Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/122

110 and still more endear yourself to Southern soldiers who care for their history, is the wish of one who is pleased to sign himself, New Orleans.

By ordering the restoration of the much-discussed inscription upon "Cabin John Bridge," President Roosevelt has performed a public service which deserves the thanks and appreciation of his fellow-citizens, North as well as South. The mutilation of the tablet by order of a vindictive Congress in 1862 was perhaps the pettiest act of which the National Legislature, in all its history, has been guilty. The bridge was in its day a notable accomplishment. It was planned and constructed by government engineers who worked under the direction of the Secretary of War. Begun during the administration of President Pierce, it was natural and proper that the tablet should record, along with the date, the name of the Executive and of the Secretary of War, Mr. Davis, who took a keen interest in the engineering plans and construction. The erasure of the latter's name, during the war, was ordered when sectional hate and fury was most intense and designated as a blow at the Confederate President. Years afterward it had something of the effect desired, for we are told that Mr. Davis, in his retirement, felt the injustice keenly.

But in the truer sense the act reflected upon those responsible for it rather than upon Mr. Davis. By the mere removal of his name from the tablet, his would-be detractors could not rob him of the credit that accrued from his participation in the planning and construction of the bridge any more than they could have destroyed the fact that he was one of the nation's ablest War Secretaries, by mere mutilation of the official records at Washington. The bridge continued to stand as a monument to the administration which urged its construction and to the abilities of the men who had to do with it. The mutilated