Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-01-12
WHAT THEA ERAGE TIRGINIAN
= SAYS.

lOu VI UdCl A~~J
his grandfather, who was the deity of the
family altar, and who came down to him
with the unnatural largeness of phantoms
looming in the mist of the past, and who
woulz be considerably smaller if subjected
to the modern lens of to-day. In the last
decade, however, it has been a difficult
task for even those who know him best to
formulate him, or, so to speak, to tabulate
him, SO divided is he between his glories OF
the past and his lamentations over the
present, and it has therefore been with a
pleasure partaking Of a surprise that we
find that ga gentleman of culture, bust
ness experience and extensive acquaintance
with the sentiment and feeling OF the
Northern states . has made a successful
analysis Of him-or, in the language of the
s~treet-''got him down fne," and the re-
suit is spread at length in the column OF
the "Valley Virginian" over the nom de
gozynae Of Barbarian" AS the authors of
such analyses, are too often open to the sus-
picion of being applicants for posts OF
enolument under the government in the
shape of storekeeperships, it is further
/ agreeable to knowthat this one is mo pol
itician. no office holder or Office seeker-a
quiet citizen, tilling the soil, paying his
taxes, and interested alike with every good
citizen of he county and State in the flu
ture of Virginia." We have read the ar
tlcle with interest, partly because it is OF
Importance to all Of us who hope for i'm
...-Lo. 10 1-aor -hof q rapt1pmQn nf
the description given thinks OF Virginia as
a good place to live in, and partly because
we desire to correct some errors Into Which
he has fallen in an epistle which seems to
have been written more for reproof than
instruction.
His first and greatest mistake is that the
trouble now in Virginia is owing to the
Democratic party which he says lisa Bour-
bon, q party Of retrogression. This does
not do justice to his information. This
country achieved nearly all Of its great
ness under Democratic rule with but few
i~nterregnums. From foundation stone to
apex it is a monument in the eyes Of the
world to the power of Democracy to create
a people to be respected by the habitable
globe. In state governments it has been
as successful. The most powerful States
in the Union, North and South have a.
chieved their greatness under the chiefcon-
troll of the Democratic party. Its most
modern rival the Republican party has
adopted for it's principles the same tenets
held by the Democratic party to-day. So
we conclude there is nothing in Democracy
per Sc that would retard a State.
The trouble, then, must be with Vir-
ginia and the ssaverage Virginian." from
whom the gentleman Of culture" finds it
hard to obtain any Intelligent views,''
and who, he thinks, is a victim OF "blind
prejudice" When told that his state is
rich, and ought to be paying some of her
debt. he only growls about taxation and
talks about the war, an affair, the results
of which, the writer thinks ''might
be effaced in ten years of peace" and so
sure is he of it, that he thinks the answer
is only the result of the ''virus Of the De-
mocracy." But there is the mistake: it is
the virus of poverty that makes him growl.
When the average Virginian speaks of the
war, he means everything flowing from it,
not merely a brief conflict of four years,
killing off SO many men. That is a minor
matter compared with the entire breaking
up of the system Of labor, the growth of d
century, in the state, anything as sudden
as which is not recorded in history. The
obiector can have but little idea of what the
institution Of slavery was in its enervating
effects on the white race, if he thinks any
thing less than a new generation will enable
him to see in Virginia that energy and
thrift, which is the growth Of a century of
s~elf-dependence. Naturally enough you
can, as he says ride past farm after farm,
house after house, and all is d%ilapidation, -
and if New England, or New York, or
Illinois had had the same history as Viz
giniass one could ride through de~lapidatiou
there. 81 very was the blight of the South.
Men. mind and manners were moulded by
it. ard it is idle petulance to COM
plain now of the mark it left. One doesn't
stand on the street and damn the
cripple who hinders the way, it is a waste
of profanity as well as time. To the av-
erage Virgirian just now to tell him that
his State is rich is a hollow mockery. Its
coal land, its iron mines, it's timber had
as well be in Illinois as here for all the
good they do him. He has not the capt.
sal to dig a well much less develope any
resources. IF it is TO be made rich it must
be done by capital from elsewhere.
With reference to the colored population
and the schools, the writer writes against
facts and opinions as well. The statement
that the average Virginian is opposed to
free schools is absurd. So much is it the
other way that any candidate for public
office who were to announce that he was
opposed to them would insure his defeat
in any county in this State. So closely is
this watched that in one Of the dist lets in
this county a candidate for the humble
post of delegate to a convention was repor>
ted to be adverse to free schools, and before
he could correct the damaging report was
defeated by an overwhelming majority.
AS to the colored man we don't know x
actly what ~"disgusting prejudices'' the av-
erage Virginian has against him, though
we suppose one very natural one is that he
is q creature Just released from slavery OF
mind and body without, as a rule. any well
defined sense of virtue. honesty or truth
three things that could not exist to any
extent in servitude. That such is the con.
dition Of a large portion of the peasanJry
Of the Statei is a matter of as much CONCERN
60 Virginia as it is to anybody. but it is
facs nevertheless, and she is spending
million of dollars annually to correct it by
education. That intelligence should be
prejudiced against ignorance is the histo-
ry of the human race, and that it should
bo pnrobouc;v OF tho ioporopf wrhao hon