<p>White paper with typed black text</p>
<p>Judge William M. Beard
66 Elm Street
Westfield, New Jersey
Dear Judge Beard: 
Thank you for your letter of March 11th. I have said that I believe if you had the true picture of the monument at Gettysburg, you would not have taken the stand you did in the last meeting. I wish to make a few statements of what has really happened. 
On January 1962, I had a letter from Mrs. Bachman stating that she and Miss Franklin had talked over the status of this project and that after two years of trying the U.D.C. an the S.C.V. had not been able to raise any money and she and Miss Franklin felt that if they placed the chairmanship in my hands it would be raised. I have had experience with legislators since 1924 and have never failed in any task assigned to me. I knew nothing of a Coordinating Council until I was well into the work. I wrote the Governor of each state giving him the name of my committee woman from his state and asking that he help her in securing his particular state’s quota. The stationery I used had the name of the monument to Walter Washington Williams on it and this caused the first objections. I first secured Georgia’s quota. To encourage the Sons, I put in the bill the name of Carlon Carter, Commander, Georgia S.C.V. He knew nothing of it until the Governor signed the bill. I called him and told him my reason for doing this was that I wanted to send a copy of the Georgia bill to my committee women so that they might try to get the S.C.V. interested in helping them. It did not work and my committee women are responsible, with my instructions, for getting bills passed for their state’s quota. I soon began getting letters from Centennial Commissions, first from Mr. Guerry of Virginia, Dr. A.B. Moore, Alabama, then Arkansas and letters from my Committee telling me of their states disapproval of a monument to Walter Washington Williams. Virginia followed Georgia, then Maryland, Mississippi and Louisiana making a total of $13,000 for the year of 1962, each stating Walter Washington Williams must not appear.
I went to the Richmond Convention in November 1962 and got unanimous approval for leaving Walter Washington Williams off the monument and off my stationery. My plans and my Committee’s plans were put in motion January 963 and we soon had appropriations amounting to $32,000. Each state has been heard from. Mrs. Haggard in Florida successfully secured Florida’s quota to have it blocked by a hostile Centennial</p>
<ul><li>Keywords: gettysburg; battlfield; education; virtual experience; photography; monuments; memorials</li></ul>
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