The Watchman And Southron

EVANGELINE'S PEOPLE

One of the many remarkable "angles" of that tremendous Mississippi flood is its reawakening of interest in Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" and the race it represented.

Those who have read that sad haunting poem in their youth may recall how the simple, pious Acadian peasants were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755 when they had refused to take the oath of allegiance to Great Britain, and how like so many leaves whirled by the wind, they were driven to the British colonies to the south, and many of them, still refusing to live under British sovereignty, continued their pilgrimage until they found refuge in the French colony of Louisiana.

There, in a very different climate and environment they settled, re-established their homes and customs, and have continued almost as a separate people until this day.

Now the flood scatters them forth from their homes again.

There is no persecution now, save that of pitiless nature. They are harbored in refuge camps and befriended in many ways. But their farms are overwhelmed, their houses are gone, their stock is drowned. They will go back eventually to a sea of mud. They must start all over again.

There is talk now of erecting a statue of Evangeline, the symbol of their past, near the Mississippi. Such a statue stands already at Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, their old home. That would be an appropriate thing, and should be well supported by more fortunate Americans. But sympathy for these Acadian-Americans should go much further than that, in practical ways.