American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-10-11
VOLUME 2.
The Poor Whites Again.

own answer to the question-W hat shall
we do for the poor whites? We must
create a new South by taking the negro
in one hand and the poor white IN tne
other and leading them forth from their
soualid huts and cabins into the pleasant
cottages aud school-rooms of Northern
civilization. 1t is Ignorance that has de-
: .c,,yoded both classes it has been because
tbeys South had rum-shops where the North
has School houses, and slavmarts where
a. Nortb has liberties, that we have had
,oro war and have now heavy debt
The schoolmaster was abroad when the
moor whites squatted, and he found no
attractions to induce him to return
What he should have given, the mothers
of the poor whites could not supply
Had every teacher in the North eniis'eo
in the army. the rising generation would
hardly have missed them. For 1t IS our
glory that our women are everywhere a
highly cultivated class; that there IS
hardly a position now held by men IN any
of our schools or colleges forwhIch wo-
man, nearly equally we'll qualified, could
not be quickly provided in an emergency
Rnt the women of the South are more
illiterate than the men. OF the SS,3zO
adult Virginians who, in 1890, could
neither read nor write, SO, l35 were wo-
men; and in every Southern State the
proportion was in favor Of the mon.-
This accounts. in a large measure, for the
greater virulence of Southern women,
which has everywhere been displayed
agains' our forces of occupation SAVED
bv the fact of their sex from the dangers
of war and shut out, by their gross iS-
norauc+, from ali opportunitiesot OF ezamip-
ing intoits remoter causes, they have been
the jealous champions It a movement
which would have Perpetuated Slavery,
aud thereby, as every Southern mother
knows, would have entailed generations
more of home tragedies, of jealousics, OF
secret forms of social corruption =; for 1t
would have caused the matron to suspect
always, and often to know, that each Of
her female servants was her rival, or the
mistress of her sons, and many secret
shudder it would have caused her as she
thought of the perils to which the daugh-
ters of her household were constantly ex-
posed. Half has not been told of the
misery which Slavery brought into every
Southern home. And yet--so potent its
iguorance-the women, who were the
chiefyictims of Slavery, were its chief
companions alsosd
The war has placed the poor whites in
position where we can reach them, for
the first time in our history, without beg
ging leave of their political and social
superiors, who peIsisteutly and consis.
tently were hostile to their elevation. -
10 be sure there were exceptions to this
general rule; as where .Memminger and
Aiken, in Charleston, succeeded in es-
tablishing common schools in the teeth of
n bold opposition by the REetts aud 9TH
ers, who did not hesitate to say that the
poor people had no better right to an edu-
cation than the slaves. But such excep-
tions were few in number and far between
in territory. The war has also enabled
the poor whites to appreciate to some ex-
tent their own degraded position; and
the revelation has visited not few of
them that there is no necessary alliance
between ignorance and povcrty-that the
mechanics and farm laborers and small
farmers of the North are as well educated
as the children of the rich planters who
lorded it over them. The war has rem
dered the poor whites another service
= it has taught them habits of regularity,
and it has forced them to work. 1t has
brought them into contact, also, with men
from every section of the country, and
new ideas have thus found their way into
regions where nothing less powerful than
au army could have carried them for us.
st Ii more, it has shown them that their
old leaders were unit for their position !;
that "a rail-splitter and tailor" after
all were able to put down the united
chiva,ry in arms. They are learning an
other lesson now. They see the proudest
of the naughty slave-masters sue daily
and humbly for pardon from tailor who
was onre eapoor white This spectacle is
Sdemoralzing' them hopefully. Some
times we may have secret doubts of it, but
perhaps, if we could see the end from the
beginning, we would say that everything
happens for the best. Certainly, in or
dcrsthat we might romaina united peo-
pie it was necessary that the old South
should be reduced to its original ele-
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