The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-08-12
gbe 1ntellioencfr.
HOW TO GET CAPITAL.
The Old Fable Of Hercules and the
Nag0ner.
81. Louis RepuLHc0,l.

81. Louis RepaJEcaa.
It is an universal belief in the South
ern States that the thing they most need
is capital: The people of those States are
necessarily telling the world about their
eXhaustless stores of rudimentary wealth,
and of the marvellous facility with which
it can be worked up into actual, availa-
Bile wealth they have q great deal to say
about the amount of low middling cotton
at IA cents pound that can be raised on
an acre of their bottom lands, and of the
amount of wheat that can be produced on
their uplands; ); they boast that this cotton
can be manufactured into yarns and cloth
by means of ample water power in sight
of the fields where it is raised, far more
eheaply than it can be manufactured in
New England; they tell us-and they
prove the assertion-that pig iron can be
made at Birmingham, Alabama, at Chat
tanooga, Tennessee, or at Rome, Georgia,
$S ton cheaper than in Ohio and Penn
sYlvania; they point with pardonablo
pride to the fact that the cotton mills at
Augusta, Georgia, and Graniteville,
South Carolina, are working steadily
along, and making good profits through
the present depression of trade, while
those of Massachusetts and New Hamp-
shire are running at half time, and losing
money at>that; and they declare that the
mildness of their climate, and the greater
cheapness of raw materials, labor aud liv-
ing with them demonstrate the superior
manufacturing advantages of their region
over the Northwest, where the laborer's
family have to live on Winter footing
half the year. 1t is impossible to deny
these statements, and, indeed, nobody at
tempts to deny them the world admits
them. Still, the capital which the fas-
einating picture is Intended to invite
does not come; Boston money clings to
the granite ribs of New England, and re-
fuses to migrate to Georgia where it can
earn 10 to Is per cent. more per annum;
every foot of Massachusetts, water power
is harnessed to machinery, while that of
the Chattahoochee and James runs to
waste; and the iron mongers of Pennsyl-
vauia continue to buy ore for 81 o ton and
make it into iron at S14 ton. The peo-
pie of the South have tried again and
again to understand this mystery, with
out success, and they seem to have set
tied down into the belief that capital, la
borand trade in the North are too blind to
take advantages of the opportunities that
the South presents. But the matter is
not so difficult of comprehension after all.
It is the people of the South, not the cap
italists of the North who do not ap-
preciate these boasted advantages. If
there are such superior facilities for man.
ufacturing in Georgia and Virginia, why
don't the Georgians and Virginians await
themselves of them? If there are for
tunes to be made in cotton spinning i'll
Tennessee, why don't the Tennesseeans
make them instead of inviting somebody
else to come and get them? 1t is the
people of Alabama who ought to be MAX
ing cheap iron at Birmingham, and the
people of Tennessee who ought to be
making cheap iron at Chattanooga and
that vicinity.
The reply to this is that the people of
the South have not the capital. But
why then do not the people of the South
go to work and make capital? This in
cessant prayer to foreign capital to come
into the South is like the prayer of the
wagner to Hercules to come and lift his
wheels out of the mud. The strong gods
answer was that he helped those only
who helped themselves: if the wagner
would put his own shoulder to the wheel,
Hercules would supply all the power he
lacked. This answer embodies the whole
philosophy of the Southern situation.
The South does not need capital as much
as it needs willing labor-and this it has
in abundance. Capital is nothing but e
concrete form Of labor, now dead, and a
very serviceable and efficient substitute
for it is living labor. This, united with
industry and economy, in the midst of
such favorable conditions as mild climate,
cheap living, accessible materials and
water power, accumulates capital with
surprising rapidity. A man who earns
$100 year more than he spends, per
annum, makes that much capital every
year; a hundred men in a community,
doing the same thing, make $4,000 cap
ital in single year; and thousand
men, working and saving at the same
rate, and investing their earnings would
in seven years produce 81, 900, ,000-a sum
large enough to start ten manufacturing
establishments. But it is said that the
South has not enough Of either labor or
capital. This is mistake Itcannot be
said that there is deficiency of labor in
community as long as there is any con-
siderable number of idlers in it, and it is
an undeniable fact that there are great
many idlers in the South--mOre. in feet,
than in those regions from which immi-
grafton is invited. There are, propor-
tionately, more unemployed persons in
Tennessee than in Connecticut; Of the
425, 1899 males and females over 10 years
of age in Connecticut, $4,000, or nearly
half, are engaged in some occupation,
S6,344 of them being engaged in mechap
ical and manufacturing vocation, while
of the 800, 1000 males and females over 10
years of age in Tennessee, only $4,000
are engaged in occupation; and only 29,-
600 of these are employed in mechanical
and manufacturing vocations. Of the
412,655 females over 10 years of age in
Virginia, only $4,000 are engaged in oc-
eupations-and nearly all these are COL
ered females; while of the 100000 fe-
males over 10 years of age in Connecticut,
159, 9,460 have occupations. These figures
largely explain the abundance of capital
in the New England States, and the
scarcity of it in the South. IF the South
wants capital, it must work for it; it
must earn more than it spends, and in
vest the surplus year after year in manu-
Ill