Jan. 25, 1908 (Saturday)

MONUMENT TO ANDERSONVILLE COMMANDER KEEPS THE SOUTHERN CAUSE BREATHING: A monument that's planned to be erected at the site of Andersonville Prison in Georgia in memory of the prison's commander Henry Wirz makes it clear that many in the South think he was essentially murdered by the U.S. when he was hung (above) for war crimes in 1865. Today's New York Times quotes the entire inscription that's being planned. The first and last paragraphs are here:
Tried by illegal court-martial under false charges of excessive cruelty to Federal prisoners, sentenced and judicially murdered at Washington, D.C., Nov. 10, 1865....
To rescue his memory from the stigma attached to it by embittered prejudice and ignorance, and restore it to its rightful place among men, the Georgia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy has raised this shaft."
The photo above is interesting. Notice the people watching the execution while being wedged in branches in neighboring trees.
Evidently, the words were changed for the final marker.

ANY "BRICKS-AND-MORTAR" PROBLEMS WOULDN'T BOTHER THIS COLLEGE HEIR: A bricklayer from Des Moines, Iowa, named J.C. Felom just found out that he is one of a small group of relatives named to inherit Shurtleff College in Upper Alton, Ill. According to an article in today's New York Times, Mr. Felom is one of eight descendants of the college's founder who have become HEIRS of the COLLEGE. Evidently, one of Mr. Felom's "wealthy ancestors, to spite his immediate heirs, bequeathed all his money to found this college." The bequest provided that the college should revert to his lineal descendants after "a certain number of years." Those years have elapsed and the bricklayer and seven others are evidently the new owners of the college. As the Times says it, Felom "discovered today [Jan. 24] that he had an elephant on his hands."
The city of Alton and the college are famous for a number of things, including the really TALL Robert Wadlow.