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AN OPEN LETTER 
 
 Mrs. Norman V. Randolph, 
 
 President Richmond Chapter 
 United Daughters of the Confed- 
 eracy, Richmond, Va. 
 Dear Madam: 
 
 I have not yet received official 
 notification of the action taken 
 by the Richmond Chapter of the 
 United Daughters of the Confed- 
 eracy but, if newspaper reports 
 are correct, a meeting was held 
 on January 28th and resolutions 
 of censure were passed upon Pres- 
 ident John H. Finley, of the Col- 
 lege of the City of New York, 
 President Edwin A. Alderman, 
 of the University of Virginia, 
 and myself, the committee ap- 
 pointed to award the prize essay. 
 A motion was also made "that 
 every division of the United 
 Daughters of the Confederacy 
 have their attention called to the 
 action taken by the Richmond 
 Chapter." This action was tak- 
 en, so far as I know, without ask- 
 ing in advance any member of 
 the committee to meet or com- 
 municate with your chapter or 
 any member of it. 
 
 Let me say, then, for myself, 
 that I did not neglect or delegate 
 my duty as a member of the com- 
 mittee of award. The four pa- 
 pers were received by me on May 
 31st, 1908. On the next day I 
 examined them with the utmost 
 care. I knew nothing then and 
 know nothing now of the writers. 
 Whether they hailed from the 
 North or the South or the West, 
 whether from Virginia or North 
 Carolina, seems to me a consider- 
 ation not worthy to be entertain- 
 ed by any man who accepts a re- 
 sponsibility of this sort. 
 
 On a second continuous reading 
 of the four essays I cast my vote 
 unhesitatingly for the paper 
 which I now learn was written 
 by a Miss Boyson of Minnesota. 
 Her paper has many statements 
 with which I do not agree. It 
 
 contains not a few crudities of 
 thought and expression. But in 
 the range of reading shown in 
 her bibliography, in her use of 
 English, in her ability to weld 
 thought with thought and para- 
 graph with paragraph, in her 
 sincerity of purpose, in her free- 
 dom ffom prepossessions, in her 
 sense of historic proportion, in 
 her noble admiration for Lee, and 
 in the excellence of her style and 
 substance as a whole, her paper 
 is incomparably the best of those 
 submitted. 
 
 The method of fragmentary 
 quotation which has been applied 
 to her paper is a method fatal to 
 fairness and historical accuracy. 
 By this method the best essay, 
 the most eloquent oration, the 
 truest history, and the noblest 
 life may be held up to ridicule. 
 I voted for Miss Boyson's paper 
 not because of the fragmentary 
 quotations that have since been 
 made from it but in spite of them. 
 One illustration will suffice. In 
 the Richmond Times-Dispatch of 
 January 28th you quote the fol- 
 lowing sentence from Miss Boy- 
 son's paper: "He (General Lee) 
 was a traitor in that he sacrificed 
 all to aid the enemies of his 
 country." By thus cutting a sen- 
 tence in two and suppressing the 
 latter half you have put Miss 
 Boyson and the committee of 
 award in an unfavorable and 
 wholly unjust position. The com- 
 plete sentence is as follows: "He 
 was traitor in that he sacrificed 
 all to aid the enemies of his coun- 
 try, but so were George Wash- 
 ington and John Hampden and 
 William of Orange." Comment 
 is unnecessary. 
 
 The basic thought of her essay 
 is in these words: "The matter 
 of secession had been purposely 
 left open by the framers of the 
 constitution, and in the minds of 
 many sincere people both North 
 
 and South it was still a question. 
 The real issue was not between 
 patriotism and the want of it, 
 but between two forms of it, and 
 the point to be borne in mind is 
 that those who believed in one 
 conception were as loyal as those 
 who clung to another." On this 
 broad foundation, which is neith- 
 er Northern nor Southern but 
 American, Miss Boyson has erect- 
 ed a noble structure, marred here 
 and there by ignorance of the 
 facts but never by prejudice or 
 distorted vision. 
 
 Had her paper attempted to 
 prove or had it even remotely im- 
 plied that Lee or the humblest 
 soldier who followed him was a 
 traitor, I should have cast her es- 
 say aside as unworthy of further 
 reading. And so, I am confident, 
 would every member of the com- 
 mittee. Robert E. Lee is to my 
 mind the greatest soldier and the 
 noblest type of Christian gentle- 
 man that the new world has giv- 
 en to history. The name that I 
 bear is that of a Virginia soldier, 
 a father's brother, whose face 
 looks down upon me from my 
 mantel as I write, who fell by 
 the side of Stonewall Jackson, 
 aud whose honored dust sleeps 
 within bugle call of the two im- 
 mortal chieftains whose cause he 
 died to defend. And yet, with" 
 out asking one word of explana- 
 tion, the Richmond Chapter o! 
 the Daughters of the Confederacy 
 has sent that name broadcast 
 over the land as a party to tin- 
 defamation of Lee. 
 
 I submit the case, Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph, to every man and woman 
 who knows the heritage of Con- 
 federate blood or who honors the 
 simple justice of the Confederate 
 cause. I am 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 C. Alehonso Smith. 
 University of North Carolina, 
 
 Chapel Hill, February 2, 1909. 
 
** 
 
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 ■0$ m. ■ 
 
 
 
 *#4 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00036742258 
 
 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION