Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-08-30

UNI Va hAteT1Ai1Sm-Gh ne IrlcR
OF Tact-Germinal Politics,
To the Editors of the Union and American:
The season for summer travel is now
upon US. Everybody who can afford il,
is pleasure or health seeking by the sea-
shore, at the various watering places in
the country or among the mountains. l
wonder the last are not better appreciated
by our people. The superb chains of
mountains ranging almost the entire length
of the Atlantic States are too much neg
lected. This might be excusable if the
means OF access to them were difficult.
Instead OF that, nothing could be better
arranged to suit the travellers con-
venience. Without mentioning the rail-
road lines north and south of US, would
speak especially of the Nashville and
Chattanooga Railroad, which passes
through our own town, and is the one we
are most familiar with. Its entire route
from Nashville to Chattanooga is a con-
tinued panorama of scenery combining
all the clements of the beautiful and the
grand. There are numberless little hooks
within easy access to it, where the deni-
zens of your crowded city might obtain
that which they most require quiet, the
purest of air, and all the pleasures of
country life. Tullahoma seems designed
as the centre of radius of
delightful county excursions. LoVelier
scenery is rarely presented to the vision
than that which can be seen from this
point. The white cottages contrast
beautifully with the green shrubbery
about them. The putting locomotive
curves spirally through the reposing
scene. The sun CLOVIS on the smooth
and grassy slopes. The cosy homes,
with forest trees interspersed, and waving
their boughs in the breeze, invite the
eye to- linger. The far off hills, with
farms and farm houses enscOnced be-
tween, suggest the beautiful appropriate
ness of the towns name, and bring up
dreamy and grateful recollections of those
who had come from Northern cities 10
nurture young Democratic liberty in this
place. Then let US extend them
cordial welcome. We have been living
too much in the past. This morbid
spirit of hostility, exhibited towards
Northern men and methods is, after all,
the secret of our langnishment. To day
we stand in far greater need of social and
industrial reorganization than of political
reconstruction. Let US hope better
things; let the future builders of our
society summon themselves to the duty
and responsibility of preventing deteriora-
ton. Massachusetts and New York may
present US with vast acres Of bricks piled
up towards heaven, with unrivalled Hud-
soniaa hills, with banks and cotton
factories, and may invite US to listen
to the rattle of their machinery, and gaze
upon their vast population, but where are
the peers Of our Maryland and Virginia
wOmen-of our country, gentlemen-of
our whilOm statesmen and orators? Our
struggling fences and dilspidated barns
and rough, unbroken forests and valleys
unthreaded by the rushing locomotive,
may invite a sneer, but the product ethe-
rial of our institutions, the jewels of cur
social organization, will sparkle down the
vista of years and CLEAN on the pages Of
history wheh gigantic m4teriali5m shall
have persisted in oblivion.
BUSINESS
is q little more brisk than when last
wrote you. Our merchants are hopeful
and waiting for ''better times" But do
you know there is a certain tact neces-
sary for the successful establishment of
good business3 As this oily, accommo-
dating faculty is so often mistaken for
talent, and even genius, will give your
readers some definite idea of it. The
man who possesses this quality of mind
in perfection is the epitome and mirror of
his time. He respects all its tastes and
prejudices. He is neither behind nor in
advance of the current opinions of the
day, but walks arm in arm with the age
in pleasant and familiar compauionship.
The sense of his own individuality is in
tense. He is cautious TO say nothing, to
do nothing, without previous rapid cal
culstion of its probable bearing upon his
prospects. Always courteous and with q
keen perception of the weaknesses of
Others, he rides every mans hO65y TO his
own particular ends and forces from his
superiors even an unconscious contribu-
tiOn to his advancement. Vigilant, quick,
untiTing, he takes the tide of his af-
fairs" at the flood and floats costly upon
summer waters to a land of fsiness and
plenty.
POLITICS.
There are many germs both in the ami
NAL and vegetable kingdoms, which never
develop into perfect forms-as an illus
IratIOn of this law of the organic world,
| refer TO the roe of Goldfish and the
boughs Ct an apple tree. The same great
law applies to the political movements
which have marked the history of man
(, r5 l. cannot have escaped the atten>
live student of history, that in political
revolutions, failure is the rule and sue
cess the exception. This fact may, in
part, be accounted for on the ground that
all experience proves that men will suffer
great evils rather than abolish the forms,
long subsection to which has almost be-
come habit. The masses are slow 10 re-
linquish, aud in some instances this OBJ
stinacy has defeated the most salutarY
reform. Is not this exactly our position
TO- day. We are now in state of transit
ton. Socially as well as politically, ev-
cry thing is unsettled, and as yet there is
no intelligent plan of progress, no prac-
teal principles agreed on for building up
prosperity. Staggered by the shock
of the tempest that so fearfully
swept over us, there yet fingers an apa-
thy that is slow to realize the terrible
truth of the ruin around Us, and that par
slyses every effort for concert of action.
We must nerve ourselves to meet the
occasion. Let us learn, fret of all, that
disaster is not of necessity the herald of
despair. The very ruins will give mate
rial to the builder. If we would be
great people, we must consent to The
changes which have come and direct to
advantage those that will rapidly follow.
The few who have been able to compre-
bend the situation and act upon it are to-
day realizing larger profits than at any
former period OF their lives, and in pro
portion to the Iapidity with which we
wisely follow them will be the return of
general prosperity. GLAUoUs
ADvICEs received from Lower Califor-
MIA state that Judge LanitO, of Auada-
a.. hoo ham ip,Dr,uOpad b,r Gov Acc