The Democratic advocate., 1883-09-01
Living Down a Bad Reputation.

80
From the Staunton Uia.) indicator:
There is no stronger evidence of the re-
cuperative power of the Southern States
than the astonishing progress they have
made in the face of the most malign adver-
tising that ever afflicted people. If at
the close of the civil war, the victorious
half of the Union had turned in energeti-
cally 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 a
section so thoroughly prostrated by four
years war and change of labor could have
risen in so short time to what the South
is now 1t would have been remarkable
that in eighteen years Georgia and South
Carolina could have made the cotton man
ufacturers of Massachusetts tremble for
their future; that the two Virginias could
have drawn much Of the iron manufacture
from Pennsylvania that ships could be
built and launched in Southern waters;
more railroads should be built in the South
than any other section of the country; that
she should be holding great industrial ex
positions such as those Of Atlanta and
Louisville 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
hill time since the civil war. They made
their new start with the name "Rebel''
pinned to them. They were feeced by all
sorts of adventures 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,
the utterances of every cracked Drained
political 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
hustings at the North was crowned with
speaker blatant over the crimes at the
South, the political murders, the thrift
lessness of the people, and the generally to
be dreaded character of the country The
Republican party annually took the dirty
clothing of the Southern people and washed
it in the great national wash tub before
the whole world, often throwing in a few
hundred extra bloody shirts of their own
manufacture to make the washing more
impressive.
As if the patriotic efforts of our Northern
brethren were not sufficient burden, the
South had Republicans scattered all through
her borders who were busily engaged in pro-
viding 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 civ
ilized. 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 external and
internal foes to drive away prosperity by
evil report as has the South. If the gov
ernment had posted Mason and Dixon's
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
ernment who have been, up to the present
time, under its control.
We say that with such character as
was given the Southern States by the Re
publican party and universally accepted by
the civilized world, it is wonderful tri-
umph over adverse and malign advertising,
that the South has won by her own unaided
efforts place recognized in the CONNER
cial, manufacturing, agricultural and po-
litical world. A people with less stamina
in them, with less of all that constitutes
men in them would have been beaten down
by combination which actually included
their own national government. And yet
we sometimes hear of what the Republican
party has done for the country. 1t has
done nothing for the Southern States, ex-
cept drive off emigration and lower the
price of her acres, by publishing to the
world that they were unsafe and unfit for
residence. The Southern States have
done ererything for themselves. The Re
publican party has done much for one sec
tion of the country On that section it
has lavished its positions of trust and profit,
its proceeds of the Credit Mobilier Swindle,
its assets from the Star Route thieves, its
assets of defunct navy, its assets of the
great Babcock National Whiskey Ring, its
gigantic Pension list, but in this section it
has done nothing, absolutely nothing, ex-
cept to advertise it to the world as a place
unfit for civilized people to live in.
If there was nothing else to prove the
vitality of the Southern people the fact
that in the face of such character, in spite
of such efforts of the Republican party
Composed to its lasting shame, be it said,
of their own countrymen) to place them
and keep them out of reach of the civilized
world, they have forced their way up into
an important place in the eyes of that world
to position of weight in the affairs of the
nation, and are to-day the rivals in manu-
facture of many of the Northern States,
would fully prove it.
LARGE FARMs.-The statistics given by
the Los Angeles, California, Daily COM