Where is the young man in the South who has spoken one word in disparagement of our past, or has worn lightly the sacred traditions of our fathers? The world has not equaled the unquestioning reverence and undying loyalty of the young man of the South to the memory of our fathers. History has not equaled the cheerfulness and heroism with which they bestirred themselves amid the poverty that was their legacy, and holding the inspiration of their past to be better than rich acres and garnered wealth, went out to do their part in rebuilding the fallen fortunes of the South and restoring her fields to their pristine beauty. Wherever they have driven—in marketplace, putting youth against experience, poverty against capital—in the shop earning in the light of their forges and the sweat of their faces the bread and meat for those dependent upon them—in the forum, eloquent by instinct, able though unlettered—on the farm, locking the sunshine in their harvests and spreading the showers on their fields—everywhere my heart has been with them, and I thank God that they are comrades and countrymen of mine. I have stood with them shoulder to shoulder as they met new conditions without surrendering old faiths—and I have been content to feel the grasp of their hands and the throb of their hearts, and hear the music of their quick step as they marched unfearing into new and untried ways. If I should attempt to prostitute the generous enthusiasm of these my comrades to my own ambition, I should be unworthy. If any man enwrapping himself in the sacred memories of the Old South, should prostitute them to the hiding of his weakness, or the strengthening of his failing fortunes, that man would be unworthy. If any man for his own advantage should seek to divide the old South from the new, or the new from the old—to separate these that in love hath been joined together—to estrange the son from his father’s grave and turn our children from the monuments of our dead, to embitter the closing days of our veterans with suspicion of the sons who shall follow them—this man’s words are unworthy and are spoken to the injury of his people.