The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-02-17

habits. They were born on a cotton planta
ton, swaddled in cotton garments. learned
to purchased oats, hay, mules, horses, piows
and cotton baskets, with cotton paid cot
| ton for corn, exchanged it for rice, molas
ses, and whisky; gave cotton for brooms
axe-handles, hoehandles, and OK yokes; sen
| cotton to Illinois for hams, sides, fowls
apples, and oleomargerine, sort OF coun
terfeit butter, bought of New York con
densed milk, preserved fruits, and dried
peaehes-with cotton; gave lint cottor
! for cotton pillow lines, wooden buckets
| iron caskets. | name caskets, because
cypress coffin, costing $50, will last man,
| years longer than the common 800 iron
casket; willow cradles, window sashes
| spokes, hubs, pillow handles, pulpits, pews
and cotton cloth. Cotton is today double
curse to the South. Let us prove to the
North that we are no longer content to be
the miserable hangers on upon their indus
try, ingenuity, and manufacturing skill,
but are manly enough to utilize our own
raw material, and develop our own coun-
try.
But the stereotyped old people cannot do
it. Will the young people try, or will they
po West to perish Our early habits of
rulership, mastery, the slave labor system,
and now partnerships fOrbids our facile
acceptance of new enterprises, and fresh
methods of money making. But young
men may do it.
Now, let US suppose ten young men were
to unite their lands, and get planters around
them who have thousands of idle acres once
under the pillow, to place them in pool, and
open plan for a colony, they would soon
find the immigrants, and, once settled
amongst us, would assist in re-creating the
South, and all sorts of home manufacturing
al
Braunfells, in Texas. Our cities and towns
would double their populations, and the
South would be regenerated and redeemed.
Besides, it is easy to see how the enterprise
of creating a colony would be highly remu-
neratiye to the company
The State cannot give lands. She has
none to bestow. But Legislature could
greatly aid in the work, Gnd unless they
do take the matter III hand, we shall be
ruined people. 1t helps US but little for
farmers from Georgia, Alabama, or North
Carolina, to come here That is singing
the same dirge of desolatiOn. We need the
crossing of blood and fresh energy to be
independent of negro labor. We need skill
to manufacture, habits Of frugaliGy, men of
sober ways, who will not loaf around dead
falls, bar rooms, and card tables.
One of the saddest things we see is the
great number of young men who are con-
stantly leaving our State for remote and
doubtful territory. This weakness the COM
mon wealth, reduces the churches, destroys
the hope of families, puts merchandise,
manufactures, agriculture, and the grand
moulding of society into the hands of trans
STORY adventures, and leaves the old folks
behind to pine away as strangers in the
homes of their birth, and die in solitude.
And what can the new country do better
than our own? Will a new country pillow
itself, and hoe its own burrows, build fences,
shngle the house, and grind the grist? The
sons hear farming decried. Farming, the
real, proper pursuit of a gentleman, the
most Independent, dignifed, and manly of
all the callings of men consecrated by God's
special benediction and promise, the occu-
patton of patriarchs, prophets, kings,
statesmen This divine vocation is under
valued in the hearing of sons and aspiring
youth, who are thus misled, and taught that
a clerkship, a tapeseller, man behind
counter dickering over corsets, stockings,
carriers, hoopskirts, and spool thread, the
appropriate occupation of young women,
is more respectable than tilling the ground,
and securing Gods own bonds and golden
nuggets of permanent wealth. But We must
close with one word.
One our prime necessities is leaders,
apostles, teachers wise unselfsh, honorable |
men for the hour, men to speak to
the people, to command them, rouse them,
inspire them, lead them, recreate society, |
labor, lift up the prone masses, |
shame our idleness, rebuke our dependency, |
our lethargy, encourage our young
men, touch the rock where the imprisoned |
waters await the stroke of leaders rod, |
and cause the flowing stream to fertilize |
society, its institutions, its soil, and fill the
land once more with gladness, with plenty, |
with song, and with boundless prosperity |
The wilderness and the solitary places shall |
be glad for them, and the desert shall re-
ioice and blossom as the rose.