State

The Night Watauga Club Was Born Historic even I of 1884 is dramatized 100 years later. By CHARLES AY COCK POE Scene: Law office of William Joseph Pcelc. second floor. 239 South Wilmington Street. Raleigh Date: May 26. 1884 Character**: Pbrtra»ed by: W. E. Ashley, Ьичпочпап t>r. Carey Bosnian Dr. Charles W. Dabney, Dr. Bruce Poulton *latc chemist Alfred I). Jones, Icsislator Micou Browne G. Edgar Lrach. Dr. Charles Carroll commission merchant William Joseph FVete. lawyer Sherwood Smith Dr. Richard II. I<wis. oculist Walls Hill. Jr. Sterling Price, businessman Ivle Clayton John W. Thompson. Hon. Robert W. Scott judge Arthur Winslow, citil engineer William Snider Peele stands at the microphone. The others stand and speak their lines at the tables where they have eaten, and may remain standing or sit between speeches, as they prefer. THOMPSON - Wonder why Peele asked us to meet with him tonight. Winslow. WINSLOW - Judge. I believe he's forming a new secret order of kangaroo, or maybe chipmunks, with passwords, secret grip, and rituals. PRICE — No. there are too many se¬ cret orders already. More likely a friendly poker game, or whist at low stakes. THOMPSON - I think it’s an ex¬ cuse for a night out, away from our lovely ladies and screaming children. ASHLEY — What's your prediction about the presidential race. Jones? JONES I believe Grover Cleveland will get the most votes. ASHLEY — I agree, he’ll win all right. JONES — I didn't say he’d win. I said he'd get the most votes. They’ll cheat him out of it. as they did Samuel Tilden in 1876. PEELE — (Looking at his railroad watch) I believe we’re all here, so I'll ask Edgar Leach to take minutes. I know you’re wondering why I have called us together. I propose that we 16 form a club of the brightest young minds in our city to meet regularly and discuss the chief problems confronting our city and slate and to see what can be done about solving them. LEACH — 1 agree with you about "young minds". We don’t want anyone old enough to have fought in the war between the states. ASHLEY — The way it is. to get yourself elected or appointed to office, you've got to be a former Confederate general, colonel or even captain will do. Against one of them, a capable young fellow stands about as much chance as a snowball in hell! PEELE — Our mutual friend Walter Hines Page wrote of them. "The war gave every one of them the intensest ex¬ perience of his life, and ever afterwards he referred every other experience to this. Thus it stopped the thought of most of them as an earthquake stops a clock. They are dead men, moving among the living as ghosts: and yet. as in a play, they hold the stage." Then Page called them mummies and said In Ihe mid 1880'*, while North Carolina was still lm- mobilized In the aftermath ot the Civil War. it was William Joseph Peele (1835-1919) who organized Ihe Watauga Club lo discuss needed reforms. It was in his law ottlce In Raleigh that the first meeting was held. EDITOR’S NOTE The formation of the Watauga Club 100 years ago is considered by many to be a significant event in overcoming the post-Civil War depression and leading to the establishment of what is now N.C. State University. The Watauga Club still thrives, and since 1884 scores of North Carolina's political, educational and business leaders have utilized the Club as a preliminary sounding board to expound their views on ideas for improving our economy and our standard of living. Your editor and his wife were present as guests at the centennial ladies’ night dinner when this drama was presented, as nine of the* state's leading citizens rose «at their places and spoke their lines. that "What North Carolina needs is a few first-class funerals!” WINSLOW — One of the things we need to consider is how to provide better education for our children, boys and girls, black and white. LEWIS But the South has been so impoverished since the war: can we af¬ ford to do this? WINSLOW Can we afford not to do this? The minds of our youngsters — and grown-ups too — arc just as capable as those in the northern stales, but theirs are trained and ours arc not: so wc are at a tremendous handicap. DABNEY - That’s right. We must seek to widen the opportunities of the common man: teach him modern ag¬ riculture and the industrial arts; train him to be an expert manual laborer or brick mason, or engineer; educate the gifted sons in the higher branches and train the qualified men for the profes¬ sions; develop the resources of the state and stimulate its manufactures, so that w'e may no longer be dependent upon the North for all articles of daily use, from cradles to coffins. JONES — That reminds me — I was in Atlanta last week and heard the great orator. Henry Grady, describe the funeral of a Georgia mountaineer. He said that the suit of clothes worn by the deceased was made in New Jersey, his shoes in St. Louis, his socks in Penn¬ sylvania. his hat in Connecticut, his collar and shirt in New York, his cof¬ fin in Michigan, and when a tombstone was erected over his grave, it was from Vermont. Grady said impressively. "The only things Georgia furnished THE STATE. NOVEMBER 1984