The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-06-14

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States, which was not only inferior in
quality, but higher in price.
f the Southern people were as intent
on producing or manufacturing what
they consume as they are on consuming
the productions or manufactures of 9th
ers, they would be better supplied and
at cheaper rates than under the present
condition of things. If we never begin
wewill never know how and b einfer-
enee will be that we do not want to
know how. We will therefore always
be dependenton those who'd knoWhow,
and make use of their knowledge. Pol
itics and what is called trading occu-
py too much of the time and attention
of ourleading and moneyed men they
produce nothing-they merely operate
on what is already in existence.
There is a great opening here for the
higher Observation-Disclosures and
skill in the use Of improved a~gricultu-
raj implements. While we all see this
opening and the need Of it's being filed,
we are at the same time disinclined to
engage and invest in enterprises, which
require considerable time and patience,
labor and perseverance, before a profit
able end is reached. We want quick
returns for our labor and money. With
a rich soil and warm climate, and slave
labor, we saw no necessity for building
nm the mechanical and manufacturing
industries which have made the North
SO great and populous, rich and strong;
and when the old regime passedaway,
we were not only left without resources
to build them up rapidly, but without
knowledge how to do it, and we might
say, without the desire to do it. Rails
ing cotton was the h great pursuit of
the extreme South; and it is dificult for
the Southern ag%riculturists, or any con-
siderable portion Of them, to break off
from it and engage in something else,
where the revenue is not plainly visible
at the end of the first years labor or
investment. Our past experience as a
people has not given us those Staying"
qualities so bsolutelynecessary for sue
cess in enterprises where we have both
t'to labor and to wait"
If We ever do succeed in such, we
mustmake abeginning; and while we can
hardly expect the present generation to
attain the skill, success and prosperity of
the North. we can surely learn to
use the agricultural implements the
North has made, to supply the lack of
manual labor, and induce mechanics
and manufacturers to come among us,
and engage in the lower grades, at
least, Of their callings, so as to lay a
foundation for something higher here
after.
There is a beginning to everything;
and the sooner tile beginning, the ar
lier the accomplishment. If the South
is to become rich and prosperous again,
tmust be by the labor of the whites as
well as the blacks. ''There is no ex-
ce1lence without great labor Labor
In it's broadcast sense viii overcome all
things within human possibility; and
one intelligent, ski1lfu 1a1orer is worth
several of the eo~ntrary-in many in
stances no other kind viii do. The o
" salvation for the South, in a material
point of view, is for all the white peo-
pie to go to work-to labor, and learn
to labor skillfully and intelligently not
at raising cotton alone, but In all the
range of industries known to civilized
nations.
Waiting for the negroes to perform
all the field labor. and for immigrants
to come III and attend to the mechani-
cal trades and manufactures, il we are
ever TO have any worth mentioning,
will not do. We must work out u
own material salvation We must put
our own shoulders to the wheel, and
not depend on overseeing or directing
others who know as muehormoreabout
it than we do ourselves. There are
enough white people IN the South, with
the assistance of the blacks, with five
years steady, persevering, welIdirect-
edlabor, 10 make her richer than she
ever a Buttwo years unsteadyness,
being unstable as water'' like Jacobs
son Reuben, renting land one year with
hired laborers fedand paid BY advances
from commission merchants, to wind
no with d crop that will not meet the.
expenses. then going into something
else the next year, with an acenmula-
ton of debts from each years misman-
agement, is enough to keep tho best
naturally favored country IN the world
impoverished. We live too much from
pillar to post Many of our young men
viii aplantn il some one will supply
them with land, mules, laborers, and
s'adyanees;' but too many Of them are
not willing or Willnotg go TO work and
make the whereNith, little by little, to
do their own planting. They can not
work without capital Z forgetting that
nearly an capitalists began with Meth
ing and made their own capital. IA.
man who makes his own capitol, knows
how to take care Of il; but one who OPP;
crates with another's capital is almost
certain 10 squander 1t.
lie there is q call for anyone to do oc-.
casional work, which viii pay sufficient
II to snbsist during the gaps Of idleness,
there IS d general rush Of our floating
white population to get TINT position.
There ii no necessity for such call how
however, for the slate is always fulI
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