With Our Writers

Editor Trotwood’s:While New York and the East may be the natural publishing place for American magazines, it should not be forgotten that the South has within itself many important problems peculiar to itself. If one should start from the Potomac and travel southwest two thousand miles, barring mountainous sections, he would find, generally speaking, less difference in people, customs, and institutions than he would be going one or two hundred miles north from that river. Coupled with this fact, the following story may not be without significance:A Northerner who had moved South noticed that his new neighbors had what struck him as being a rather unsatisfactory method of doing a certain thing. So he wrote an article suggesting another method and sent it to a local publication. The editor returned the article, pronouncing what it proposed to be “impracticable and visionary.” The writer then sent the article to a Northern publication, at the same time asking if what it proposed was impracticable or visionary. It was again returned, but the returner stated that, so far from proposing anything impracticable or visionary, the trouble lay in the opposite direction. He said that what was proposed had been in successful operation so long that it would be useless and tiresome reading.This story seems to me to illustrate the case of innumerable subjects important to the South. In the matter of education, for example, what would sound revolutionary in some Southern States would, I believe, be called pioneer work by the majority of American-born Northerners. Again, in the realm of economics, most of us in the South have yet to learn some of the first principles. As to our code of social relations there are some sections, fertile and penetrated by railroads, which are in vital respects half a century behind the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon civilization. As to our courts of justice, although law has been the favorite profession of our ambitious young men, and although we are supposed to have some of America’s ablest practitioners, it seems that almost none of them ever try persistently to contribute anything towards making either our courts or our politics better, and by so doing accomplish that for which courts and politics are supposed to exist. In conclusion, let it be remembered that not only the Northern magazines are not so directly interested in these matters as are we, but also that when one wishes to make a suggestion to his own section he naturally prefers to do so through a publication in that section.Some of our newspapers have done creditable work through their editorial columns, but an editor cannot be a specialist in everything. We need, I think, a publication of the nature of a magazine whose editors know what to solicit and can determine whether or not a contribution meets a need. Such a magazine should be free from imitation. With questions of vital sectional importance bubbling and seething all around it, there is no reason why it should give us stories and treatises in competition with Eastern magazines which can pay larger prices for such. Finally, its purpose should be for general rather than partisan interest.Generally speaking, Southerners seem to me not to be finished writers. While some of our newspaper editors have a plain, unadorned style which is better than the style of most “authors,” nevertheless almost all of us Southerners seem troubled with a limited and inaccurate use of the English vocabulary. But there are plenty of Southerners who know their business and can go to the root of a matter. I believe that most readers who are looking for a Southern magazine would rather hear from these than from the more finished narrators and expounders of nothingness. Finally, a magazine which would put a premium on substance told with clearness and brevity, at the same time emphasizing the fact that a contribution must meet areal need, would have a tendency to develop writers whose work possessed style as well as substance.Recently I made the acquaintance of Trotwood’s Magazine, and, believing that I noticed in it a strong and sincere inclination to be original, the question arose in my mind, Why should not this magazine, already in actual operation, become a forum for discussing Southern problems? So, if this be Trotwood’s purpose, to it I say, may you succeed; and to Tennessee and the South, give Trotwood a chance. It may prove to be what you have long needed.J. G. SIMS, JR.Nashville, Tenn.

Editor Trotwood’s:

While New York and the East may be the natural publishing place for American magazines, it should not be forgotten that the South has within itself many important problems peculiar to itself. If one should start from the Potomac and travel southwest two thousand miles, barring mountainous sections, he would find, generally speaking, less difference in people, customs, and institutions than he would be going one or two hundred miles north from that river. Coupled with this fact, the following story may not be without significance:

A Northerner who had moved South noticed that his new neighbors had what struck him as being a rather unsatisfactory method of doing a certain thing. So he wrote an article suggesting another method and sent it to a local publication. The editor returned the article, pronouncing what it proposed to be “impracticable and visionary.” The writer then sent the article to a Northern publication, at the same time asking if what it proposed was impracticable or visionary. It was again returned, but the returner stated that, so far from proposing anything impracticable or visionary, the trouble lay in the opposite direction. He said that what was proposed had been in successful operation so long that it would be useless and tiresome reading.

This story seems to me to illustrate the case of innumerable subjects important to the South. In the matter of education, for example, what would sound revolutionary in some Southern States would, I believe, be called pioneer work by the majority of American-born Northerners. Again, in the realm of economics, most of us in the South have yet to learn some of the first principles. As to our code of social relations there are some sections, fertile and penetrated by railroads, which are in vital respects half a century behind the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon civilization. As to our courts of justice, although law has been the favorite profession of our ambitious young men, and although we are supposed to have some of America’s ablest practitioners, it seems that almost none of them ever try persistently to contribute anything towards making either our courts or our politics better, and by so doing accomplish that for which courts and politics are supposed to exist. In conclusion, let it be remembered that not only the Northern magazines are not so directly interested in these matters as are we, but also that when one wishes to make a suggestion to his own section he naturally prefers to do so through a publication in that section.

Some of our newspapers have done creditable work through their editorial columns, but an editor cannot be a specialist in everything. We need, I think, a publication of the nature of a magazine whose editors know what to solicit and can determine whether or not a contribution meets a need. Such a magazine should be free from imitation. With questions of vital sectional importance bubbling and seething all around it, there is no reason why it should give us stories and treatises in competition with Eastern magazines which can pay larger prices for such. Finally, its purpose should be for general rather than partisan interest.

Generally speaking, Southerners seem to me not to be finished writers. While some of our newspaper editors have a plain, unadorned style which is better than the style of most “authors,” nevertheless almost all of us Southerners seem troubled with a limited and inaccurate use of the English vocabulary. But there are plenty of Southerners who know their business and can go to the root of a matter. I believe that most readers who are looking for a Southern magazine would rather hear from these than from the more finished narrators and expounders of nothingness. Finally, a magazine which would put a premium on substance told with clearness and brevity, at the same time emphasizing the fact that a contribution must meet areal need, would have a tendency to develop writers whose work possessed style as well as substance.

Recently I made the acquaintance of Trotwood’s Magazine, and, believing that I noticed in it a strong and sincere inclination to be original, the question arose in my mind, Why should not this magazine, already in actual operation, become a forum for discussing Southern problems? So, if this be Trotwood’s purpose, to it I say, may you succeed; and to Tennessee and the South, give Trotwood a chance. It may prove to be what you have long needed.

J. G. SIMS, JR.

Nashville, Tenn.

Editor’s Note.—Trotwood’s thanks Mr. Sims (who, so far, like many of our readers and contributors, is a stranger to us) for his kind expressions. We learn that he is a graduate of Princeton, and a teacher and writer of reputation. We agree with him that the South has problems peculiar to itself, and that the proper place for their discussion is among ourselves and in a Southern journal. It is the aim and ambition of Trotwood’s to be the medium for this as well as for the development of the South’s great resources. We welcome such communications as the above, even if some of his plain assertions do grate somewhat on our nerves; for only by a calm and fair discussion of the problems which confront us can the truth be ascertained. Some of Mr. Sims’ assertions above are plainly open for discussion, and some are plainly ambiguous. For instance, what does he mean by “As to the code of social relations, there are some sections fertile and penetrated by railroads which are in vital respects half a century behind the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon civilization?” Social relations and civilization are two different things, and as to the former, it is our opinion that the South, in her fight for the purity of her race, the integrity of her morals and the hospitality of her people, surpasses all other sections of this country. In proof of this I will call our esteemed contributor’s attention to the following facts.

1. The white population of the South, never having been augmented by foreign immigration to any appreciable extent, is more purely American than any other section. It is to-day as it was one hundred years before the Revolution. I am not asserting that it is better for this fact, but as a matter of “social relations” I am claiming that it is purely American.

2. The religion of the South is in keeping with the Anglo-Saxon race; it is the simple religion of the Protestant peoples of England, Scotland and Wales, the Huguenots of France, and the sturdy, honest Catholics of Ireland. There is less skepticism and less materialism in the South than in any other section. I consider the above statement appropriate, under the head of “social relations.”

3. There are fewer barrooms in the South than in Greater New York alone—about 35,000. The South is essentially temperate. This, too, seems to Trotwood too, under the head of “social relations.”

4. Lastly (and this will doubtless astonish some of our readers) since the half-breed, the grade—the mulatto—is the curse of any nation, whether white, black, red or yellow, every mulatto is a living misfit, whose making is the spoiling of two men—a white man and a black man. Either of these, in his ability to accomplish the ends for which he was made, is far greater than the cross-bred, this being true in Maine,[1]where there are no barriers between the social relations of the whites and blacks, about two per cent. of the population are negroes, but about 59 per cent. of her negroes are mulattoes, while in South Caroline, where 59 per cent. of her people are negroes, only 9.7 per cent. are mulattoes. And it runs about that way in the entire country, north, where negroes are permitted to intermarry with the whites. And if the sturdy white population of the grand old State of Maine—the State of such intellectual giants as Blaine, Hale and hosts of others—if this State becomes wholly mulatto, it might as well be wiped from the map of civilization and be added to Hayti, the Philippines and Cuba.

This, to Trotwood’s, seems to be an unanswerable argument as to the superiority of the South’s social relations.

But this is as we understand social relations. We welcome all communications of thought and progress, but we expecteach correspondent to defend his position and if, on the other hand, our correspondent means to use social relations and civilization as synonymous, this is another proposition, and one which, doubtless, he is able to defend.

There are other of his premises so painfully true that we repeat them for emphasis:

1. “In the realm of economics, most of us in the South have yet to learn some of the first principles.” For example, it is said that the thrifty Yankee can live on what the Southerner wastes. And

2. “As to our courts of justice,” etc.—e.g., where to-day is the old Southern lawyer, who held his profession above money, and his opinion beyond barter?

[1]See page 16, Census Bulletin No. 8.

It is seldom that any magazine may present to living readers the letter of a man who has seen four generations arise and pass away. And such a man!

Edmund Winston Pettus is one of the great living men of the world. He is an old Roman who represents the high-water mark of the Republic’s true greatness—one who might sit at the council table of the Gracchii, of Pitt, of Washington. I speak not from hearsay—all my life I have known him. And never will the Republic look upon his like again, for as he quotes, “Time changes and men change with it.” But there was a scope, a broadness, a breadth and dignity in the Time which reached out to all the ages in making the men of his day and generation which seems sadly lacking to Trotwood’s in making of some of our Southern statesmen of to-day. But blame not the South for this. She has passed through the shoals and the rapids of politics since the war. It is natural that much froth and foam should follow it. But the two old Romans which Alabama has sent to the Senate go far to atone for the froth of some of our sister Southern States. All honor to Alabama for clinging to such ideals!

The picture we present of this grand old man (by courtesy of The Saturday Evening Post) brings to my mind a flood of remembrance—tender, and of the kind which has gone into the soul of me. One morning in the year 1868, when I was too small a boy to go anywhere alone, my father took me by the hand and led me to the courthouse to hear General Pettus speak. He turned me over to the sheriff while he himself went on the bench, and the sheriff placed me in a big chair, and, small as I was, I sat spellbound under the thunder of this man’s oratory. It was the first great speech I had ever heard.

And when I see this picture I see the old Judge, before whom he practiced—the old Judge, my father—who died the oldest judge in the State, wearing for twenty-six years the ermine and never sullying it.

They were men of the same type—men of the Old South—men whom the poet called for, saying:

“‘God give us men. A time like this demandsStrong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;Men whom the love of office cannot kill;Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;Men who possess opinions and a will;Men who have honor; men who will not lie;Men who can stand before a demagogueAnd damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fogIn public duty and in private thinking—For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds,Their large professions and their little deeds,Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps.”

“‘God give us men. A time like this demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;

Men whom the love of office cannot kill;

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;

Men who possess opinions and a will;

Men who have honor; men who will not lie;

Men who can stand before a demagogue

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog

In public duty and in private thinking—

For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds,

Their large professions and their little deeds,

Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,

Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps.”

The Saturday Evening Post, in its issue of March 17th, says this of Senator Pettus: “It isn’t much of a trick to be eighty-five years young, but to be a vigorous and virile senator at eighty-five is an accomplishment. Few men have done that. Edmund Winston Pettus, of Alabama is one. One is reminded of a buffalo when Pettus comes into the Senate chamber. He has shoulders a yard across and a barrel of a chest upholding a short, thick neck and a massive head.When he walks he holds his head forward and shakes it slowly from side to side. It is fascinating to watch the sturdy old man and speculate how strong he was when he was young. He left Selma with a party of neighbors at the beginning of the gold excitement and rode horseback to California. He carried a Bible and a copy of Shakespeare in his saddle-bags and read them while on horseback and by the light of the camp fires at night. The Senator asserts that no better library has been taken there since. Pettus was a lieutenant in the Mexican War and a brigadier-general in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. There is a big, sprawling painting of the battle of Chepultepec over one of the stairways in the Senate wing of the Capitol. A few days ago a man was studying the picture. Senator Pettus came along.

Edmund Winston Pettus.

“Sir,” said the man, “I observe that you are an old man. Will you kindly tell me if the people of those days wore clothes like those in the picture there?”

“No, sir,” thundered Pettus, “they did not! I was in that battle, and I saw no such clothes as those. So far as that raiment is concerned that representation is a mere pictorial lie!”

It is remarkable that from one section of Alabama—the Black Belt—and from one town in it—Selma—should have come two such men as Pettus and Morgan, both now octogenarians, and the same intellectual giants they were a half century ago.

In a near issue of Trotwood’s, perhaps in the next number, will be told the story of that section—a section rich not only in sturdy, progressive people, but in a soil and climate of such great natural advantages that the mere telling of it will be a revelation to those who have not heard of it before.

Mr. John Trotwood Moore, Columbia, Tenn.—My Dear Sir: I received your letter and the magazines you sent me. I read carefully your article on what Parton calls “The murder of Dickinson,” and I enjoyed it very much. I have always thought that people who live in this age give too much importance to questions of right and wrong, to what I call “modern ideas,” or, rather, who attach too little importance to the theories of the former generations. I have lived through four generations complete, and there have been in my day marvelous changes in public opinion, and even the established theories in the churches as to whether a certain thing is right or wrong. When I was a boy in North Alabama instrumental music in a church was considered as a sacrilege, and was not allowed under any circumstances. Duelling was not more condemned than the resenting of an insult in any other way, and the old saying is perfectly true, “Times change and we change with them.” In your article about the duel you failed to notice that Mrs. Jackson, with her first husband, resided in Kentucky, but Kentucky was then a part of Virginia.In my young days I was familiar with the Hermitage grounds. For four years I was a student at what was then called Clinton College, which was in Smith County, between Carthage and Alexandria, and about forty miles east of the Hermitage on the old emigrant road from Knoxville to Nashville. I visited the Hermitage on several occasions. My grandfather lived for many years about a mile from the Hermitage, and General Jackson attended the marriage of my father and mother, and my father and several of my uncles went with General Jackson through the Creek War.In 1840 I went from Clinton College to attend the Nashville convention, in what has been called “the log cabin and hard cider” campaign, and we stopped at the Hermitage to see General Jackson. Whilst we were sitting with a number of persons on the piazza the East Tennessee delegates to the Whig convention, in vast numbers, passed on the pike in front of the house. One party of them had a small cannon, and when they reached the front gate, then about two hundred yards from the house, they brought the cannon inside the gate and fired on the house, with blank cartridges, of course. This created great indignation throughout Tennessee. I did attend the convention. The principal purpose of the students in attending the convention was to hear Henry Clay; and we did hear him. It was as poor a speech as I ever heard from any man reputed to be a speaker. The speech was not more than ten minutes long, and the best part of it was a fling at Felix Grundy. Mr. Clay said that when he reached Nashville he inquired for his old friend, the Hon. Felix Grundy, and that he learned “that he was at his old trade in East Tennessee defending criminals.” Mr. Grundy was then making political speeches in East Tennessee for Mr. Van Buren and the Democrats. You remember that Mr. Clay was beaten for the nomination a few weeks before by General Harrison, and his whole speech and demeanor on that occasion indicated great sourness and dissatisfaction, and did him much injury with his party.I was much gratified to see from your letter that you remember how your father, the late Judge John Moore, and I were for so many years fast and devoted friends. Most respectfully, your friend,E. W. PETTUS.Washington, March 30, 1906.

In my young days I was familiar with the Hermitage grounds. For four years I was a student at what was then called Clinton College, which was in Smith County, between Carthage and Alexandria, and about forty miles east of the Hermitage on the old emigrant road from Knoxville to Nashville. I visited the Hermitage on several occasions. My grandfather lived for many years about a mile from the Hermitage, and General Jackson attended the marriage of my father and mother, and my father and several of my uncles went with General Jackson through the Creek War.

In 1840 I went from Clinton College to attend the Nashville convention, in what has been called “the log cabin and hard cider” campaign, and we stopped at the Hermitage to see General Jackson. Whilst we were sitting with a number of persons on the piazza the East Tennessee delegates to the Whig convention, in vast numbers, passed on the pike in front of the house. One party of them had a small cannon, and when they reached the front gate, then about two hundred yards from the house, they brought the cannon inside the gate and fired on the house, with blank cartridges, of course. This created great indignation throughout Tennessee. I did attend the convention. The principal purpose of the students in attending the convention was to hear Henry Clay; and we did hear him. It was as poor a speech as I ever heard from any man reputed to be a speaker. The speech was not more than ten minutes long, and the best part of it was a fling at Felix Grundy. Mr. Clay said that when he reached Nashville he inquired for his old friend, the Hon. Felix Grundy, and that he learned “that he was at his old trade in East Tennessee defending criminals.” Mr. Grundy was then making political speeches in East Tennessee for Mr. Van Buren and the Democrats. You remember that Mr. Clay was beaten for the nomination a few weeks before by General Harrison, and his whole speech and demeanor on that occasion indicated great sourness and dissatisfaction, and did him much injury with his party.

I was much gratified to see from your letter that you remember how your father, the late Judge John Moore, and I were for so many years fast and devoted friends. Most respectfully, your friend,

E. W. PETTUS.

Washington, March 30, 1906.

And Plutarch says: “We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.”

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLYDevoted to Farm, Horse and Home.

TROTWOOD PUBLISHING CO., Nashville, Tenn. Office 150 Fourth Ave., North.

JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE,Editor-in-Chief.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION:One Year, $1.00; Single Copy, 10 cents.Advertising Rates on application.

NASHVILLE, TENN., JUNE, 1906.

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