Show THE T H EM MOST OS NEGLECTED ad L Y AMERICAN M 4 awk C AN ly 4 v br 5 01 PS M k V av J V wa 4 N R nv A ac j jefferson jeffers on 3 hiis a i S by ELMO SCOTT WATSON a short time there will be unveiled in statuary hall ball in the capitol at washington a new statue the elt of tal the state stat e of mississippi IPPI to the nation I 1 it has been carved in marble by augustus lukeman the sculptor who Is engaged in cutting 4 from the living rock of stone mo mountain u antal n near atlanta oa ga the mar martial t tat frieze that shall rec record ord the valor of the men who fought under tinder the stars and bars in the greatest civil war in all history the leaders of the confederate states of america although the face of jefferson davis will appear in the stone mountain frieze because he was the president of the confederacy the new statue of him which Is to have a place in statuary hall will be there not so much because he was the leader of a lost cause but bat because he was a great american the most neglected man of his stature ta t ure in american history ft a recent cent biographer has called him a and n d that blo biographer grapher allen alien tate in his jefferson davis ills rise and fall published by minton batch and company has rescued from an undeserved obscurity arity a man who played one of the very few leading roles on the american historical I 1 stage from 1789 to who was an interesting personality and a genuinely tragic figure it Is not difficult perhaps to understand 11 N ag 1 7 VV X Z 4 davis hall portraits from tates jefferson courtesy minton balch cot davis has been this most neglected american in the eyes of the north he was the arch rebel and the tide of blind bind prejudice and bitter partisanship which rose steadily from 1851 1861 to its height in 1805 and which did not begin to recede for many years would not allow that section of the country to see him otherwise than as a traitor in the eyes eyes of the south he was a misfit s a leader at first the scapegoat in the fi of thi the confederacy and at at last a martyr whom no one intimately understood it la Is easy to hall a successful rebel it Is equally easy to forget an unsuccessful one but the great injustice that history has done jefferson davis has been to remember him mainly as lie was during those four bitter years and what tate calls the twenty tour four years of anticlimax of death in life from ISM until lie he died on may blay 11 1889 what it lias has failed to do Is to remember him for what lie he was nas during the 53 years of his distinguished career before that fatal day when lie ordered general beauregard to fire upon fort surater Su roter it was a curious example of the irony of fate that the origins of jefferson davis should have so closely resembled those of the opponent leader in this greatest of all civil wars davis was born in kentucky a year before lincoln was nas born in the same state lie Ile sprang from the same stock as did lincoln for tate characterizes samuel davis ills his father as a typically restless pioneer of the old southwest sturdy plain hardworking hard working painfully honorable and deeply religious not faring very well nor taking to himself the air of a superior class un on aristocratic tor for there was no aristocracy in the primitive day of the frontier ills restlessness led him to move his family several times from kentucky to louisiana and finally into wilkinson county miss bliss the last move proved to be the deciding one in the career of jefferson davis for this was the land of king cotton and as tate says the transformation of the davis family in one generation from insecure small farmers into great planters and the growth of the patriarchal idea whereby samuel davis a plain man became the symbol of knightly grace this proc ess of expansion lu in one family Is the story of the rise of the lower south so jefferson davis became an aristocrat by training it if not by birth from the age of six ile he had every eiery advantage of education possible lu in that period and that schooling continued through his graduation from west point there he was looked upon as the typically southern west pointer his presence conduct and manner indicated self belt esteem pride determination personal mastery while serving as a lieutenant at fort crawford in wisconsin under the command of col zachary taylor ho he fell in love with the colonels daughter sarah knox taylor and despite the objections of that of officer fleer married tier lier then lie resigned from the army and took ills his bride back to 0 o his mississippi home with him but within three months she had died it was the first tragedy tn in davis career after the death of ills his wife withdrew into the strictest seclusion and for the next ter ten icara cars he devoted his time to directing the affairs of his plantation amassing a fortune from cotton find and applying himself to reading and study of political philosophy political economy and andL public law it was during daring this period that he determined upon a political career ue he was a democrat a tales states rights man and a follower fol lowr of calhoun rather than of jackson and as such was elected to congress in 1845 he married miss varian howell during davis first session as a member of the house ot of representatives he resigned to lead a regiment of volunteers from mississippi into mexico ills his old west point training came into play and he drilled his men to the degree that made him unpopular with them ile he was ever the mar chaet lie he served gallantly in mexico especially at buena vista in the latter engagement his father inlaw in law general taylor advised him to leave th the e field so BO badly wounded was he be but he remained all that day with his men in 1847 davis was appointed to fill out a ter term in in the senate tills this was followed by an elected term in the same body but he resigned la in 1851 only to be reelected elected re in 1857 serving until ills his state seceded from the union in 1861 As senator lie he was the leader of the southern democrats taking the place made vacant by calhoun when pierce became president all knew that jefferson davis would be high in the government under him sn 5 conspicuous was his national status at that time ile he was offered the portfolio follo of the war department and became secretary of war of the united states in 1853 ills services were of conspicuous value to the country and elicited praise even from hla his enemies ills his previous services as chairman of the committee on military affairs in the senate had greatly helped to eq equip u IP him tor for the important work of the war depa department rt davis dails career as secretary of war Is but little known to most americans but it was upon his acts in that post that his principal claim to being a great statesman rests with characteristic thoroughness ough ness he began to institute needed reforms in the army ile he secured for bothoff both officers leers end and privates an increase in pay tor for living expenses had increased 40 per cent while wages had remained stationary he enlarged the standing army and he adopted the most improved equipment in arms and ammunition that the period afforded additional forts fort sand and arsenals were erected and the signal corps service was perfected lee was waa at this time superintendent of west point so BO davis through him had a thorough investigation vesti gation gatlon of that institution and its curriculum made with the result that both were improved so that our national military academy was said to be the equal of any similar institution anywhere in the world it Is also worthy of mention that he was placed in charge of completing the national capitol and lie he and his architects planned and started the buildings of the ibe senate and house wings of that great structure As a dreamer of an empire and a planner for it davis dails has been compared find and not unfavorably to washington jefferson and jackson Jacl transportation and the joining of our widely separated coasts seemed to have interested him intensely he introduced camels into the country hoping that they would solve the problems of travel and transportation across the arid southwestern deserts lie he ordered the first survey fora for a mute for a transcontinental rall railroad road and Is quoted as saying regarding it the military necessity for such means of transportation and the need for safe and rapid communication with the pacific slope if we are to secure its continuance as a part of this union is ar apparent parent 11 he be even contemplated the feasibility of a panama railroad under tho the control of this government but of all these the thing which was foremost fore moot va eina howell dams 11 I 1 AV WWI MEMO aa is MeT Y in IA hla his mind was the transcontinental railroad settlers were continuing to press westward find and form settlements ettle ments which would sometime be otates of th the union getting their products through the mountains to the eastern coast would be an expensive and difficult process A railroad from memphis to charleston through montgomery and atlanta was already under way and a second one w was as planned through jackson to mobile these endeavors set davis planning a road from memphis to california the roads would join the south and the west and would be ad adequate e quate to handle trade diverted down to the south instead of going to the east aas in order to carry out his plan it was nieces eary to send groups of engineers along the three possible routes to california much information ot of the new west was thus accurately obtained and laid before the members of congress the route most favored was that to the extreme south passing with difficulty through new mexico an obstacle easily avoided by the purchase ot of land lying to the south and known as the gadsden purchase which ivas was obtained from mexico by Gadsden for co existent with that nation developing plan there ran another which our modern times la is seeing carried to success it was nothing less than the dream of securing protectorates protect orates over central america and parts of nicaragua cuba had at first been beebi included in this vision of wider boundaries for the united states but that dream was shattered in the ostend manifesto davis saw clearly enough that travelers and cargoes of commerce made their chosen passage to the pacific through nicaragua it was one of natures r routes and the line of a future railroad or canal through a man named walker who furnished american forces to aid a revolution in that country davis came close to realizing his bis aim but events came to pass that frustrated not only this scheme to create a sphere of influence to the south lut but also that great plan of arterial rail building to the west the slavery dispute was beginning to reach an acute stage and the north opposed davis schemes for the western expansion on the ground that it meant the inevitable extension of slavery into the new territory in 1850 davis wai was again in the senate the war clouds were already beginning to gather and a committee was appointed to draw up a compromise to prevent the danger of a civil war lie he was ivas a member of that committee but before It was completed south car carolina 0 lina had seceded and when mississippi followed her out of the union davis resigned from the senate on february 10 1801 william lowndes tancey tany ce y the foremost orator of the south stepped out ou on the gallery of 0 the exchange hotel in montgomery ala i and bowing to the great throng of people below him pointed to the tall erect ere t figure which stood beside him and said the man and the hour have met the man was jefferson davis arid the hour wits was his inauguration as president of the confederate states of america it was also the hour when two seemingly irreconcilable systems of society and economy came to grips in a death struggle and the fate of a nation hung in the balance if jeterson jefferson davis had been other than what he v was as what Is now the one nation of the united states might have been two nations hut but it Is not that because he was according to his latest biographer ogra pher one of the great and admirable fal failures lures of history according to tate davis dails failed because ile he could not manage men and he was too great a character to let men manage him that Is the tragedy offis of hla career ile he was waa a constitutional pedant who never understood the political reality behind the political law every breakdown of political theory gave him dm a shork shook and this was mostly what he be received from the election of a sectional president abraham lincoln he was a southern intellectual who east cast ills his lot with theories and fell before the onslaught alf of facts just how much he contributed to the failure of 0 the confederacy con can ne never verbe be estimated exactly for there were so many factors other than his weaknesses which contributed to that failure but it if the south came to blame him la in the bitter ness of its defeat the time came caine when as aa tat says he received at last the adoration of hla bla people ho was the president until he died arid and their affection for him lit iq recent years took tooh the form of a lofty obelisk a stone monument second only in height to the washington bonu went meat which was dedicated at his birthplace near fairview ky last year the statue which Is to be unveiled in statuary hall ball to Is another emblem of that feeling feell DE but it Is more than mat it Is a tardy to the most moat no american whom au all AmerL americans cang cou CAB justly honor |