Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1873-07-10
Reputation at the South.

WE notice with regret that project OF
reputation is pressed in North Carolina
and several other Southern States. That
a policy SO fatal to the prosperity OF the
whole South should even be mentioned
with favor is most unhappy clrcum-
stance. The life of nations and commun'
tiles is their reputation for honesty. All
the railroad enterprises, the public works,
the mines, the levees, and the canals OF
the South must depend for their compile
ton and their success upon foreign cap
ital, and the first step toward reputation
in any State will at once close to it all the
avenues of credit Ii a community is
dishonest all its members will be held to
be equally so. If North Carolina refuses
to pay its creditors, it will receive blow
from which it can never recover. Its land
viii at once sink in value, its public i'm
provements stop, and a general disaster
will fall upon its people, to which the
burden of its debt viii seem slight and
insignificant.
Five years ago portion of the Demo-
cratic party Joined to their disloyal lean
ings a plan for repudiating the national
debt They were sustained by their
Southern allies, but received from the
people so signal a rebuke in the cleo
ton of 1868 that they never ventured
again to suggest the dishonest policy.
They had seemed as anxious to destroy the
good name of the country as they once
were to overthrow its government, and
they fel! in both attempts before the rage
of the intelligent majority. 1t seems that
their immoral projects have been teebly
initiated by the Southern Democracy. We
trust that the Southern people will give
their dishonest leaders perfect overthrow.
The only safe policy for the embarrassed
States at the South is to deserve general
confidence by candor and honesty. They
should place before the public an exact
statement of their debts, their resources,
and their measures of internal improve
ment. The most extravagant accounts
have been circulated of the amount of
their Indebtedness. 1t was asserted by
Mr. Schurz or his colleagues that the debt
of Georgia, for example, amounted
to more than S40,000,o00; it is
shown by recent examination to be less
than $15, 100000 Each State, therefore,
should remove all doubt by giving to the
public full statement of its liabilities. 1t
should select its most trusted citizens, or,
perhaps, financial agents from abroad, to
calculate its debt and to estimate the value
of its possessions and its prospects, In
this way we believe that it might be easily
shown that the liabilities even of North
and South Carolina are small compared to
their natural resources; that what they
most need is foreign aid to bring into use
their various products; that Charleston,
with the help OF Northern capital and
skill, may be readily made a tiourishing
seaport, and Wilmington open the way to
the renovation of North Carolina. Com
mon schools and railways, immigration
and foreign trade, shun the ports where
population is practiced and the surest
method to cover the South with lasting
decay would be for its own politicians to
destroy its credit. With honesty, econo-
N.Y. and strict republicanism the Southern
States may easily pay all their debts, de-
veloD their neglected wealth, and attain
position OF ease and affiuence such az they
have never known before.-HaTper's
UePily