Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-01-04
The South As 1t Is.
ITS SUPREME WANT AND ITS GREAT
EST PERIL.

IT'S SUPREME WANT AND ITS GREAT
EST PERIL.
Mr.. A. X. Mcclure, editor OF the
Philadelphia Times, has reached GIN
cinnati from his tour of the South, after
having visited Richmond. Charleston,
Atlanta, New Orleans, and other lead
| ing Southern cities, from which he
wrote entertaining and instructive let
tiers to his paper. From Cincinnati he
sums up his Impressions as follows:
1.-THE South is not animated by parti-
san hostility to the coming President.
On the contrary, there is every DISPOSE
'tlDn to commend and support cordially
and to blame with reluctance. There
is lao desire to command the spOils of
power, but there is an earnest and al
most universal desire for peace-that
peae,e that honest government should
ever give to an honest people. The SUI
preIhe want of the South is a thoroughly
| conA petent and upright civil service.
ana that should not be sought as favor
fro any faithful President. 1t is not
only matter of right to every section,
but it is matter of imperative duty on
tnb part of the government.
"a vast preponderance of the turbu-
!ehce that has disgraced the South dur
Ing the last decade has been created by
characterless, INSCRIPTIONS and often
IEcklessly dishonest federal officials.
UNITED States judges have been ap-
4 pointed because of their utter hostility
to the South who would not be charged
with the administ ration of justice in
the North. Marshals have been selected
/ svnlr Co.. to =
tute their official power, to foment Sec
tional strife, to Cypress unoffending cit
liens and to pollute elections. Post
utterly incompetent, in some instances
being unable to read or write, merely
because they were potential in democrat
izing and controlling the ignorant
blacks. Customs and revenue officers
have been selected to make the collec
ton of revenue secondary 10 the corrupt
control of elections. United States
commissioners have united with dis
| trict attorneys and marshals to plumber
| the government by the wantOn vexatiOn
of struggling business interests in the
| South, and the special agencies of the
government are crowded with noted
criminals as rewards for noted political
crimes. In several of the Southern
States I found convicts, fugitives and
outlaws enjoying the patronage of the
ad ministration and inviting pnblic con-
tempt for government and law by their
shameless distinction. This blot-not
upon the South, but upon the North,
whose administration is guilty of its
creation-hes lasted with more or less
prominence for dozen years, and it
has been the most fruitful of all the
many fruitful soul ces of sectional tur-
bulence.
! 1.-The one great peril to the South for
which l can see no immediate remedy
is the now inevitable division of the
white vote of the South and the certain
appeal of contending factions to the
blacks as the arbter of disputing ambi-
ton. l have until recently shared the
very general belief of the North that
South must be fortunate for the black
voters, as it would create rivalry in ex-
tending the fullest protection to the
blacks. / am nov thoroughly con-
WINGED, against all my wishes, that the
necessary and now near division of the
whites will be fruitful of great democrat
ization to both races, and that it will be
the severest trial of the wisdom of uni
versal suffrage. There is now nothing
to demoraliZe the black man or to di
vert him from his industry and the edu
cation of his children. He is rapidly
becoming the owner or lessee of lands
and is his own farmer, and is, in many
instances, accommodating wealth with
habits Of industry but when the white
man locks horns with his fellow in the
battle of ambition, the most artful DEM
agcgues will best control the ignorant
freedmen and the degradation of both
races must follow. The factory and the
school must be the great civiizer of the
South, and I am glad to see that North
ern and Southern radicals agree in the
United States Senate in Matchmaking
education. 1t is needed in the South to
an extent far beyond what is generally
understood in the North, and there will
be no material elevation of the black
race until the ignorant classes of both
whites and blacks can be educated
There is cordial sympathy, as rule,
between the Intelligent whites and the
blacks; much more than there is be-
tween the whites and blacks in the
North.
1.-The manufacturers of the. North
must soon go South with their cotton
splndIes and looms, and those who go
earliest will reap the richest harvest.
Those who say that capital is not safe
in the South either know not what they
say or mean to be untruthfui. In every
Southern State there is supreme de-
sire TO have the factory everywhere that
the raw material is furnished. The cot,
ton crop of this year will be worth three
hundred millions of dollars, and when
simply spun into yarn will be worth
nearly three hundred millions more.
Where in ali the world is there so wide
} and so tempting q field for legitimate
enterprise and large profits? l believe
that half the whole cotton product will
be spun in the South before another ten
years, and the succeeding decade will
furnish Southern factories fog the entire
croE.H
CHARLIE Ross. -Charlie Ross father
has examined over 500 lost children,
spent $50, 900, and no Charley yet. The