The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1868-05-02
THE
New Ideas for New Conditions.

The New York World concludes an
editorial on Southern agriculture with
these remarks:
The South needs a change of ideas as
much as a trustworthy system OF labor.
The invention of Eli Within y was worth
untold millions, because it enabled. her to
enjoy to the full her unrivaled advantages
of soil, climate and labor. Some other in
vcntor may do her as much good as that
Yankee mechanic. The true friend VI the
South is no Luudator tcmp0rjs actj, his head
among the b~ulrushessand his harp on the
willows. This wretchcd idea Of an Atfi-
canized Amcica is the ~hobgonlin Of a mid
summers night, an abortion that, like an
other Ca!itau, comes Of drunkenness and
shipWreci. When thrSt ten Southern Suites
cease to be Ireland and Lcrp1nc l"Ht:hIc>
again, the sun will not I've tounI shining o.
regions more blessed cf God, f.i,@r q. al
the elements that make 1t peol Ic GA co',
independent and happy. II Niil b"r"m'
literally 4 land OF oil and OF wine, OF the tx
and p0mcgranatc, where seed tlmt.ruiIs Ia
to harvest and harvest into scedtlInc,
"Whcre the rose in crimson glory,
Blossoms all the winter time"
Daniel Webster used to boast, humor-
ously, of his faculty for sleeping, Ills
Z position as a logician, or as a rhetorician.
he would, in modesty, leave others to
decide; but, as a sleeper, he thought he
could venture to claim superiority with
out fear Of competition Or dispute, al
though this superiority might be OF such
a nature as to include all others. There
arc times when the faculty of forgetting
may prove as invaluable a gift as the
faculty of sleeping estimated according
to the Websterian theory Great dy-
nasties have fallen because they remem
bered too tenaciously, and they have f.
nally persisted and passed into oblivion
because they would not, Or could not,
wisely and seasonably forget. From
like causes nations and communities have
declined from power and prosperity, and
glided into the Stygian stream of ire
mediable decay. The South should take
warning from their fate. Whatever of
wholesomeness there is in the Worlds
proposition that she "needs a change of
ideas as much as a trustworthy system
of labor" resolves itself into the remedy
of forgetfulness. From a deep, long
plunge in this medicinal bath she would
assurediy rise refreshed, leaving behind
the lansuor that Expresses and the hec-
tic fever that consumes her. We do not
mean f%orgetfulness of her heroic dead,
of her glorious graves. Heaven forbid +.
But we mean forgetfulness in the sense
of manfully refusing to give up the mind
to vain nominations and recriminations
upon the past, and to rueful memories
Of failure, along with a futuous hope Of
restoring conditions which this failure
swept away beyond all possibility of
restoration.
BY sickly brooding over 'times before
the war;" with face ~steadfastly aVerted
~rrvH-a-.-Auitahle c~Yentnalities Of the
imminent future, a Southern man NAV
become petrified into. a respectable,
though melancholy, monument of the
past. But the South can well dispense
with such monuments at this moment,
while she has supreme need of actors,
of hopeful, indomitable thinkers and
workers-men who abhor moping and
croaking, and that wretched sort Of SEN
timentality which would induce one to
manifest his friendship for her by put
ting "his head among the bulrushes, and
his harp on the willows"
AS to the "change of ideas" which
the World deems essential to Southern
recuperation, the benefit of such a change
must depend altogether on the quality
of the ideas. Bad ideas cannot, by the
most industrious culture, be made to
produce good fruits. II is better to get
along without any theory, than to follow
a false one. To exchange a paralyzing
remembrance of the past for a delusive
conception Of the future, is like swap
ping a corpse for a specter.
Some of those who have volunteered
to help the South in the way of a revo-
luton of ideas, have endeavored to i'm
pose on her a sorry system of quackery.
Scarcely n Of their species will bear
analysis or experiment. Southern
agriculturists have been advised, for ex-
TO quit e~ultivating cropSt to which
soil and climate are peculiarly a.
and to devote themselve exclu-
to products which grow as well,
If not better, elsewhere and they have
been advised even to transfer labor and
from their lands, the special pro-
ducts of which, such as. cotton, sugar,
rice, tobacco, are in lstant demand
to rlanufactogs the products
# which would not ba demand abroad,
md would be met a@home and at once
the crushing hpetition of foreign
md Northern Rafacturers. 1t is quite
rue that theyl1ould recognize, the ne
,essity-of Npting agriculture to the
@hditioi of labor. Few of
hem, Wimagine, are not aware that
- mot now afford to produce cot /
On Oh the same scale dinaa Dsss
as formerly. INngf5 will be
more and more disinclined to heavy and
continuous labor in the fields. White
aen, either native or immigrant, have