Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-05-26
THE SOUTH AS 1T is.
What Horace Greeley is Learning
by HIS Trip.

Mr.. Joseph w. Miller, one Of the ed
itors of the Cincinnati Commercial, is
accompanying Horace Greeley on his
Texas excursion. Mr.. Miller, who is a
calm, dispassionate man, and close
observer, writes as follows of Southern
people: pt
1t has been three years since your cor
respondent made trip across the South
from Cincinnati to New Orleans. Some
changes are apparent. The white popu-
lation has grown poorer. The negroes
are more confident and industrious, dress
better, and own more watches. The
cities are less brisk. The old ruling
class in the South has well-nigh gone
under the waves of misfortune, and dire
necessity to plod and toll for livelihood.
How many of the former wealthy men Of
the South are there now, do you
suppose, with an income of $40, ,O002 Not
perhaps as many as three hundred from
Virginia to Texas. The Southern people
are very poor, and any additional weight
laid on them is blow at decent poverty.
The life of delicious ease that once was
the lot of the affiuent Southerners has
disappeared from the continent The
slaves, whose bodies we're the principal
and their unrequited labor the interest
of Southern wealth, are being gradually
converted into ambitious, bustling,
shrewd, and elbowing citizens, bent on
rising in the social scale, no matter
what the color of those who compete
with them. Many negroes are employed
as brakemen and fremen on Southern
roads. Few are investing their savings
in land, because they are afraid of traps
in titles, and of oppression by white
officials, But they are slowly, steadily
advancing, and the whites are losing,
gram by grain, the remains of their
once golden and romantic prosperity.
Is it not possible to be generous to-
ward the South2 Must fresh pesishness
and vindictivness, in the form of Ku-
Klux bills, be leveled at it by Congress
whenever it can devote little time to
such work from listening to the delicate
mirth and elevated slang of Ben Butler?
II Ku-Klux organization exists in the
South Il have never seen any actual evil
dence that it does) how long will it be
before the Southerners begin to dread
conspiracy that may consign themselves
to murder for real or pretended grudges2
The Southerner feels more sternly
every day the necessity of working for
food, shelter, and raiment; and, lacking
the training that makes ordinary efforts
successful, he is already confused and
anxious for the future. 1t is natural that
he should dislike the gang of rapacious
and brassy professional carpet-baggers.
If he does not affiliate socially with fam
lies from the North, it may be because
no real basis for sympathetic friendship
exists-the tastes and even the dialects
of the two are greatly unlike. Distinc-
tons may be made in the business world,
but they are rapidly growing faint and
yielding to the dictates of self-interest.
To encourage and build up Southern in
dustry is the task that Congress should
engage in with cheerfalness, instead
of making ready to hnrl an army
upon every phantom that drifts across
its disordered vision. General Sher-
man undoubtedly did make that anti
Ku-Klux bill speech in New Or
leans; and Mr.. Horace Greeley
will be compelled to make just such
another, if his Southern journey does
not change in its experiences. The
North does not intend to place itself at
the mercy of the South. When a prop
osition importing that is made, it will be
crushed BY weight of votes such as
pulled Vallandingham's skeleton from
his flesh when he ran for Governor,
leaving his aabby remains, as John
Derby would say, to be " carried home
in pillow case. !" But the recent Ku-
Klux legislation has many elements of
rank meanness and wanton persecu-
ton. 1t prescribed a purgative and
phlebotomy for all the diseases of the
South in lump. 1t is snare and a
humbug, conceived by schemers and
compassed for effect.