It is sad to think that all this patriotism may not have made a deep impression upon the country.
It is sad to realize that the work of such men as Alexander H. Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Senator Lamar, Thomas Nelson Page and Henry W. Grady has left so much still to be done before that man, North or South, who endeavors to inflame the passions of the sections shall be made to feel that he has excited for himself the contempt and disgust which he deserves.
In a recent issue of the New York Independent comes Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University, distilling as much bitterness and gall as ever fell from the lips of John J. Ingalls or Thaddeus Stevens.
He writes an article called “Conditions of the Southern Problem,” and a more thoroughly exaggerated and libelous contribution to public discussion has not been made during the last twenty years.
The average reader will get some idea of the value of Mr. Hart’s conclusions when he comes upon the sober statement that “white mountaineers (of the South) have been known to take their children out of school because the teacher would insist that the world is round.”
Who stuffed Dr. Hart with that old joke?
What credit does he do to himself when he shows to the world that he accepts such worn-out jests as facts?
Does he not know that there are plenty of wags all over the world—even in Pullman cars—who take a delight in playing upon the credulous?
He will meet men who will tell him that in certain backwoods communities “the people don’t know that the war is over,” or he will be told that in some mountain counties “they are still voting for Andrew Jackson.”
But would Professor Hart take such statements for anything but jokes?