Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ...had so served. It boasted of the sums spent for education; and then followed the usual "castigation" of the enemies of the public welfare. The platform was read by a man with a voice that filled the hall; and at the conclusion of his reading a little dramatic scene was acted that Colonel Stringweather had arranged. He leaped to the front of the platform, waving his hat in one hand and a tattered Confederate flag in the other, and cried: "The Ladies--God bless 'em--and the Old Soldiers, now and forever!" A group of young women rose from the front seats in the gallery and waved Confederate flags. Men threw their hats high toward the ceiling and yelled themselves hoarse. They forgot the order of the proceedings; and, when the confusion had gone beyond the hope of restoring order, the chairman declared the convention in recess till two o'clock. I sat in the gallery and I saw my cousin Margaret among the flag-wavers. With her sat the Reverend Donald Yarborough. The Qub, of course, had as its only purpose the training of the neglected youth of the State to useful occupations, to make work again seem worthy, as it had seemed before the blight of slavery. We had no other purpose. But the colonels had so directed the convention and so shaped public discussion that every proposition of the Club had been turned into an apparent defence of the Negro. Nor had we thought or said any criticism of the Confederate veterans. But the game had been so skilfully played that the Club had been made to appear as hostile to the veterans, to the Confederacy, to "our heroes," to the history and traditions of the State--made to appear as a conspiracy of traitors, and even as insulters of "the ladies, God bless "em." And...