Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1880-05-21
What the South Needs.

1t will not be denied by any person
familiar with the natural resources of
the different sections of the United
States that nature has done ut least as
much for the South rs for any other sec
ton. Her rich and productive soil, her
navigable streams, her large extent of
seacoast, her abundant water powers,
her great variety and immense depos-
its of minerals, in short, her vast re-
sources of every kind mark the
South as region specially favored by
nature. To all these resources must be
added a climate so mild and genial as
in itself to constitute a perpetual at
traction to immigration. There are
extensive portions of the South which
''if tickled with a hoewill laugh with
a harvest There ara other extensive
portions the mineral deposits of which
arc unsurpassed on the Continent.
Nearly everything of value that is pro-
duced in the North can be produced
in the South, with many valuable prod
ucts besides, and all the conditions of
life are lighter and easier there than
here. Under these circumstances, it
is evident that the South is capable
of sustaining large and prosperous
population, a population many times
larger than its present one, if its re-
sources are properly developed and util-
lied. -t.f Co.,. -s7.
Under the old regime slavery was alb
solutely fatal to such development.
That institution rested like curse and
blight,on the South. The civilization
that grew up under it was bastard
Ii. Ioll,,,, al En
ren. Labor was deprived of its dignity
and the laborer of his earnings. There
was no business worthy of the name,
and society was simply an organized
system of plunder by which the slave
owners enriched themselves by the
labor of the slaves. That the South
made any progress at all under this
ruinous system was due to her connec-
tion with the North, whose enterprise
and spirit dragged her forward and up
ward somewhat in spite of slavery. 1t
is easy to see why there should have
been no development of Southern re-
sources under the old system. The
old system, however, has passed away,
and vet the South is receiving little or
no immigration, and doing little or
nothing in the way of developing her
natural resources. Obviously, what it
needs is capital and labor. The union
of these in the South would build up
her waste places, enlarge her cities,
cover her rivers and coasts with trading
vessels, utilize her water-powcrS, and
fill all her borders with the busy hum
of industry. But how is the South
TO get capital and laborP Formerly,
they were repelled by slavery, the dead
ly enemy of free labor and free enter
prise. But slavery is gone, and yet
there is no indication whatever of the
flow of capital and labor in that direc-
ton. Why is thisP We believe it is on
account of the temper and conduct of
the Southern people, and that they are
themselves the great bar to Southern
immigration Labor will only 90 where
it is respected, capital will only 90
where it is protected, and neither will
go where personal rights are disregard
ed. If the South was cursed in former
times by the deadly influence of slavery,
it is equally cursed now by the intoler-
ant spirit which prevails there, by the
persecution which cripples labor, by
| the Bourbonism which pervades So
oiety, and by the ostracism which is
practiced towards Northern men with
Northern ideas. These are the active
principles of Southern society to-
day, and they are curse and blight
upon that section just as slavery
was when it existed. They repel
immigration, and with it the very
things the South needs to develop its
resources. These ideas which are the
curse Of the South, and which are re-
tarding its progress and development,
are part and parcel of Southern Democ-
racy II could not exist without them,
and they would soon die out but fol
that organization. IL follows that the
South can never have real prosperity
under Democratic rule, for the simple
reason that that party represents ideas