Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-11-28

heard them from the solid business men Of
Knoxville We heard them from the young,
enthusiastic and pushing men Of Chatta-
nooga we heard them many times over in
the beautiful city Of Nashville, which may
well be called the Boston OF the South we
heard them in prosperous Atlanta; we heard
them publicly said by men who had held
high rank in the Union army, and who are
staunch Republicans to-day we heard them
FROM men who had held equally high rank in
the Confederate army, and are equally staunch
Democrats we heard it from men who had
worn the gray as private soldiers and who
bear the scars Of Federal bullets.
The thing which was most lastingly i'm
pressed on our minds was the fact that the
great body of leading men, who to-day repre-
sent the real life and spirit of the South, are
men who have stopped bemoaning the past,
who have aroused from the lethargy which
followed the war, and who are letting
politics as a trade severely alone, CIV
ing all their energies to the building up
of their section through trade, and industry,
and the development Of natural resources.
The element of the old South, which still lin.
gers only to mourn over things that were but
are not, we heard spoken of only with re-
proach and contempt.
The real needs of the South are fully real
lied by these men of to-day. Continually they
were saying, 1--WE are poor and need your
northern capital, butmo than all we need your
northern enterprise and push and ingenuity.
We need your methods. We want your people
to come among US to live and help develop
our splendid possibilities. Repeatedly we
were told to go home and tell our people that
what the South wants most of all is the pas
sage by Congress of the national education
bill to help lift whites and blacks alike out Of
the dense ignorance in which hundreds of
thousands Of them are plunged. We saw
with our own eyes that in all the centres of
population everything which the means of
the people will allow is being done for COM
mon school education, and we saw that the
black children are given precisely the same
advantages as the white children in the way
of school buildings methods and appliances.
We saw, too, that northern birth and pro-
nounced Republication in politics are no bar
to social recognition and preferment Our
impression was, indeed, that there is " less
politics to the square foot" in the South to-
day than in the North.
The condition of things which we have
here briefly outlined we believe to be the real
condition in the cities and towns of the South
at the present time. That a condition less
favorable obtains among the rural population
is unquestionably true, simply because in
those districts there is less of education and
enlightenment One of the editors of the At
lanta Constitution said to the writer with per
feet frankness that, while a northern man
might settle in any southern city and be re-
ceived on terms of perfect equality, he would
not recommend northern farmers to come
singly to settle there, but to come in little
colonies Of half. a.dozen or more families.
He did not fear violence for the isolated
northern man, but he knew that the ignorance
and prejudice which he would encounter
would send him back to the North homesick
and disheartened.
There is no pretence among the southern
people of penitence for their part in the war
of the rebellion they make no secret of their
Unborn love of the lost cause" but their
whole attitude is that of men who boldly say
in manly fashion: I'VE thought we were
right and we fought you the best we knew ;
we we're beaten, and we accept the situation ;
slavery is gone and we don't want it back ;
we are ready and anxious to join hands with
! you of the North to work earnestly to build
up a common country. We ask you to
meet us half way"
What has all this to do with Mr.. Blaine
speech? 1t has this to do with it. 1t shows
that a new leaven is working in the South
that a new day has dawned there, that real
| spirit of national patriotism is growing up
among the people. 1t shows that the wrongs
which still exist there can only be remedied
by educating the weak and ignorant to take
care of themselves by the ntermingling of
the people of the two sections ; by the growth
of the South in material prosperity-in short
| by the slow but sure processes of time. If a
breach is ever made in the Solid South it will
be done by these agencies. 1t can never be
done by angry blows or by speeches which
| dwell revengefully on sectional and n-out
| issues.