Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/359

 Advance from Appomattox. 351

shalt thou come and no further, and here shalt thy proud ways be stayed." The cotton mill industry has enjoyed tremendous growth without the interposition of a trust. In fact, an attempt was made to organize a cotton mill trust a few years ago, but the cotton mills which were taken into that combination failed ingloriously.

I have no fears concerning any of these things. I have supreme confidence in our fellow citizens of the East and the North and the West. Their acceptance now of Lee as the supreme the sublime, the ideal and the perfect type of American manhood and soldier- ship is evidence enough for me of their magnanimous and eager- seeking of the best and the highest.

Forty-two years after Lee's surrender, thirty-six years after Lee's death they have become Lee's people. Was ever such a wonder- fully sublime climax, such a glittering and amazing and perfectly beautiful crown of transcendent glory in the career of any hero of history before that after forty years his former and conquering enemies accept him as an ideal and guide and teacher of manhood and of the stern and clean military virtues?

Let me remind you of the tribute of your own matchless orator, Beniamin Hill to Lee, most appropriate now for quotation at the honoring of Lee's hundredth birthday:

"He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vice, a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was Ceasar without his ambition, Frederick without his tyranny, Napoleon without his selfishness, and Washington without his reward. He was as obe- dient to authority as a servant, and royal in authority as a true king. He was gentle as a woman in life, and modest and pure as a virgin in thought. Watchful as a Roman vestal in duty, submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles."

My dream is my confident hope is that the Southern States of the Union, with their marvellous gifts of soil and climate, and vary- ing and abundant production and their unconquered manhood and womanhood, will presently be in the van of this Union of States, and will lead it on to compelling power for peace and growth in the