San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-05-17

war came to crush them. Elghteen
wears is too short time to BRING
about such magnificent results after
a period of such utter prostitution as
that which the southern people found
themselves at the close OF their Ill
omened struggle. But while the re-
nascent South is as yet far from a
full retrieval of her incompatible
losses, it is obvious on all sides that
she has achieved and is still achieving
astonishing successes in the steady
progress of her people toiling on
brayely for recuperation. There are
thousands and tens of thousands OF
instances, we know, in which individ-
ual fortunes have been but poorly i'm
proved, but the general advancement
must soon tell favorably upon each OF
the aggregate all.
The truth is that the awful baptism
of blood and fire to which the South
was subjected has proved to have been
an ordeal through which she had to
pass before entering upon q career
entirely new to her, and for which, in
virtue of her inestimable resources,
she was prominently fitted as soon
as she was relieved from that incubus
of slavery which had so long smoth-
cred the enterprise of her people now
showing itself so staunchly in the in
dustries which the long latentstrength
of her mineral and manufacturing
advantages are developing. The spirit
of the southern people needed to be
let loose from the thraldom imposed
upon it through the influences OF an
institution under which the masters
of slaves were themselves held down
to an unequal participation in the pro
gress of the worlds practical affairs.
The immense mineral wealth, the I'M
surpassed water-power for manufac-
turing, the soft, salubrious climate,
the generous soil, the big rivers and
capacious harbors, the vast forests of
valuable timber, all peculiarly charac
terizing the South as q land blessed
by nature with every agency and
and every element of prosperity, have
by our own as we'll as by other people,
been appreciated and applied since the
war as they were never appreciated
and applied before. And as a result
of it these southern States of ours are
rising from the desolation into which
they were precipitated eighteen years
ago, with confidence and courage,
with an energy, an intelligence and a
boldness of enterprise that cannot fail
to be attended with achievements in
all the fields Of fortune as brilliant,
as extensive, and as enduring as any
ever known in the annals Of mans
mastery of the opportunities and ad-
vantages profered to him by his maker.
The day for dependency among the
southern peoplehas gone by. After the
long, weary, dreary night of desola-
ton the day dawned, the sun is rising,
and the dark clouds in the southern
skies are breaking up and rolling away
forever. This is not a day-dream; it
is not the pictrring of an ideal drawn
from wishes too warm and hopes too
high for the basis on which they rest.
1t is simply the glad statement of
fact that no man can gainsay In the
face of the overwhelming proofs of
southern progress as those proofs are
every week collected in the columns Of
this paper.
The golden future for the South is
unfolding every day. Intelligent and
sagacious men in the North see it;
observing capitalists in Europe see it;
and all of our own people, whose eyes
are not still closed in hopeless moan
ing and groaning over the irrevocable
past, must also see it.