Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-09-09
Labor at the Snnfh.

For years prior to the triumph OF aDo-
lition the philanthropists of the North
taught the masses to believe that labor
was desoised at the South, and even YET
there fingers with many conhrmeo
prejudice against the Southern Peopie
growing out of this belief. The dslly
life Of the Southern people, the rurai
gatherings and the social events OF our
interior towns during ante-bellum days.
show how groundless was this prejudice
avan then. and the most careless observer
Tho travels through the South today
finds our people marked by fewer dis
tinctions of caste than those Of the
North.
One OF the raIlyng cries of abolition
was the dignity of labor, and yet to-
day in the eyes of the heartless lords OF
shoddy end the lucky spectators Of the
North the workingman is rated with
horse or a piece of machinery, to be run
till he can be replaced, and the more that
is got out of him in given time the
better.
Here, with the prodigious destruction
of capital entailed by the war and the
wild waste of carpetbagism, the prob
lem of recuperation became much the
same as that of the development of
new country. But as labor was forced
TO work harder for Its rewards
than in new country, the
demand for it became greater, and where
all were forced TO work, if there had
been any want of respect for labor, on
plane where all were equal, it could not
but disappear.
The South courts labor. She has
steadily growing need of it. She invites
the honest workingmen of all lands to
come and help her reclaim her waste
places, develop her resources, and
share in the prosperity that industry
must achieve She is fated to be great.
She was great in her past, and will be
greater in her future. Day by
day her attractions to industry
are becoming better known. Her agri-
cultural development is but in its infan-
cy. Her manufactures, though In a
great measure but experimental, demon
strate the golden harvest that awaits the
capital that may be invested in them.
Soon the products Of the Orient will be
shipped in bulk to her seaboard cities,
and direct trade with the great trade
centres of Europe must be established.
The wealth of the great Northwest is
steadily descending the Mississippi to the
great Southern metropolis, and the lead
ing cities of the South are being brought
closer and closer together. Here labor
must reap its reward, and prudence earn
independence.
The young men of brains and muscle,
who would quit the crowded centres Of
the North, would find here scope for their
energies and promise for the future. The
farms, the trades. the shops, the facto-
ries, the counting room, the professions,
are all open to honest labor and manly
ambition. There is room and encOur-
agement for all.
And the women of the South, whose
splendid sacrifice and heroic endurance
viii be the themes of historians when
the youngest of their posterity shall
have passed away, they, too, have
caught the teachings of the times, and
are playing grand, if silent, part in
the work of progress.
Here in a land renowned for its
chivalry and hospitality, the man who
has inherited, preserved, or acquired
the marks and impulses of a gentleman,
need fear no prescription. The bOor can
not abide with the polished, nor the dis
solute with the pure, but there is a COM
munity of industry, of refinement and
| pIobity, that is more marked at the
SOutL, perhaps, than elsewhere, and it is
here that she draws the line. All her
people work. Her best people are gen
| tlemen and true women. Her mission is
to grow rich. but her people in the race
for riches will be slow to forget the
old traditions Of manliness, generosity,
prObity and patriotism that their fathers
illustrated in their lives, and transferred
as a legacy that was ever to be cherished
and never despised.