The Portland daily press., 1881-03-25
The Southern Show.

One Of the results of the Rebellion was
the dethronement of "King Cotton" po-
tentate that aspired to rule legislative as
well as market halls. He was bad ruler;
but he is most valuable subject. While
he held four milli ons of slaves in bondage
we objected TO his tyranny, and finally did
away with it. He now gives employment to
ten millions of freemen, and we recognize
him as a benefactor.
The cultivation of cotton in our Southern
States is, next to the cultivation of corn,
our most profitable and necessary industry.
No woman who wears gowns and no man
who wears shirts but pays tribute to it. 1t
brings us much money from abroad, and in
many ways distributes much money among
our own people.
The Southern people propose to hold at
Atlanta a cotton exhibition. 1t will be a
display of the most important and profitable
production of that section of our country.
One of the leaders in the enterprise is Rufus
Bullock, Governor of Georgia in the recon-
struction times. The selection of him as
an advocate of the project shows that the
narrow and unreasonable sectionalism of
the Southern people is disappearing. Not
long ago he was denounced by Georgians as
an instrument of Northern radical oppres-
sion. Now Georgia sends him to Earope as
an able man to advance the material inter-
ests of her greatest industry and to set forth
the advantages she offers to the European
emigrant.
That is the sort of competition the North
welcomes. The more of that friendly and
profitable rivalry the better. All of us this
way support the the eminent statisiition Mr.
Edward Atkinson, who urges that the scope
of the Atlanta exposition be extended. He
would have it not merely a cotton exhi-
bition, but general display of the ag-
ricultural and mineral products of the
South. Mr.. Atkinson has recently trav-
eled through that part of the country,
and is deeply impressed with the splen-
dill resources which are awaiting de-
velopment. He would preserve the distinc-
tive character of the enterprise to a large
extent by dividing the cotton exhibits from
the general dis play, but thinks that favor
able opportunity of attracting capital and
labor to the South will be only partially i'm
proved if the undertaking is not established
on broader basis than the present plans
design.
Mr.. Atkinson's suggestions are wise and
kindly. Anything that benefits one part of
this country benefits the whole of it. The
only thing the South has to do to secure i'm
migration is to give to the Northern settler
the political freedom he enjoys at home, and
to the European immigrant the political
privileges he comes over the ocean to gain.
1t seems minded to adopt liberal policy,
and to seek and encourage immigration.
Should it do so it will win the reward that
good works deserve.
PHILADELPHIA North American: "Every
man his own producer will of necessity
become the rallying cry. if some prompt ac-
ton is not taken in respect to food adultera-
tion. The latest horror from England is
diseased horse-fesh treated with red ochre
to gite it a healthy appearance, and then
manufactured into beef sausage. A meal
composed of this, with bread made from
chalk, potato flour, alum, &C., duly lubri-
Gated by oleomargarine, rounded off with
Chicago cheese, i. e., transmogriied lard.
and washed down wi th decoction of burnt
beans, softened by a preparation of calves
brains and chalk, by way of milk,
and sweetened by an extract of old
rags and sawdust, bleached by acetic acid,
might not astonish the stomach of an os-
trich, but certainly would fail to restore the
exhausted physical strength of a laboring
man. Yet it can hardly be doubted now
that many toiler makes just such meal,
and pays the price of wholesome food for it.