Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1883-12-05
THE DECLINE OF NEW ENGLAND.

Wendell Phillips says: The hand
writing is so plain on the wall that none
but fool need mistake it. New England
is doomed just as surely as natural laws
will produce fixed results. New England
has no soil worth mentioning, and her
wealth has all been derived from her
manufactures. They are gradually leav-
ing her, and eventually will all go; some
to the West, but more to the South,
where the advantages are all located.
The coal and the iron in the South are
easily gotten at and are inexhaustible in
amount, and the iron mills, foundries
and machine shops can go to them better
than they can be carried to the shops.
Then the cotton and wooden mills must
go there, for the raw materials are there,
and are to be produced there more
cheaply, uniformly and better" But in
this he makes mistake. New England
has in her water power and in the spirit
of her people that which can never be
found under the Southern sky, and that
is the ability to Wrest out of the sterile
soil and an inhospitable climate SUBJ
sistence and surplus. The building of
factories near the cotton fields of the
South is not so pregnant of evil as the
fact that the best New England society
now esteem it too much trouble to bear
children The old Puritan blood is thus
dying out in just the same way that the
old Roman race died out fifteen hundred
years ago, and from the same cause.
The void in New England is filled up
with foreigners and aliens, who not only
have no sympathy with the old traditions,
but who war openly with the old names
names that used to be held in reverential
awe. There was no part of Gen. Buffers
speech at Newton that was applauded
with more vigor than when he declared
that the Adamses were sprung from a
Braintree shoemaker.-Pe0riG Journal.
We take it that Mr.. Phillips means that
the East will gradually lose it's preemi-
nence over the West and South. Indeed,
to great extent, it has done that now.
See what the East was fifty years ago!
See what it is now contrasted with the
West and South. New England is a
small territory-cursed with a sterile soil
and an unkind climate. The West and
South are mighty empire, blessed with
a noble soil and genial climate.
Wendell Phillips is right. When the
factories leave the East, as they are do
ing, and will continue to do, she. will de-
cline. Fifty years hence New England
will be most insignificant portion of
this Republican Empire-a most insight.
ficant portion. We doubt if she loses
in population to speak of, but neither
will she gain as other portions of the
Union will. She will stand still-and
thus will she be left behind.
The foreign stock that is coming into
New England to supply the place of the
decaying and disappearing natives, is a
hardy stock. There is no want of vital
ity or virility among this stock. New
England will not decline for want of
children This is one of the Peoria
Journals hobbies but there is no foun-
dation for it.
New England will decline-or stand
still, which is comparative decline, when
the other sections Of the country are for
ging ahead-from the very natural causes
recited by Mr.. Phillips. He has studied
the case, and knows what he is talking
about.-Quiney Journal.