child or pay the penalty," and compel
the child to go.
I admit you, I do not like either side of this business.
I tell you it is anti-republican in its leadings,
but it came along down here when our people did not
understand its workings and we had that much of
Massachusetts and Rhode Island slapped on to us,
when we did not recognize or appreciate our own conditions.
We were told that free schools would make
Sunday folks out of freedmen, and we see now that
seventy-five per cent of the free school chaingang
crowd go in there for forgery and such like. The little
learning has worked a disadvantage.
But, gentlemen, in this school report we are told
that "the common school is here and here to stay."
Those are the words. Literally interpreted it means
school taxation is here and here to stay. I say to you,
as parents and honest men, equalize the burdens and
divide the responsibility. When you are compelled to
furnish the money to school my child, compel me to
furnish the scholar. If I do not furnish the scholar
that you have paid for, compel me to pay a fine that
will cover the loss to the state if not to you. That's
business. Nothing else will ever be honest or satisfactory
while the present system obtains. This is only
fair dealing with generosity leaning to my side.
When your boy gets to be sixteen years old, the
road overseer will say, "Be there tomorrow at six
or seven o'clock, bring your hoe, pick, or shovel" as
the case may be. The state says work that road under
compulsion or pay a fine, and the fine is paid, or
that boy works the road.
Now I do not claim that school children should be
fined, but I do say, their indifferent and apathetic parents
should suffer in pocket if they do not attend,
and Massachusetts and Rhode Island say that much.
We should swallow the whole pill or hear less of
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They compel and fine
with a vim.
But maybe you will tell me that you are educating
enough free niggers now, and if attendance is compulsory
you won't have a hand to work a farm. Friends,
you have been getting less and less labor every year,
for a dozen and upwards, with more money for their
schools and those that don't go to school do worse, and
as courts and jails do not diminish criminals, then
try school houses in dead earnest. We now have about
three thousand colored teachers in Georgia, common
schools, paid out of this tax money. Divide three
thousand by 137, the number of counties, and we will
average more than twenty colored teachers to each
county, and some counties have no negroes to teach
in upper Georgia.
I insist that WE ARE FULLY SUPPLIED WITH
TEACHERS, and the average pay of $130 for less
than a hundred days in the year is very good pay
for the work in rural schools, judging from what I
know of farm life and the scarcity of cash. Insist,
gentlemen, on full attendance for these schools, and
there will be less time for shooting, stabbing, outrages
and less opportunity for the politicians among them,
because it is a remarkable fact, that every colored
teacher joins in the hue and cry of poor salaries, calls
for more money and sometimes threatens to vote the
treasurer out of office because he waited until the
Supreme Court told him what to do with the state's
property fund last summer. There is too much
Massachusetts and Rhode Island in this thing to suit me,
but if the system is here to stay, then try to get some
results from the plant you are working, by compelling
school attendance.
It reminds me of a great big cotton factory with
a $12,000 engine, any amount of looms and spinning
jennys, and a big force of operatives all standing still
or operating on half time, because no cotton is in
reach, the raw material is lacking. That plant is
comparatively useless. We have the common school
plant. Heaven knows it is a costly apparatus. It has
soaked up nearly twenty millions of dollars in less
than thirty years. While the local schools in town are
generally good eight-ninths of the country schools
are next to nothing. The factory is idle sixty per
cent of the time, for there is lack of raw material.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island supplied the pupils,
we let them go as they please.
We cannot pattern our schools after the pattern of
Northern states, and we have reached a place where
this state should refuse to engage more teachers than
there are children to teach. I say to you gentlemen,
we have been running this school business quite long
enough on sentiment, gush and political influences.
Pay your taxes with the
distinct understanding that
no teacher should be sent to a school until the people,
the patrons want a school bad enough to ask for
it, and will help to support it, by paying in money or
work, for at least half the expense of a school house,
one suitable for a winter as well as a summer school.
And pay no teacher that has no scholars to teach, and
no school house to teach in. Then the patrons should
sign an agreement with the state to furnish enough
pupils to employ a teacher at a stated price. That
agreement should have legal force, otherwise it is
worthless.
That number of pupils should be kept up, sickness
alone preventing. A fine should be collected for every
day a pupil is absent.
This hap-hazard way of providing teachers for any
community without regard to attendance is simply
preposterous. Let this wild flinging of tax money
stop, and only for such schools as will comply with
rigid requirements.
The commissioner tells you in his report, that the
"burning question" is appropriating more money to
keep up this common school. It is burning up the patience
of the people who are so heavily taxed to see
this tax money so terribly wasted, and it is burning
up the hardly earned tax money, when more than sixty
per cent refuse to accept the benefit, and the cry
for more money, and the state's demand for more
money is becoming exasperating to the last degree. It
is disgusting people with the system, and a change is
bound to come sooner or later.
Pay only for what may be termed value received,
legislators.
A neighbor told me a few days ago he knew of a
teacher who was also a preacher, and who boasted he
was sent to a school because he had "influence." He
was paid a salary. He told some of the folks that he
could teach a small attendance as well as a large one,
for he got no more money for one than the other.
After awhile they dropped down below the limit, and
then he got out, to drumming up pupils. It makes
all the difference in the world as to limits, and restrictions.
And it would seem that
ten thousand teachers for
common schools, for the 137 counties should be an
ample supply at present. That means about 72 to the
county, and remember we have an immense number of
pupils in various other schools in Georgia.
We paid out last year about one hundred thousand
dollars for county commissioners and local superintendents.
Does not that seem high for 137 counties?
If you have one capable school overseer in a county
can he not overlook the schools without more expense?
I am asking you to look closely into this tax money,
gentlemen. It is pathetic to know how many poor
homes there are in Georgia, that are struggling in all
good conscience to live by their labor and keep out of
debt. There are many honest, hard-working families
that do not see a clear dollar after twelve months of
close economy and hard work. They would like to
keep their homes, to own land, that has in many instances
been owned by their fathers before them, but
gentlemen of the legislature, these taxes are so burdensome
that it is cheaper and safer to rent land than to
own it, and these schools in the country are so poor, so
unsatisfactory, so unproductive of interest or usefulness,
that the country places are only endured by those
who can send their children elsewhere to school, or by
those who are too indifferent to patronize them, or by
those who must stay until the sheriff sells the land.
It is because this unsatisfactory system is making
country life so unattractive, that I plead with you today.
The cry goes up, yes a wail of disappointment, that
COUNTRY-RAISED BOYS WILL LEAVE THE
FARM. Why? Because these country homes have
to meet such conditions as I here mention. This rural
system of schools is barren of educational interest
It pays the teacher if it pays anybody, but nobody
else does it pay.
I submit, the state should not go into the business of
providing a living or profession for anybody. The
school fund is raised for schools, with teachers as secondary
in importance. We have tried the unfair system
nearly thirty years. We have run away from the
country all the private schools.
Before the war we had good country schools. People
were interested in keeping them good, and every
poor white child enjoyed the same privilege through
the county's poor rate. After the war we mounted
stilts and went wild after the pattern of Massachusetts
and Rhode Island, and we have struck hard pan with
a dull thud in heavy taxes and poor country schools.
Where will poor old Georgia wind up with a machine
that screams all the time for more money to pay teachers
and more than sixty per cent of the scholars are
in the cotton field or ranging the big road with a gun
and dogs. Barlow county was obliged to hang a free
school product a few days ago. It was a close shave to
get him to the gallows rather than to the lyncher's
fagot. In country places no white woman is safe
on the highway or in her own home unprotected. The
school commissioner urges the purchase of school
wagons to haul white children to school, an additional
expense, to be added to the fund for paying the
teachers, and makes the plea of danger and the necessity
for a safe escort because, he says "every country
road is infested with tramps." My! My! Has it
come to this pass in a free school state that has spent
nearly twenty millions of dollars since emancipation
to aid our civilization?
Can you pick up a newspaper that does not record
an outrage on white women, or the lynching of a rapist?
But I am told we must raise more money to provide
more education. I only state facts when I tell
you what you all know, that the best people of the
colored race, a class fast dying out, were trained to
hard work with modern education left out. God
forbid that I should rob the colored race of a real
friend, or deprive it of a dollar to which it is honestly
entitled. But I will dare to say in this presence in the
fear of God and the sight of man, that this unsatisfactory
school system has not reduced criminals, or
checked the state's expenditure for courts, juries
jails and the hangman's rope. It has added nothing
to the security of rural homes. It has not promoted
purity or virtue in the great majority. Some years
ago an old darkey woman declined to do some housework
on the plea that she must stay at home to mind
her husband's bastard grand children, while their
mothers taught a country school. No doubt they were
imposed upon the authorities by false statements and
concealments. I gave the conversation as spoken in
my own presence.
We must deal with conditions that do not obtain in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We cannot apply
the same sort of compulsory education in Georgia,
that their laws call for; but every dollar of the money
which you raise by compulsory taxation should be
strictly applied to teaching common schools, and there
should never be a teacher supplied until the school is
waiting, ready and eager, with a legal agreement between
the patrons and the state to provide scholars in
full measure for the undertaking. The state has been
hallooing for wild pigs long enough; pen the shoals,
gentlemen, before you throw out the corn. If you will
allow a suggestion, lawmakers, you need to bring these
country schools and the country patrons into closer
connection. Compel each school district to be present
when a teacher is to be supplied. Let them have a
voice in the selection. Don't let this enormous business
be left to political influence or personal favoritism.
A few years ago I was a
visitor at the commencement
of our State University. While we waited in the
hotel office to be assigned a room a distinguished educator,
a visitor appointed by Gov. Atkinson, came to
me, saying, "I must bring my burden to you, because
my heart is sick. I came yesterday (mentioning the
railroad), and during my trip I walked through the
cars to the smoker. I passed a neat colored woman
busy with what I saw was a Greek book used in our
colleges. As I returned, I asked her if she read Greek
"Oh! yes. I am on my way to teach a summer school
and I am refreshing myself in the study." When I
sat down in my own seat in the rear coach, I glanced
out at a nearby cotton field. Four young white women
were hoeing cotton - shabbily dressed - in the
same field with negro men and boys. I have been so
heart-sick I come to you and ask if you can suggest
any remedy."
Gentlemen, I bring the story to you. CAN YOU
SUGGEST A REMEDY?
These are unwholesome conditions. I bring you
some unpalatable facts today. Nevertheless they are
facts. I am glad of the privilege of a face to face talk
with you on a subject that is not only affecting present
conditions, but these young women are to be the
coming mothers of our race. They will make or mar
the future of this people. I am telling you some
things that our politicians whisper, but are afraid
to speak aloud. I hope I have lived long enough in
Georgia to be recognized as a genuine friend of education
and of our girls. The best work of my later
years has been devoted to their interests. When our
poor white women in Georgia cotton mills were caricatured
in a northern magazine, invidious comparisons
drawn between colored women and these poor
white women, when every reader of The Century magazine
was told that these white women were ignorant,
debased and exchanged husbands as they changed
houses, I went in person to some of the cotton mills
to stand by them in real life and to find out the facts.
I brought down northern sneers on my devoted head,
but while I found a few persons, who said there were
some immoral white women in these cotton mill homes,
the overwhelming majority were honest, virtuous, self-sacrificing
wives and mothers. Have I not earned
the privilege of coming into your presence today and
begging for uplifting of the white girls of Georgia,
in rural districts, while schools and first-class universities
are almost in the sound of my voice to provide
colored girls with the higher education.
Whatever is done for the poor white people of the
South, must be done by our own people. It is folly
to fawn or flatter expecting help, in a satisfactory
degree. We have an average of seventy odd teachers
to every county in Georgia today. We have tried the
experiment of throwing schools and paid teachers in
generous abundance before the multitude about thirty
years, and more than sixty per cent of school children
refuse to accept the benefit. Last year in Bartow
county there were 57 white teachers and 18 colored.
There were 3,756 children admitted, but 1,373 of the
whites admitted did not attend school (a little less than
half), and two-thirds of the negro children did
go. We spent about $2,000 in other ways beside paying
teachers, and this year the state's taxes in Bartow
county are up to the limit. The county has laid
on heavier taxation than Gov. Bullock's entire administration
called for, and town property is gouged
for the last dollar it will bear. Nobody can expect to
get more than six per cent on a thousand dollar bond
as interest, but Bartow county calls for fifteen dollars
tax money, on every thousand dollars returned as
property. The end is inevitable. No county can endure
such increasing demands. No business can stand
such a drain very long.
And it required nearly $12,000 last year to run the
school machine in Bartow county with a little over
2,000 children to attend the common schools, managed
by state authority.
Commissioner Glenn says we must save the lost
boys. From all appearances we had best appeal to
and engage foreign missionaries for ourselves. With
more than sixty per cent of children of school age declining
to attend common schools we must save the
lost by some other saving device, than those employed
at present by compulsory taxation.
Despite the governor's
condemnation of the system
there is no let up in the call for more money.
And it would appear also that like the horse leech's
daughter, the biggest part of the machine is "more
money." I once heard of a poor man who complained
of a cold head. Somebody told him to put on a night
cap. He afterwards called for another night cap
when he felt cold about his head. He never removed
a night cap and at last accounts his head would not
go in a two bushel basket, and he still felt cold in the
head. There seems to be but one reply when the
unsatisfactory system is complained of, namely "more
money." We never take off anything, but the
legislature is asked to put another night cap on the
sufferer's head, and one big enough to go on over the
accumulated night caps every year.
We have an average of 72 teachers to the county
now. We need scholars, not teachers. We have
common school teachers enough to form ten regiments
rank and file, at present, nearly three thousand colored.
One third of the night caps are dark colored.
Gentlemen of the legislature, have fewer schools and
better schools, and apply enough compulsion to make
a school large enough to engage the time of the teacher.
You have patched and poulticed the system for
thirty years. Try a remedy that will save the patient
or quit paying for nothing.
Some time ago a young man called for a drink of
water. He had been teaching a country school at $40
a month and was on his way home in another county
with the money. He received $200 for five months in
a common school. He laughed as he remarked "Pa
says I have made more clear money in five months
than he has received in two years from his fine valley
farm." That is the situation, gentlemen. I believe
in paying the teacher and the preacher according to
what I get after a hard year's work. We have ten
regiments of teachers in service, and are turning out
some hundreds more every year. Like the French
people before the Revolution, we will not be long in
getting to where privileged classes will be finally eating
up our property in taxes. When I think of the
fine negro colleges and three thousand colored teachers,
in Georgia, paid by the state and the poor child
that can't get to you to raise its white hand to ask
for a way of escape, I say: Remember your duty, and
do it speedily.
The year 1894 was not a
presidential election year
but it was a year when elections for congressmen,
governor and legislators were expected in October and
November. These elections were duly held, and immediately
there were thirty-two contests booked for a
hearing before the legislature, and two congressional
elections were in doubt-the 10th and the 7th. Of
the latter I am prepared to speak, as I had intimate
connection with its progress, until the partisan elections
committee in Washington City announced its
verdict. Twenty-four years have come and gone since
those occurrences, and I shall endeavor to set down
my recollections in a spirit of fairness, although the
events of that time are sufficient to make their remembrance
a trial of patience and forbearance to a
more patient and forgiving person than I claim to
be. I shall therefore set down the main incidents
as a record for my survivors, and also for the young
men of Georgia, who know next to nothing of the political
oppression and tyranny of that era of our State's
history. The story of the election in the Tenth District
became appalling when some voters were killed
in Augusta, Ga., and negroes were bribed by the
Democrats, openly and continuously, until 18,000 ballots
were placed in the ballot boxes on that fateful
day in Augusta and these bribed negro voters were
kept in an enclosure and carried out again and again
to the voting place under assumed names until Christian
ministers were appalled at the condition of affairs.
Rev. Dr. Stradly, Methodist minister, testified
that he saw a squad of negroes vote five different
times before he left the scene and a young white man
of a prominent family would pass a coin to each of
the negroes every time they were taken out to the
voting place. When he left they were still voting and
still being paid for their votes. The Wesleyan Christian
Advocate next week, after the election, said:
The elections last week resulted in a cyclone, which we
hope will help to purify the atmosphere. The papers, we
see, are now talking about pure elections, and our state
legislature is considering the matter. It is time, high
time; that is, if it is not too late. It was time long ago,
and the shame and general disruption now upon us might
have been averted if we had been governed by justice and
equity, instead of party tricks and personal ambition.
Some things in the election test week were enough to
make our state hang her head and go slow.
Honest men stood by for hours and saw these frequent
repeatings of half-drunken negroes. Richmond
county by the census of 1890 had a population
of 45,000. By some sharp trickery the ballot-box
count was reduced to 16,000, yet that would require
every third citizen to vote on election day - a physical
impossibility. Eighteen thousand were the first figures.
The Atlanta Constitution, under date of November
8th, 1894, used the following words: "Corruption
run riot. Public sentiment will not tolerate
any more elections like the one in the 10th District.
The less said about this election the better for the
good name of the State." The successful candidate
carried but two counties and Richmond elected him.
The other nine counties had no showing whatever.
Congress seated the Richmond candidate, who paid
coin time and again through his agents for hordes
of half drunken negroes until the number of Richmond
county votes swelled to 18,000 ballots. In the
October election Richmond county, for governor, a
heated campaign, voted only 4,632. A month later
the vote was swelled to 18,000 on election day - in
November - both elections conducted by the same men.
The same condition prevailed in Chatham county,
where an ex-United States Senator told a friend of
mine, who wrote to me immediately, and which letter
is now before me, that Chatham county polled 15,000
votes, but there were between 7,000 and 8,000 returned
by the managers.
A prominent politician in Cobb county admitted to
the same friend that Dr. Felton carried the county by
a good majority but they determined to count him
out, and did it.
In the other districts of the State there was constant
complaints as to fraudulent votings, but they
were drowned by a continual Confederate war-whoop
and an insensate outcry against negro domination at
the polls. The scurvy politicians who used negroes
at the polls were out in the open screaming: "Vote
the Democratic ticket to protect the ballot-box from
negro voters!" The outrages in the 10th and 7th districts
made the next Legislature pass a general registration
law. Mr. Fleming, of Richmond, said: "The
people of Georgia want to make a new law, and God
knows they need it in the face of the dishonest frauds
in the last election. ** the fraudulent election
in Georgia is a scandal from one end of the continent
to the other, and it must be purged of the stigma in
order to resume its rightful place in the South."
To utterly crush out all those who aspired to office,
without the permission and decree of the dominant
faction in the State was the order of the day. A
Federal official who would cheat, or a negro who
would vote with them could perform no more
meritorious duty. To oppose the dominant faction was
enough to cost them their official heads and to send
negroes to the chain-gang for trivial offenses. As
Senator Bacon expressed it in the year 1886: "Such
a dominion is death to all honorable aspirations for
preferment, because under it preferment can only be
attained at the cost of servile submission, and the
time is not far distant when within the borders of the
State there cannot be found in the party a man who
will offer himself up to the sacrifice which awaits
those who dare dispute its power." These words
were written in an address to the Democratic party
of Georgia after he had been defeated for the nomination
of governor by the influx of money from the
outside and by the Confederate war-whoop to cover
up the men and methods then prevailing. Said Mr.
Bacon: "This absolute power, so dangerous to every
important interest, is now held by a few men who
have not only possession to a large extent of the valuable
property interests of the State, but who hold
among themselves all the important offices, and claim
the right and power to dispense the lesser ones. Three
men in intimate personal and political association and
alliance, all living practically in the same town, with
action so perfect as if one mind controlled all three.
At the same time two of them United States Senators
and the other the Governor the State. It is certainly
the most remarkable political spectacle ever
enacted on the footstool in the face of high Heaven."
In discussing the congressional election in the 7th
District, November, 1894, seven years later, it is proper
to state that the common people of Georgia had
reached a place where it took a man of courage to become
a candidate for office, unless the "dominant
party" could use and control him after the election.
The risk was great, no matter from what point it was
viewed. Attacks upon personal character were common.
The money loss was likely to be serious, and
these things engendered a cowardly submission that
made the dominant faction brazen in tyranny and
oppression.
The Democrats of the 7th District were not willing
to allow any opposition to their candidate, and their
candidate had been a superior court judge who could
be relied upon to send ignorant negroes to the chaingang
and to place very light fines on the democratic
white men who fell under the discipline of his court.
In one day, October 7,1891 (Minutes of the Superior
Court in Floyd county, page 384, you can find the
proof of my statement), one Sampson Jackson, colored,
was fined one thousand dollars and costs for
gambling with persons of his own color, and Jno. M.
Vandiver, who was caught in same offense with others
of his color (afterward appointed postmaster at Rome,
where Judge Maddox lived then and now), was
sentenced same day, October 7,1891, to a fine of ten dollars
and costs. (I have a copy of that court record.)
A number of Rome gamblers were obliged to plead
guilty but the white sports were let off lightly while
the negro gamblers were fined one thousand dollars
and costs.
Things of this kind, used for political effect, created
lively opposition to the candidate for Congress. Taken
together with the financial distress of that time, a convention
of the Populist party met in Rome and decided
to find, if possible, some man of courage and
intelligence who would allow his name to be used in
a public protest against a person who could thus
use the office of judge to oppress the ignorant and
helpless while he was known to be hand-in-glove with
a crowd that would drink and gamble and escape the
penalties of the law, with a judge of such convenient
quality. Dr. Felton, my husband, was implored to
allow his name to be placed at the head of the public
protest which they were making against the former
judge of that judicial circuit and he consented. He
said to me: "It is indeed a poor citizen in any country
who will not serve when he is drafted to lead a
revolt against tyranny in our courts or tyranny at
the ballot boxes. Politics has filled the land with
political judges and ballot-box stuffers. It is the last
refuge of free men to apply for justice in the courts
of our country. When courts fail and corruption
becomes rampant on the bench the time has come to
rise up and enter a protest. To reward political judges
with higher positions in politics has become
prevalent throughout Georgia. They are known to
be tyrants in judicial service; they cannot represent
our State fairly in congressional circles."
I plead with him to remember his age and its infirmities,
and pointed out the suffering and injustice
that the same order of tricksters had heaped upon
him, and how they had cheated him at the ballot box,
and how tamely the men of business had put up with
political methods which were preventing the right
sort of immigration or the investment of capital because
of the bad name that Georgia held abroad, etc.
He met me every time with the declaration: "These
people ask me to allow my name to be voted for. They
are desperate with the corruption that stalks boldly
all over Georgia. Somebody should be willing to lead
a crusade for justice and fair elections. I cannot refuse
their urgent plea. I can force the opposition
to show their hand. It can then be printed, and like
the 'Yazoo fraud,' it will speak for itself in the days
to come." So the canvass opened in 1894.
I shall not endeavor to give in detail the carnival
of political corruption that prevailed in Georgia,
which carried thirty-three election contests to the
Georgia Legislature, where the dominant faction had
counted themselves a majority, or the full story of
the debauch in the 10th District, nor even the recital
of occurrences that are matters of fact and of record
in the 7th District. But it is due to myself and to
those who will come after me, and to the young men
and women of Georgia that I should set down in correct
form the unholy persecution that I experienced
in person, because I gave my husband, Dr. W. H.
Felton, the individual assistance that he needed and
which I gave cheerfully. He went to his reward in
1909, and while he left but small fortune to his survivors,
he did have a name for honest public service,
and a life untainted with political corruption or bribe
money. He led a crusade that only a brave man
could lead, and he served his country as a watchman
on a high tower.
The contest for the congressional seat was made in
three counties, where a registration law was established,
Bartow, Cobb and Floyd. The remaining
counties had a go-as-you-please permit. Judges and
dominant officials terrorized the people who appeared
as Felton witnesses. A former judge in Rome attacked
a man who had not been called as a witness.
The solicitor of another court attacked my son in the
contest court-room, who had not testified. The men
connected with the judiciary were ready to fight
whenever a witness was called.
The Atlanta Journal requested me to give that
paper my account of occurrences in Washington City
at the congressional hearing. I have a copy of the
same, just as it was published at the time. No correction
of it, or complaint of it, was ever made. It
will speak for itself and the chivalry of Georgia was
on trial:
(From Atlanta Journal, April 29, 1896.)
The appearance of Mrs. W.
H. Felton of Georgia, before
one of the elections committees of the house or
representatives
in Washington recently as counsel for her husband
presented a scene absolutely unique in congressional history.
The incident has never been described in detail
and the account of it which follows, given by Mrs. Felton
herself, will, for that reason, be found doubly interesting.
The hearing of the
contested election case of Felton vs.
Maddox took place before house election committee No. 1,
in Washington, April 10th. What took place is thus described
to The Journal by Mrs. Felton herself:
The hearing was set for
10 a. m. A full committee was
present. Judge Maddox with his counsel, Judge Branham
of Rome, and Solicitor General Fite of Cartersville. Dr.
Felton was attended by his Washington counsel, General
W. W. Dudley, of Dudley & Michenor - all were on time.
Three hours are devoted to each case, in this manner,
time equally divided between the two parties. General
Dudley had first hour. Mr. Fite three-quarters of an hour
- ditto to Judge Branham - with remaining half hour to
General Dudley. I was present, also Judge Lawson and
some others.
General Dudley is a crippled federal officer - lost a leg
at Gettysburg - yet he walks without a crutch. He outlined
the case in his hour, referring to his brief in the
case, frequently interrupted by Judge Maddox. He covered
the registration frauds in Bartow county, where 300
legally qualified voters, who voted in October, were
stricken from verified lists and disfranchised in November
election. He proved the refusal to register other 300
voters for November election, while Registrar Ginn was
shown to be lenient to his party friends - exhibited the
mutilated lists - and proved by Maddox's witnesses the
illegalities and violations of registration law, to carry out
the premeditated and systematic frauds, to the injury of
Dr. Felton. He reviewed Cobb county - the contumacy of
recalcitrant Witness Stanback, tax collector and registrar,
who defied four subpoenes
- one with duces
teum, and
never appeared. Ordinary Stone's open violation of registration
law - Judge Gober's refusal to hear mandamus suit,
until both October and November election were over - the
disregard of all mandatory requirements, and especially
the reasons for refusal to print the lists used in those two
elections as required. He briefly stated the situation in
Polk, Paulding and Haralson, when his time was up.
Mr. Fite took the
floor, to show everything lovely in
Bartow and Cobb, Bartow in particular. Nobody did any
harm - all were the nicest of gentlemen, himself included,
everything was lovely, nothing hateful but Felton, and
no need for contest. Turning to General Dudley he offered
what purported to be an affidavit from Esquire R. B.
Gaines, of Bartow county, the commissioner who took down
evidence for Dr. Felton, charging Mrs. Felton with writing
his statement and incorporating things not authorized by
himself - in short, I was charged with forging and manipulating
this important document to 51st congress. In
answer to a question, he said Mr. Albert Johnson, of Cartersville,
wrote the paper but Gaines signed it - as an affidavit.
Judge Branham then took
the floor, and as I had not
spoken to him since the day he assaulted Hon. Seaborn
Wright in Rome, last year, in my presence, and Mr. Fite
represented him in the evidence as "small, delicate feeble
gentleman, in bad health - 60 years old and more" to palliate
the outrage on Mr. Wright, I was able to congratulate
him (Branham) on the return to his ability and
hilarity, as soon as he warned up to his subject.
He drew a graphic picture of Mr. John K. Davis in
Cedartown, trotting off with a box on his shoulder, that
was supposed to contain whisky. The judge is strikingly
facetious on such occasions as this, and as our Mr. Davis
is able to return compliments in kind, he will only need
to portray the memorable scene before alluded to in Rome
to prove that whisky is less harmless on the person's
shoulder than in other parts of the human frame. Honors
will be easy in such a controversy.
Judge Branham had much to say of Polk. Haralson and
Paulding - but ten minutes would cover his discourse on
Floyd, where 1,217 of Judge Maddox's bloated majority
of 1,562, in the district, was obtained with Wm. M. Bridges,
the "check raiser," and absorber of state and county
money to take in ballots, no other manager at Rome being
permitted to touch them on November 6th, 1894, except
this man Bridges. I was anxious to have him endorse Mr.
Bridges in Washington-as he did in Rome last year
- but he left Floyd to take care of its own poor self, while
he humped himself over the "trotting," in Cedartown, Ga.
The suave and gentle
judge had a rod in pickle for me.
He declared Mrs. Felton the author or forger of a circular
used in the campaign of 1891 and 1894 - called the "Sam
Holt circular," which reads this way:
"Dalton, Ga., November 1st, 1894.
Mr. B. F. Carter, Cedartown, Ga.:
"Dear Sir: Judge
Maddox, the present representative
from Seventh congressional district of Georgia, in a talk
with me on the street the other day, said he had been
canvassing the district and would be re-elected, because he had
bought all the leading negroes in each county, and
had bought them cheap as they are not worth much any way
and should not be allowed their vote.
"SAM HOLT, Dalton, Ga."
Mr. B. F. Carter lives
in Cedartown, and one would suppose
that Mr. Carter could have been called to testify if
Judge Maddox was anxious to investigate the circular, but
Judge Branham had the surprising cheek to rise in that
presence and deliberately charge me with originating and
printing, aye forging, that circular. He further said he
owned negroes himself before the war, when they were
expensive to him, he owned them now when they cost
him less, he expected to own them to the end, because
they made excellent servants! His climax was reached
with the Sam Holt circular - he took his seat fairly wilted
in his efforts with this circular. That is the main argument
of the learned counsel, and Judge Maddox sat by
saying "Amen."
When General Dudley
rose to reply, he said: "I have had
many election contests to encounter, but never before
saw a weak case bolstered by an attack on wife of contestant.
I could not be forced to attack a lady as counsel
- nor do I think any other gentleman would do so. I ask
that five minutes of my time be given to Mrs. Felton
to reply to this outrageous assault on her integrity."
Then he painted Rome until "Rome howled." He showed
the illegality of a county election for bonds, joined to a
congressional election - with same managers - invalidating
the bonds if they had been carried and fatally destroying
the integrity of the federal election. He called this bond
election attachment the "dead albatross." He exposed the
barbecue with its bribe tickets openly given in consideration
for votes - Maddox's votes. He exposed Mr. Postmaster
Pepper, as the originator of the barbecue - in mass
meetings, published in Rome Tribune, October 16, 1894.
Although Mr. Pepper swore he knew nothing about it, Mr.
Pepper ordered the eatables, Mr. Pepper superintended
the cooking. Mr. Pepper engaged the hands, Mr. Pepper
engaged the place to put the eatables near the courthouse,
Mr. Pepper O. Kd. the bills, Mr. Pepper distributed the
meats to those persons who voted for Maddox and brought
a red ticket to show for it, and Pepper swore that this
barbecue was fixed to catch the people who would vote
for either Republican or Democrat, or for bonds, provided
they could sell their ballots, for a dollar, or half dollar, a
meal, a drink of whisky or a pair of shoes! Vandiver,
Moore, Black Co., handing out the red tickets around
the ballot box, presided over by William M. Bridges, to
be cashed by Postmaster Pepper, just across the street,
and Judge Maddox present looking on at this work. Poor
house imbeciles voted without registration for Maddox and
the judge was shown to be exhorting his supporters to
vote without any registration at Bridges' box. General
Dudley exposed one Hunt, Judge Maddox's private agent,
on that day-paid by Pepper for this scoundrelly work,
sitting aloft on the judge's stand holding Judge Maddox's
private registration list at this election, which was as inexorable
as the laws of the Medes and Persians against
Felton supporters. Hunt was not sworn - not a manager
or clerk - simply a private agent. And there was no other
list used that day in Rome. We found no list could be
obtained in Floyd county except from printers. The bribe
tickets were carried to Flat Woods precinct by one Clip
Williamson, deputy sheriff, to secure Maddox votes. It is
presumed they were sent all over the county, as Mr. Pepper,
swore the barbecue was eaten up by whites, so the
negroes must have received something else for the red
tickets. Not a Felton supporter received a ticket, except
Henry Ober, who said there was Maddox whisky in the
basement. He was corroborated by another negro.
General Dudley touched
up Mr. Vandiver, the newly
appointed postmaster, who was rabid in his intimidation
and use of bribe tickets for his friend Maddox. He said
Vandiver had been indicted for gambling in Rome,
pleaded guilty, and this generous Judge Maddox sentenced
him and other white men to $10 and costs, while Sampson
Jackson, colored, was sentenced same day, October 7,1891,
by same judge for same offense, to $1,000 and costs. Judge
Maddox sprung up to say "it was absolutely false!" "The
records of the superior court in Floyd county will show
who has falsified," said General Dudley. A "double-header"
election, with same managers-no labels on the two boxes,
and absolutely controlled by these bribe-givers all over
Floyd county, for at Livingston precinct Felton tickets
were concealed in his pocket by one of the managers, until
12 o'clock, and he, a postmaster of Judge Maddox's own
choosing. One Webb, not a manager, took the bond and
congress ballots at same time at Livingston. Do you
wonder that Livingston gave Maddox 138 votes and Felton 8?
Who knows how many bond ballots were thus
counted? At Howells, the manager swears he took the
congress ballots in his own grip, with his own private
papers. The election in Rome, where nearly one thousand
votes were counted to Maddox by "Checkraiser" Bridges,
was held on upper floor of courthouse. A voter had to
ascend a short flight of steps to first floor, and a long
flight to second floor, and suffer the pulling, hauling, intimidating
and preventing by a horde of officeholding
tyrants and officeseeking partisans of Maddox to finally
reach "Check-raiser" Bridges at the ballot box, and be
read off the list by Usurper Hunt. And 2,214 votes were
counted that day in Rome - 1,107 at bond box - with all the
Populists nearly opposed to the bonds, and the same number
at Bridges' box. With 640 minutes (from 7 a. m to 6
in the evening) in the day, count for yourself, and see what
sort of voting that called for! Bribes, whisky, intimidation,
fraud, all rampant in contestee's presence. With
brief allusion to Cobb and Bartow, his twenty-five minutes
were exhausted. Immediately, chivalric Judge Maddox
demanded time to reply to Mrs. Felton. "No sir," said
Chairman Daniels. "No, sir," said General Dudley, "she
takes my time, I give it to her." I thus was cheated of
one minute of the precious five. I said substantially these
words:
"You have been
told Dr. Felton adjourned the hearings
in Bartow county without cause, I will tell you why. This
A. W. Fite traversed the Seventh district before the election
to defame our reputation, slanderously charging Dr.
Felton with receiving a bribe in the Georgia legislature,
and charging me with concealing the bribe money. When
this man was selected by Judge Maddox to sit opposite
to us, during this contest, to intimidate and browbeat our
witnesses, consuming the first day on one witness, Dr.
Felton lost patience and called him a scoundrel, who had
defamed his family. Next morning this man entered the
courtroom - ready as he declared for a cutting and shooting
scrape; prepared, but he would not fight the old man,
but he had a son 21 years old by his side, he was ready for him -
and leaning across the table hissed 'you coward,'
in my son's face, who was a subpoenaed witness, and had
not opened his mouth in public to anybody. I have but
one child, gentlemen, but four are in heaven, and we had
all we could bear without more of this man's insolence and
desire for strife.
"You have been told I falsified Esquire Gaines' certificate.
I will make oath before you that he (Gaines) signed
the paper printed in this record, and not a word has been
changed by me. I believe this new document has been
given under duress, if it is genuine, but no character is
safe when such men can thus inject their venom into your
presence."
(P. S. - Esquire Gaines has promptly repudiated the
whole thing and swears he never gave an affidavit which
assaulted my integrity.)
"You have been told I forged the Sam Holt circular. I
present you an affidavit signed before the proper authority
which I will read to you. B. F. Carter testified that
he received the letter from Sam Holt at Cedartown postoffice,
where he lives. He printed and circulated it, that
neither Dr. Felton, his wife or his family had a thing to do
with it. Judge Maddox subpoenaed Carter to appear in
Cedartown. Carter appeared, told Judge Maddox he was
ready to answer any question, but Maddox declined to
examine Carter as a witness. Carter was the legally
elected sheriff of Polk county, but dispossessed of the
office by judge of superior court, Judges Janes, who declared
the office vacant, and a Democrat not elected was
put in it. Carter was four years postmaster under General
Harrison at Cedartown, and a Republican. Said I, 'This
is my answer to this infamous charge of forgery. I had
nothing to do with printing or originating the circular.'
I wish to say to you that this man Fite assaulted another
of our witnesses - ordered the sheriff of Bartow county
to search him without a warrant - and the sheriff obeying
this attorney, pushed witness violently into the hall - on
his way to jail with him - until the witness produced the
fine.
"I saw Judge Branham attack Hon. Seaborn Wright in
Rome - our witness - although he had not said a word in
court at that time, rushing the length of this room, yelling
out these words, with his arm drawn back to strike:
'Seaborn Wright, I pronounce you a liar, and I'll slap
your jaws.' "
My four minutes were out - the hearing closed.
Hon. Charles Bartlett,
member from Macon, Ga., who,
according to Mr. E. W. Barrett, the correspondent of the
Atlanta Constitution, was placed by Mr. Crisp's influence
on this committee to be ready for the Felton-Maddox case
(the statement published last December) showed himself
eagerly active for Judge Maddox. A gentlemen remarked
to me: "The judge has one attorney on the committee."
He rose to interrupt me to say the supreme court sustained
Judge Janes in the Carter case. I replied, "You
are mistaken. The supreme court of Georgia announced
it had no jurisdiction in the case. It was a political affair,
not judicial." These elections committees occupy the position
of judges, to decide according to the law and the
evidence, and Judge Bartlett's open animosity surprised
me very greatly. I was also informed that he expected to
have a contest in his own district next fall, and had already
spoken to an attorney in Washington to conduct
his case in such an event. I think it likely he will have a
contest for the nomination as Hon. Tom Cabaniss was uprooted
with only one term, thus setting the precedent by
Mr. Bartlett himself.
I still hold the telegram sent by Carter to me in
Washington City: "Produce my affidavit as to Holt
circular. You were ignorant of its origin.
The circular is genuine. Signed, B.F. Carter, Chairman
Rep. Ex. Com. 7th Dist."
Mr. Gaines also mailed affidavit contradicting Fite's
arguments. I still hold the telegram that was sent
by his friends and he is still living to answer.
Judge Maddox, former judges of Rome Circuit;
Judge Branham, former judge of Rome Circuit, and
Judge Fite, afterwards judge of Cherokee Circuit,
were the originators and perpetrators of this outrage
upon me. My sole offense was giving assistance to
my husband against this most diabolical political conspiracy
to defeat the will of the people in choosing
their representatives.
Such judges were then elected by the Legislature.
The people of Georgia lost faith in their legislators,
elected as they were by the dominant faction, as
explained by Senator Bacon.
The corruption of the judiciary in Georgia has been
more than once exposed in legislative investigations,
but it is well understood that the "dominant faction"
elected the judges at the time when a negro could be
sent to the chain-gang for ten years for stealing three
eggs or for stealing a bowl of milk, and a negro girl
fifteen years old in Atlanta was sent to the penitentiary
for five years for snatching fifty cents from the
hand of a smaller negro. The dominant faction made
a half million annually out of a convict lease, and
the judge who could send able-bodied negroes to the
pen was well worth electing!
Later developments and exposures in the National
Congress, where the Methodist Publishing House
claim, and the devices of the Pacific R.R. managers
when laid bare, have thrown light on the why and
wherefore of the antagonisms that Dr. Felton's
candidacy inspired in 1894.
The Methodist Publishing House claim became a
stench in the nostrils of the Methodists of Georgia,
and Pacific Railroad money betrayed itself in several
fraudulent elections and reached up in suspicion
to governors and senators in Georgia.
Before leaving this fraudulent election in Rome,
there was a negro voter, named Ober, who testified
that Maddox liquor was abundant in court house basement,
but he could not get any unless he voted for
Maddox. In a few days he was arrested, carried
by the official to Piedmont, Ala., and placed in prison
on the charge of selling a pint of whiskey in that
Alabama town, four years before. This goes to
to show that Dr. Felton was to be congratulated that
he was not assassinated by the toughs and that I
should return thanks that these political judges did
not arraign me in their courts and attempt to send
me to the Georgia chain-gang. Poor Ober! He was
imprisoned for months, never had a trial, no one
appeared against him and he was turned loose to make
his way back to Rome, without a dollar of recompense
for false charges.
The contests before the Legislature ended as did
the contests before Congress. Every judge and
officer of the court were Democrats. Their living depended
on pleasing the "men in control." The protest
before Congress amounted to nothing except a
record was made and the infamies were exposed. It
was a time in Congress when Pacific Railroad money
elected senators and representatives in various States.
It was also a time when a noted lobbyist was pressing
a claim for the Southern Methodist church, and he
was openly accused of coming to Georgia to elect a
congressman. His plan succeeded and his congressmen
were elected or counted in. His wrath against
me found vent in his Nashville newspaper in which
I was charged with "looting the U. S. Treasury of
$2,000." His friend Maddox, after he was seated by
reason of various influences well known and understood,
took a fling at me, claiming that I had turned
lawyer and carried my husband's contest case to Congress
to secure $2,000 dollars. This brazen charge
was made on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Not a man from Georgia had courage to call
him down, and yet Maddox knew and actually understood
that there was in the capitol at that very time
an itemized statement in the clerk's office, showing the
expenditure of every dollar of the expense money,
with vouchers and receipts attached, and my husband
published the whole matter afterwards with abundant
proof that the lobbyist and his friend Maddox
had maliciously and wilfully made statements that
were absolutely false, intending to defame my good
name, where I was not allowed a hearing or notified
of the lying charges there promulgated.
I had no notice that the false charges concerning
the "Gaines' affidavit," or "Sam Holt circular" were
to be presented at the contest hearing. All the matter
to be presented was supposed to be laid before
the elections committee, duly signed and sworn to,
but these judges turned into attorneys for the sake
of the $2,000 allowed to Judge Maddox for contest
expenses, made these attacks upon my integrity before
the elections committee. It would have been
folly to have carried this case before any Georgia
judge. They owed their promotion to the very men
who were at the bottom of these election infamies.
As Senator Bacon truly said it was the "most astonishing
spectacle before high Heaven." I wrote
down at Mr. Gaines' request the facts that were established
at a hearing in Cartersville, because he said
I could write it more clearly. He thanked me for
thus obliging him and signed the paper and gave it
in, under oath, as the truth and the facts. The
"Sam Holt circular" I never saw until it was printed
and circulated, and had never heard before of its
existence. That such men as those judges herein
named should have ever been commissioned to occupy
the bench, to sit upon the lies and property
of the citizens of Georgia, gives fair evidence of the
low estate to which Georgia had fallen in 1894.
The following is the
address of Mrs. Felton before the joint
committee of the house and senate on Nov. 7th.
We are sorry we haven't the space to publish the able addresses
of other leading prohibitionists on this occasion.
We will however give some of them later on.
"We come before you today," said she, "to present the
appeal of the mothers of the state of Georgia, who are
praying every day that the barroom may be removed from
their midst and their children from such temptation
and the destruction that follows.
"As I look in the faces of those honorable gentlemen
and remember that you are commissioned to be the
guardians of the best interest of the women and children
in the state, I make free to present this appeal as a
matter of right, as well as of courtesy. While you are
called upon to protect cities and counties that have police
and authority to protect themselves, I come to bespeak
protection for mothers.
"I remember something else that touches my heart,
namely, that each and every one of you had once a
mother. Whether your mother, like mine, is still with
you, trembling with three score and ten years of feebleness
and loss of strength, or has passed to the reward
beyond the Jordan of death I can safely say that you
know and I know that there is no more unselfish love and
self-sacrificing devotion than our mothers have given to
their children.
"I now ask you to turn in your thoughts upon the
homes and firesides of this country and then tell me if
there is any class of citizenship, or order of human beings,
any sex or species, that have superior claims upon this
country for protection in their homes and protection to
their offspring.
"I am not here to detail the results of intemperance. It
would be like illustrating your prison walls to show the
prisoners that jails were the legal lodging place for criminals
and murderers. The reality is so much worse than
I could picture in words that it beggars description.
"The question that I bring to you to decide upon today
is a very plain and simple one, namely: Do you consider
the saloon keepers of Georgia of superior importance to
the mothers of this country and the safety of their offspring?
"There can be no temporizing, no hesitation in the
decision you will make - you will either prefer one or the
other. Which shall be?
"When the Almighty Father placed the burden of maternity
upon women - made her the custodian of the infant
in the critical period of its life. - He said to the father
train up that child in the way it shall go; and when it
is old it will not depart from it. The Lord blessed Abraham,
His servant because he would command his children
and his household after him, that they should keep the
way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.
"The burden of motherhoo
"BIG AUCTION SALE
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RAILROADS, SCHOOLS, SCHOOL TEACHERS,
AND
REVIVALS.
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"ATLANTA'S EARLY SOCIETY.
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Page 77SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH
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Page 95CHAPTER II.
SOUTHERN WOMEN IN THE CIVIL WAR.
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To the dear man at the front.
And the handmaid flung the shuttle.
And Sambo shelled the corn.
With weeping and with laughter,
They passed the time away.
Oh! who will tell this story,
To children yet unborn-
How these women faced the terrors,
With hearts oft crushed and torn,
Yet, like Roman mothers,
Sent brave men to the field.
"Come back to me in honor,
Or on the bloody shield!"
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Whose deeds both great and small,
Like close-knit strands of an unbroken thread
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells.
The Book of Life the shining record tells.
Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes-
After its own life-working. A child's kiss
Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad.
A poor man helped by thee shall make thee rich
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong
And thy own life shall be served,
By every service that thou renderest."
MY RECOLLECTIONS OF LARGE EXPOSITIONS.
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Page 113THE COTTON STATES AND INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION.
THE TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL.
Page 114THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION.
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"INTERESTING INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MRS.
WILLIAM H. FELTON.
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Page 123SOME DISTINGUISHED PEOPLE I HAVE MET.
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JUSTICE CLIFFORD AND JUSTICE DAVIS.
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"MRS. FELTON'S MESSAGE TO THE 20TH CENTURY.
APRIL 24, 1901.
"Some of the Influences Which Affect Life and
Character.
" 'Women are destined in this country,' says Mrs. Henrotin,
'to keep alive ideality.' A distinguished artist from abroad
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And tell him what he'd very much prefer,
That while he saved the empire his employer saved his place,
And his mate, that you and me looked out for her.
He's an absent-minded beggar, and he may forget it all,
But we do not want his kiddies to remind him
That we sent 'em to the workhouse while their daddy hammered
Paul
So we'll help the homes our Tommy's left behind him.
Son of a Lambeth publican, it's all the same today,
Each of 'em doing his country's work, and who's to look
after the girl?
Pass the hat for your credit's sake and pay, pay, pay.
And tell her what she would much prefer.
While statesmen saved the state, mothers saved their child;
And her home, that you and me looked out for her.
Men are absent-minded fathers - they might forget it all.
She does not want her children to remind him
That he sent them down to ruin, while the mother prayed for all:
So we'll help the mother raise the kids he left behind him.
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THE METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE CLAIM
AND MY CONNECTION WITH ITS
EXPOSURE.
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"MRS. FELTON SAYS THE CHURCH PAID ENORMOUS
LOBBY FEES.
"She
Charges That Over $100,000 of the Fund Voted for
Congress Went to Claim Agents - A Sensational Card.
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Page 164
"METHODIST WAR CLAIMS.
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Page 166
"MRS. W. H. FELTON.
"REV. J. W. DUFFY'S STATEMENT.
Page 167
"DEBATE IN THE SENATE.
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Page 170
ADDRESS BEFORE THE GEORGIA LEGISLATURE,
NOVEMBER, 1901.
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Page 173
Page 174
Page 175THIRTY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.
Page 176GEORGIA'S CONDITIONS DIFFERENT FROM MANY OTHER
STATES.
In last year's educational report to this body you
were shown comparisons between Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and New York; poor old Georgia, that
was swept by a besom of destruction a little over
thirty years ago, and millions of property were blown
off in ashes, when Sherman's vandals put a torch to
them. The states here mentioned pay in local taxes,
says our commissioner, while three-fourths of Georgia's
money is raised by state taxation.
Page 177GEORGIA'S LIABILITIES ARE HEAVY.
Georgia has a bonded debt
of eight millions or
thereabouts. Such states as Illinois and Missouri have no
bonded debt at all, and the state of Georgia puts upon
the taxpayers a direct levy of $800,000 for the present
year for schools, the common sort, in addition to the
convict hire, fertilizer fees, poll tax, half the rental
of W. & A. R. R., show tax and other things.
MANY CHILDREN DO NOT ATTEND COMMON SCHOOLS.
Page 178INJUSTICE TO TAXPAYERS IS GREAT.
Page 179THE GOVERNOR SAYS
Page 180AN EXAMPLE OF ITS POOR WORK IN RURAL SCHOOLS.
Page 181EQUALIZE THE OBLIGATION.
Page 182ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ITS WORKINGS.
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Page 185A STRAIGHT BUSINESS PROPOSITION.
Page 186
Page 187PAY FOR NO MORE TEACHERS THAN THERE ARE CHILDREN
WHO CAN BE TAUGHT.
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Page 189ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION OF UNSATISFACTORY
METHODS.
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Page 191MORE TAX MONEY THE CONTINUAL CRY.
Page 192
Page 193ELECTION FRAUDS IN GEORGIA IN 1894.
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Page 198
MRS. FELTON'S STORY.
She Gives a Graphic Account of the Hearing of Her
Husband's Election Contest Case.
Page 199Mrs. Felton's Own Story.
Mr. Fite's Defense.
Page 200Her Respects to Judge Branham.
The "Sam Holt Circular."
Page 201Dudley For Dr. Felton.
Page 202Referred to Vandiver.
Page 203Mrs. Felton's Speech.
Page 204Hit at Charlie Bartlett.
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ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE JOINT COMMITTEE,
HOUSE AND SENATE, NOVEMBER 1895.
There Were 100,000 Copies Printed and Circulated Over
Georgia.
MRS. FELTON'S APPEAL.
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