Flag issue spurred primary votes

To the editor:

I believe one reason for the high voter turn out in this year's Democratic primary was because Missourians remembered that, following negative remarks Richard Gephardt made about the Confederate flag, Gov. Bob Holden removed Missouri's two Confederate flags. Polls indicated that two-thirds of Missourians disagreed with his decision.

The Missouri League of the South launched the Missouri flag campaign in order to protest the governor's decision and bring public awareness to the flag issue. We gave away and installed enough free Confederate flags across the state that by the end of last summer 81,400 Missourians saw the flags of our ancestors flying each day.

The Republicans recognized that Missourians wanted their flags back. They introduced legislation that would restore the flags, but Republican House speaker Catherine Hannaway killed it in the 11th hour rather than debate a few Democrats on the issue.

The Confederate soldiers buried in Higginsville, Mo., and in a mass grave at Fort Davidson deserve to be buried under the flag they fought for.

Former Missouri Confederate congressman Thomas Snead once wrote of Missouri's Confederates: "And among them all there was not a man who had come forth to fight for slavery." Trying to re-write history is never the "right" decision. It is a lesson that was learned the hard way by Holden. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned by our Republican state leadership from Holden's defeat.

CLINT E. LACY, Vice Chairman, Missouri League of the South,

Marble Hill, Mo.