The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-11-19
Paralyzed Industries Of the South.

The following letter was written by Hon. E..
D. Standiford, member Of Congress from the
Louisville (Ky.) District, to prominent bank
or in New York, and presents clearly and forci-
bly, the business view of the effects Of misrule
in the South, with practical suggestions as to
the help and sympathy which business men of
the North should extend to their brethren in
distress:
The people of the South are being governed
by a class of men who have no interest in the
prosperity of their adopted States, and indeed
do not expect to remain there after their! lease
of power expires. Their object is to make
money by plundcring the people. You can
understand what the effect of the exercise of
arbitrary power in such hands necessarily must
have upon business generally. Capitalists will
not invest their money where there is no assur-
ance of protection under the law, or where the
powers that be may come without notice at any
time and seize everything, disarrange business,
and destroy credit There is no security under
the present administration Of affairs in. the
South, for permanence of investment. What
appears to be stable and settled now, may, at
the next turn of the political wheel, prove to
be utterly without foundation, and so we have
business interests depending upon the ever
varying wind of politics, and as its own legltl-
mate consequence without permanence or pros
perity. I am not speaking now of Kentucky.
Here we are established and have nothing to
fear either from our courts or the executive,
nor do the questions of politics disturb our
business affairs in the least.
This condition of affairs is owing wholly" to
the way,in which we have managed our affairs
without outside interference, but this unsettled
state of affairs among our nearest neighbors
Injuries us materially, and although it may not
now be felt in the East, unless it is stopped it
will ultimately reach you am not speaking
of those things as u partisan of any sort, but
as q business man interested in the business
prosperity of the South. I think that most of
these evils have been brought about by the
useless and injudicious interference by the
General Government in State affairs. The
real intelligent people of the South-the ones
upon whom we must depend to bring about
return to commercial prosperity-are the ones
unfortunately against whom Federal interfer-
ence has been mostly directed, and the officers
whom this interference has kept in power have
come to consider that their constituency is not
the people of the State, but the administration
at Washington, and act accordingly: Can. not
something be done to put stop to this? VIII
not the Northern business man extend to his
Southern confrere at least the moral support OF
sympathy against the use of those arbitrary
measures for which he has no redress? uhe
present condition of affairs has crippled the
railroad interest nearly destroyed manuac-
lures and demoralzed all kinds of business.
What the South needs to restore her to posi-
ton in the commercial world is q sense of sta
bility in reference to her establishments. We
cannot expect this from politics or politicians
Il mean in the general sense. OF course
much depends upon the Southern men them
selves they will have to work out their own
salvation; but you, gentlemen of the East, can
do incalculabe good by your advice and sym.
pathv, and more still by opposing the acts OF
oppression under which the business of the
South is crushed, and which are fast closing
up the North's best market.
This is not political view of the matter; 1t
is the view business men take of it. Who
would feel any safety in making investments
in business that in week, q month, or year
might be taxed out of existence, or seized upon
any provocation, without any adequate remedy
provided in the way of damages? The Eastern
capitalists who, in good faith, have invested
their money in railroad and other securities OF
the South, are being continually robbed by the
plunderers who control the affairs of the ex-
IRENE Southern States. The importance of a
change in the condition of affairs here can be
better comprehended when we consider that
our National debt and the interest on 1t must
be paid by the products of the West and the
South. The whole country is vitally interested
In our prosperity.