The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1869-11-10
Our Young Men.

We have only reached the "sear and yellow Leaf .
of middle age but have realised in experience,
that the true regeneration of our own dear sunny
South its proper reconstruction, is confded to the
keeping of our younger men--to those who partici-
pated with Lee, Jackson, Albert Sydney Johnston,
Beauregard, Price and Forest, 'aong line Tor lines)
that Numbered" the line of Austerlitz never
Numbered, but whose heroism poweress to pre-
vent disaster that glorious victory was to forestall
the fatal catastrophe of Waterloo But, the Empire
again, notwithstanding that defeat, the exile of
Napoleon and the military execution of Marshal Ney-
the disgrace of the age-and it is in the power of the
South Through the compensation of events) to rise
again. despite our victorious successes, fruitless
victories the long series of our humiliatons military
executions and African domination dependent and con
sequen the superior numbers and superior resources
of adversaries. But must wait with patience;
must appeal to time, to the sober second thought
of history, to the law of average, which works all things
even, and above all, to the arbitrament of reason
upon the field Of mind not that of force to aid and d.
rect in the future and to the development of
superior material And we must educate our
youth with double reference to the past and the u
ture. We must teach them that, people, we are
not Dead though in consequence being
appear to seep that the principles for which their
fathers fought and they themselves fought are not
dead because they are dstinctvely American prnci-
Piles, and can only die when American government
and our American Constitution dead that these
cannot die, without change, fundamental and COM
pete change in the organisation and form of our gov
MT that fnrna lopca1Iv settled
question: conquest changed the character of
our government; self government still exists: so
alien domination that Of the loyal Dagger,
is fatal to American principles, as it is to Amer
lean tradition and Revolutionary teaching aud that
they, the youth of the country to their fathers
and to their sefrespect to vindicate the author
ity and the traditions of their fathers We have been
passing through simple period of transition 1t is
nearly at end. 1t behooves young men to
recognise this fact and to consider their duties with
reference to themselves and their future. We must
teach them, and they must learn, how to utilise the
advantages of their position how become sue
cessfu manufacturers as we'll as producers and ex-
porters how to avail themselves of the received and
settled doctrines of protection how, in word, to be
and money -making-how to assert, po
liticaly economically and financially that people,
not inferior to the people of the North. Right
here lies the duty of the elders and the lesson of our
sons, and, decidedly not in the solution of the prob
lem, how to make free African labor more profitable
than slave labor For all our purposes let US introduce
the Chinese, and by all MEANS let US build up home
manufactures that will pay better than either
Chinese or African labor, if only our younger men
will undertake it as duty devolved upon them. 1t
can be done through association-by the aggregation
of individual capital and the association of individual
energy. How long shall we, the owners of seventy
cent. of all exports, continue the hewers of wood
md drawers of water" for people who are dependent
pon US, and yet hate US? How long? Just so long
IS young men, the heroes of so many fruitless tr
mphs and the victims of so many humations will
onsent to bear the yoke and no longer just long
they will consent to oversee Africa for the ben
fit of the Northern and European manufacturer-not
day an hour longer