1912;] After War 



While at dinner we received news of Woodrow 

 Wilson's nomination at Baltimore. Conway declared 

 it "too good to be true," the general feeling of the 

 thinking people of the South, who were heartily tired 

 of the professional politician. My later slight ac- 

 quaintance with Champ Clark, Wilson's chief com- 

 petitor, a man of statesmanlike common sense and 

 good-humored tolerance, suggested to me that we 

 had perhaps overvalued the difference between him 

 and his scholarly rival. 



From other Fredericksburg citizens besides Con- 

 way we obtained interesting points of view. 



The Ku Klux Klan with all its cruelties was merely a natural 

 result of the use of troops for the "pacification" of the South 

 after the war. 



[This policy, which followed the murder of Lincoln, 

 was wholly at variance with his ideas and placed in 

 the saddle the apostles of hate, to the long-standing 

 disadvantage of both North and South. 1 Andrew 

 Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was ruthlessly J hnson 

 harassed by those partisan leaders because of his 

 efforts to heal the wounds of war. Though an erratic 

 man who made blunders of one sort or another, he 

 was far more worthy and honorable than most of 

 his detractors, or those who vainly tried to remove 

 him from office by impeachment.] 



Many children born in luxury grew up illiterate in their 

 desolated counties, for the war practically closed all schools in 

 the state. Even the University was barely able to maintain it- 

 self, and "Dr. McGuffey's class in Ethics dwindled from eighty 

 down to two." The third generation, however, having the ad- 

 vantage of free schools, often regained their natural status. But 

 "the war destroyed the cream of Virginia society and stirred up 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter n, page 34. 



C 427 3 



