Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-01-30
Oblo !S5tatesrrrar1.
.Gl .IrIi e af Wf tpu-Dt fffuff s.r
SPEECH Of HORACE GREELEY.
Delivered at the Great southern Re-
lief MeetiDg held at Cooper In 2.
p p. stItute on tne Evening of
I the 25th inst.

.
attention of the reader. 1t is quite faith
full picture Of the condition of the South,
and very pertinently and very opportunely
shows that the prosperity of the North
will be increased by restoring the South to
prosperity, Remember the author of the
speech is one of the leading Republicans of
this country:
Horace Greeley was next introduced
He said !. Ladies and gentlemen, there are
so,many things that 1t is wise not to say
on an occasion like this, that | appear be-
| fore you extremely embarrassed (laugh-
| teri, indeed fear that what we may say
here in perfect truth, and in perfect chari-
| ty. may seem to wear Pharisaic and self
| righteous aspect, unless we are exceedingly
careful. would not desire then to re-open
at all any political or social differences
which have divided and alienated in times
past, the North and the South. would
| look solely at this one question OF human
suffering, tor know that New York, what
aver its shortcomings, never was deficient
| in the quality of mercy, never failed to
| turn a generous ear to every appeal on be-
| halt of suffering and hungering and thirst
| ing humanity. would endeavor then, so
far as possible, to keep this single aspect
before you, lest even in giving charity, we
might convey it with words which would
seem to have something of bitterness where
we mean only to be kind. There. are to-
day, / think, aquarter of million widows
with children in the South-widows whom
this great war has made. These women
and children were not accustomed to work.
They are now willing and anxious to work
for living, but the means and facilities
for so doing do not readily present them
selves. Again, there are a quarter of
million more in the South of MANNED and
crippled men, most OF them heads of fami-
lies-families whom once they were able to
support, but to whom now, because of their
afIlictions, they are no longer a help, but
rather burden. The soldiers of the Union,
the lamed and crippled, very properly and
Justly, have pensions, which do something
TO mitigate the sufferings of their fami-
lies, which would otherwise be as
severe, probably, as the suffering of the
South. We had great charitable funds
throughout the war, mitigating its severity
not only to the soldiers in the front, but to
their families at home. These. owing to
the lack of means, were very much more
scanty at the South, and the crippled, AID
bereaved, and desolate have nothing an
swering to our pensions. Then the seat of
war was substantially in the South, very
little OF it in the North. Almost entirely
the war passed over Southern fields and
Southern homes. Now, unless you have
scantily scanned this subject, you cannot
realize how mighty is the difference that it
makes, whether the war is by your freside
whether it tramplcs down your fields, or
those of somebody thousand miles away.
An army marches and the country is strip
ped of all sustenance. destroyed, eaten out,
trampled down, and left worth scarcely
anything to support life. An army rest
ing for the night burns up even the
fences for miles around. The soldiers can
not lie and shiver through the cold and
rainy nights, they must have fires and they
must take that dry wood which comes
handiest to them. They have no time for
digging coal or chopping down waving
forests, and they pull down the fences. L
am not contemplating acts of unjustifiable
ravage, | am asking you to consider the
fact that where an army marches there is
necessary desolation; but in this case there
was unusual desolation, because wherever
there was a factory or an iron foundry
those factories and foundries were necessa-
rilv contributing to the support of the re-
bellion, and they were burned or otherwise
destroyed by our officers as means of put
tiny down the rebellion. And thus at eve
ry place thousands, especially of women
and children, were turned out of those es-
tablishments wherein they were earning
coarse and humble bread, but earning a
living, and the means whereby they lived
have not been replaced. Then cotton, the
principal wealth of the country, was burn
ed by one army and by the other, and where
L. was not burned it was generally stolen.
TLaughterl Our Government got very
little of it, and the people got
very little of it. And thus. the
South stood out, unreasonably, think,
long after any hope of success remained,
until the last possibility Of existence was
gone. When that occurred nearly every part
ofthe country had been traversed bydrmies,
trampling down., devastating, devour-
ing, destroying, until there was scarcely
anything left but the naked country, with
a people, nearly all of whom, the whites
especially, had been dragged into the ar
mics, and very large portion of them
either killed or wounded, so that the physi-
cal possibility OF largely producing food
had departed when the rebellion was over.
Nearly halt the ability OF the whites to
work had been destroyed by the war; the
factories had been burned, the fences were
gone, aud even in the one bare, last neces-
sity of man-seed to plant-there were
millions on millions OF dollars lost last
year, because the seed which they put into
the ground, being several years old, was so
miserable that nothing could be produced
from it. If there had been simply good
seed where 1t was wanted all over the
South, 1t would not now have been in the
condition In which it is. Their animals,
too, had, disappeared, their gin-houses
burned, their implements = everything
whereby crops could be produced or houses
built-taken away. If the South had had
all, her men in their strength and vigor as
before the war, it would not have been
possible, simply for want of Implements
aud drought, tor animals to produce more
than half crop. You are told very cor
rectly that there were terrible floods In the
spring over large portions of the South.
There was an enormous and almost unpre-
cedented drought that swept very proba-
bly, half the entire South; and the want of
lneans TO plow the earth to a proper depth,
and to properly cultivate the crops, ren
dered the effect of this drought four
times as disastrous as it would have been
under ordinary circumstances. The per-
sons suffering comprise all classes, of diff
ferent views. of the late contest of all races
they are all alike suffering throughout,
nearly all the States which were formerly
In, rebellion, excepting perhaps Texas.
But from the Mississippi up to the Poto-
mac there Is one universal cry of distress.
They have not food, they have no seed for
their crops, they havenone of the materials
and means by which labor, especially In
our day, is rendered efficient. Now, then,
If the Northern people should look at this
simply in the light of self-interest, / say
that ten millions of dollars diffused over
the South immediately, In the form of food