The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1879-09-18
RELATIVE NOR rHERN AND
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.

RELATIVE NOR rHERN AND
SOUTHERN INDUSTRY.
Henry Watterson's recent letters from
New England were devoted to the
commendatf6n of the intelligence, in
dustry and thrift of the couttry pso-
pie, and yet Northern papers say that
he only sought to assert by contrast the
superiority of Southern Agrioulturis's.
Nothing could be further from the
truth. 1t is none the less true, how
ever, that the great bulk OF the crops
of the South lie produced by white la
Dor on small farms and not on great
plantations. Only here and there have
"planters, as contradistinguished
from farmers, prospered. The bulk OF
the Southern cotton crop is produced
by men who do not make more than
ten or fifteen bales each. Their homes
are in narrow upland valleys, and not
1 III tuC lOWidud5 VI tue nAisSiSSiPPi Va
Alabama rivers or along the seashore.
Ia these mlasmatic districts negroes
are numberless, and nine-tenths of
those who have undertaken to eulti-
vate broad estates, employing multi
tudss of blacks, have been bankrupted.
Levees are no longer maintained by
impoverished counties and States, and
few men have that tact or capacity
indispensable IN managing great num-
bers of needless, gregarious negroes
whose labor on cotton plantations is
only valuable and productive when 1,
is continuous from the first day of jan
uary to the last day of December.
\ Now and then an Alcorn or Richard
son or House appears who governs and
retains continuously from year to year
one OF two thousand black poems. They
have become parts of the glebe. They
have their churches, reYivals, country
stores, whisky and tobacco, and are
content TO produce corn and cotton or
sugar. Their industry is productive
and the broad estates of these great
and successful mOnopolists of negro
confidence and industry grow con-
stantly aud rapidly in area. Small
farmers eau hardly live in their vicin-
ity. Negro villages on the great plan
tatlon are fatal to pig styes and hen
roosts and clothes lines. They are dis
astrous, too, on election days, and the
modest farmer can hardly liYe under
tho shadow of the great black cloud
tnat sends down plenty upon the rich
and deluges the poor with poverty.
The poor farmer is thus forced to sell
to the rich and riches thus reproduce
themselves until Richardson's estates
in Mississippi are perhaps greater in
area than Rhode Island, and Alcorn's
haYe front of twenty miles. These
are extraordinary instances of extraor-
dinary successes in governing negro
laborers, and in establishing a modi-
fed system of Mexican peonage. Ne
groes of themselves farming inde-
pendently, even upon rented estates
are few IN number. They are COM
monty hired first by one then another
white farmer who assures their indus-
try by leading the way in executing
every task done in the field. 1t is
thus true, though the fact is denied by
northern newspapers, that the extrsor-
dinary increase in the Yolame and val
ue of Southern productions is due to
the energy and toll of those formerly
denominated by the Radicals, ''mean
white trash" II was in reference to
the steady toil!of these white people,
| that the negro saying that the 'bottom
rail ia ON top" came into vogue.
The North is compelled to
confess when the South's sugar, rice
and tobacco crops are nearly doubled,
and when the cotton crop of five mil
lion bales startles Liverpool and Man
chester, that Southern popular indus
try was meyer more admirable or sue
cessful, and however ardently Mr..
Watterson s1mires New England art
and toll and skill, commercial statis-
tics affecting Southern industry and
the peaceful industrial relations of,
races, tell a more eloquent and fascinat-
ing story than that gilded by the gen.
ius and decorated by the taste of this
most fscile of American editors and
letter-wrlters.
And just here the question arises
how can it be true that the South is
ready to absorb one hundred millions
of Sherman's silver dollars to be hoard
ed on ''farms" in substitution for cot
ton, rice and tobacco, and yet North
ern papers and Northern Conklings
discover no industrial or social facts
affecting our condition save such as
are evolved in Yazoo or Kemper coun-
ties. Are not these horrible facts con-
spicuous simply because they are rare
and thus extraordinary and is it not
wonderful that two diverse races, sud-
denly and unnsturally placed on terms
of legal equality do not oftener col
lids and produce more Dixons and
Chisholms or Gullys and Barksdsles9 2
The very notoriety of these men and
of their acts of bsrbarity and violence
and the noise they make, show, as does
the enormous productiyeness Of South
ern industry, that law and order and
devotion to agricultural pursuits dis
tinguish, above all people. the whites
os the South.