The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-08
WANING IN yHRRGY AND EMfEarRIss.'


Even some Southern journalists have par
roted from New England twaddledom the
stereotyped story which has, for these many
years, represented the people of the South
as deplorably and culpably wanting in energy
and enterprise. If one of the superficial
critics engaged in keeping this remark afoat
on the tide of ignorant opinion were asked for
his proof, he would point, perhaps, to the
large amount of water power running loose
and neglected in various parts of the South.
But why was this water power not used?
Because the South abounded in other resour-
.ces which could be developed with greater
profit. Or, perhaps, he would refer to ne
elected deposits of coal and iron, and to a
long list of mineral elements of wealth which
were allowed to lie idle. But why this neglect
and this idleness? The answer is the same.
Enterprise and industry were preoccupied in
other fields, where more could be made with
the same capital and in the same time, than
in digging coal and iron, in prospecting for
gold, or in establishing cotton mills to be run
by water power. In short, nothing was found
so profitable as to make cotton, sugar, tobac-
co, rice and other agricultural products; and
nothing was more natural, more logical, more
mathematical, SO to speak, than that such
products should have attracted the bulk of
Southern enterprise and industry. The re-
suit fully indicated the preference. No
country within so short a period, and with
the same amount of capital and labor, ever
attained to SO great production of substan-
tial wealth.
Commodore Maury, in his address at the
Staunton agricultural fair, Va, very lucidly
exposes the fallacious appearance of superior
prosperity of manufacturing communities in
the North over agricultural communities in the
South. Having explained the nature of the
fallacy he says:
maintain that you-and in apostrophizing you,
| mean the people OF the SOUTH maintain that
you, the farmers of Augusta. the country gentle
men Of Virginia the men Of the South, have been
and are applying your Industrial energies with a
degree Of intelligence. skill, vigor and effect that
Is not excelled by any other people in the world.
Man for man, your surplus products are not sur
passed by any other people anywhere. This
opinion may surprise some, but maintain it. aad
to vindicae you, appeal to facts and figures and
to the official reports of the government itself.
And the facts and figures abundantly sus-
tain his assertion; showing by government
statistics that the South, even since the war,
with less than one-third of the total popula-
ton, has contributed in one year 1928, 400. 759
to the total exports of domestic products of
the United States, SAT-, COS 600; that is to
say, sixty per cent of the whole. In view of
such facts, it is well said by the commo-
dore Let no man hereafter reproach you
with want of what he calls little Yankee
enterprise. We don't want it. What we do
want is Yankee thews and sinews-the hard
listed immigrant, the man of means little
of the industry and good husbandry for which
the Dutch and the Danes and the Germans
are so famous, inspired and inspirited by
little Southern enterprise and energy. That's
what we want"
This is precisely the nature of our wants
here in Louisiana. We want working muscle
with an intelligent will. The labor of the
European immigrant has enriched the West
The labor of the negro slave once enriched
the South He can still enrich it as free
laborer, simply by consulting his own inter-
ests and initiating the industrial alacrity, and
the thrift of the European immiprant