Prince of Carpetbaggers [antikvár]

Preface to PerfidyWithout the aid of Helen or Homer, we Americans have madeof our Civil War a story more satisfying to ourselves than anytale of Troy. Our native Iliad grows in the books that accumulateas we approach that war s centennial. Our Odyssey lags behind.Yet when Odysseus got back to far-seen, rocky Ithaca, he told nostranger tales than some which have been widely accepted aboutthose years during which the North and South, through Reconstruc-tion, managed to come home uneasily together as one nation.We have only the reports of Homer to support the opinion ofOdysseus about the insolence of the suitors for Penelopes handwhom he found in his house. And we have generally accepted asimilarly single-sided story from the Southerners about the carpet-baggers. Many of them surely were insolently devouring the sub-stance of the South. They took arrogant places in its halls. Therewere thieves among them. And some of the sanctimonious wereeven less welcome than the rogues. Least pleasant of all may havebeen those who came confidently counting on gratitude for supe-rior Yankee skill, which was the current equivalent of Americanknow-how.It is possible that some of the doomed suitors, who seemed onlyinsolent to Odysseus, really loved Penelope. And it is even possible