Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures by George W. Bain
page 41 of 234 (17%)
page 41 of 234 (17%)
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and trusting confidence. We have had some domestic discords; once a
very serious family row, but I of the South, join you of the North, in thanks to God, the application for divorce was not granted, and we are still a united republic. The memories which followed that civil strife were so bitter, doubtless many of you northern brethren believed the men who surrendered at Appomattox were not any too sincere, and if we should ever have war with any foreign country, the north, east and west would have to furnish the patriotism, for the South would never again march under the stars and stripes. But when the Spanish-American war broke out, the first boy to pour out his heart's blood for his country's flag, was Ensign Bagley, of North Carolina. The young man who penetrated the Island of Cuba, 'mid Spanish bayonets and bullets, and searched out Cevera and his fleet in the harbor was Victor Blue, the son of a Confederate soldier. The young man who sank the Merrimac, Captain Richmond Pearson Hobson, was the son of another Confederate. Our Consul in Cuba, whose patriotism no one ever doubted, was General Fitzhugh Lee, and the old man who planted the flag in the tree-tops around Santiago, and led two negro regiments into the battle, was fighting Joe Wheeler of the Confederate army. If I were to close here, what an optimistic picture would be left in the glow of the century's searchlight. But alas! we have unsolved problems of imperial moment, and my purpose is to throw the searchlight upon a few of these unsolved problems. First, being a southern man, I shall turn it upon the Race Problem. A century ago the Indian question was a perplexing problem, but it |
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