Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1883-08-03
LIVING DOWN A BAD REP UTA
TION.

LII HlNd DO w ~ n Dali MI u 4 a.
IION.
There is no stronger evidence of the
recuperative power of the Southern
States than the astonishing progress they
have made in the face of the
most malign advertising that ever
afflicted a people. If at the close
Of the civil war, the victorious half of the
Union had turned in theoretically to aid
the defeated half, had advertised to all the
world that the South was fertile, organized
emigration companies to it, and used all the
machinery which it has SO successfully
used in populating the West, it would
still have been wonderful that section so
thoroughly Frustrated by four years war
and change of labor could have risen in so
short time to what th South is now. 1t
would have been remarkable that in eight
cen years Georgia and South Carolina
could have made the cotton manufacture
ers OF Massachusetts tremble for their fu-
ture; that the two Virginias could have
drawn much of the iron manufacture from
Pennsylvania that ships could be built
and launched in Southern waters that
more railroads should be built in the South
than any other section of the country :;
that she should be holding great industrial
expeditions such as those of Atlanta and
Louisville-in short, that she should be
even on her feet at all. We say this would
have been surprising had all the friendly
aid that we have mentioned been extended
her.
How much more surprising must it be
then when we look at the real state of the
case. OF all the peoples in the civilized
world the Southern have had the most up
bill time since the civil war. They made
their new start with the name Rebel"
pinned to them. They we're fleeced by all
sorts OF adventurers under form and color
of law. The National government was
openly inimical to them. Instead of call
ing attention to their fields and rivers and
minerals, the Northern press called atten-
ton to every crime, every isolated idle
community, every poor and wasted field.
tae utterances of every crack Drained poll
teal fool, as the best evidences of the
moral, agricultural and political condition
Of the Southern country. When political
campaigns came along the unlucky South
was advertised with brass band. Every
hastings at the North was crowned with a
speaker blatant over the crimes at the
South, the political murders, the thrift
lessness of the people. and the generally to
BIZ dreaded character of the country. The
Republican party annually took the dirty
clothing of the Southern people and wash
cd 1t in the great national wash tub before
she whole world, often throwing in few
hundred extra bloody shirts of their own
manufacture to make the washing more
impressive.
AS il the patriotic efforts of our North
ern brethren were not sufficient burden
the South had Republicans scattered all
through her borders who were busily en-
gaged in providing the outrages to order
They were handy witnesses to prove what
the civilized Republican party was trying
TO establish. that the South could hardly be
called civilized. Instead of talking OF the
openings at the south for enterprise and
capital, the topic of their conversation was
outrages, prescription, and the like. No
country of modern times has had such ex-
ternal and internal foes to drive away pros
perity by evil report as has the South. If the
government had posted Mason and Dixon IS
line with sign boards labeled ''Small Pox -
Cholera" and ''Yellow Fever" it could
not have done more to repel prosperity
from entering this section than the Repub-
lican party has done for us in eighteen
years. through its orators, its press. and
through the officers of the National Gov
eminent who have been, up to the present
time. under its control.
We say that with such a character as
was given the Southern States by the Re-
publican party and universally accepted
BY the civilized world, it is a wonderful
triumph over adverse and malign adver-
Using. that the South has won by her own
unaided efforts place recognized in the
commercial, man ufacturing, agricultural
and political world. A people with less
stamina in them, with less of all that con-
stitutes men in them, would have been
beaten down by combination which ac-
tually included their own national govern
meDt. And yet we sometimes hear of what
She Republican party has done for the
country. 1t has done nothing for the
Southern States, except drive off emigra
ton and lower the price of her acres, by
publishing to the world that they were
unsafe and unfit for a residence. The
Southern States have done everything for
themselves. The Republican party has
done much for one section of the country.
On that section it has lavished its posi-
tions of trust and profit, it's proceeds OF
the Credit Mobilier Swindle, it's assets from
the Star Route thieves. its assets of de.
fuHct navy, its assets of the great Bah