Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-11-06
NE NEW MAN OF THE SOUTH.

70 understand the New South seems
task beyond the scope OF the leaders
of the Republican party of the North
None of their old time theories seem to III
/ the new situation. They hunt uptheir OLD
text books Military Order No. / An Act
for the Rehabilitation Of States lately IN
Rebellion, The Four zenith Amendment.
The Civil Rights Act, but find they are
misflts as applied to the now co-equal
States of the American Union. They dc
not seem able to grasp the explanation OF
the matter which lies in the fact that they
are dealing with an entirely new factor IN
the government of the Republic. They
fail to understand that at the time Slavery
was swept away, Eight Millions OF white
Americans were set free from its enerv-
ating influences, from the hide bound
prejudices that accompanied it, and from
the softened muscles and dreamy mines
that it entailed by contagion. Eight mil
! lion free white Amerlc.t ms suddenly turn
ed loose in the field of National growth,
just awakened from slothful sleep, with all
their dormant Angiu-raxon enterprise
ounl pOhOu NY pCfOloys Seh hdeShO " Po"SA
full competitor. The Southern mind is
growing faster than these men can mag
inc. 1t is virgin soil from which
the old stumps are fast disappearing,
and in which new crop of ideas
finds favorable conditions. 1t has
had such deep and violent SUBJ
soil blowing in the upturning Of its
institutions. its wealth, and its poll
tical theories, as no other national mind
ever had, and it will produce crop of new
Ideas that is to astonish the world. The
| North bias taken the portrait of the idle
because ne could afford 80 lie so; arrogant
because the control OF slaves made him
| SO, and cOnceited-becauS9 Isolation from
| the world made him so-Southerner, and
| pasted it against the wall as his likeness.
! But it is DO more like the Southern man
| of to-day than the photographs of thirty
years ago are like the surviving originals.
J They are unable to take their eyes away
robust, vigorous, enterprising Man that
has taken his place, and that is fast
making his mark in the American world
of enterprise Of to-day.
What has this New Man TO show for
the enterprise with which we credit him :?
Let US see He has increased the value
of his property nine hundred millions of
dollars in six years. He has built eleven
Thousand miles Of railroad GU that prop
perty in six years, and spent Oh railroads,
old and new, five hundred millions Of dol
lars. He has doubled the number of his
cotton mills in five years, quadrupled his
Oil mills in live years. doubled his output
of pig lron in four years, and every month
is adding to his manufacturing enter
prises. He has applied his tremendous
energy TO the soil OF the cotton States this
year in greater force 5ban ever, and pro-
ducad eigh5 million b 4ie5 of cotton! And
he has done all We speak of by himself and
without che aid of foreign immigration,
which tae North gets in millions and of
which he gets none. A valuable citiZ8n
10 his alton is this New Man OF the
South, and not at all like the p,rSrai5 on
the wall. The Broadcloth has long ago given
away to the Shirt Sleeves and the Most
|
the day. This New Man intends to man
ufacture his own cotton, make his own pig
iron. and carry Oh his own improvements
hereafter. He proposes to be one OF the
large contributors to the wealth of the
American Nation. His progress for the
last twenty years, when we consider the
conditions under which it was achieved, ,
has, when compared with other portions Of
the Union, been that Of d giant to pigny
For twenty four years this whole national
government has Injured to the profit of the
North The National Government has
great western farm factory in the govern
ment lands, where it turns out farms at a
dollar an acre 80 attract Immigration to
the North and Northwest, and attract it
from the South. at the close Of the civil
! war the whole currency of the country was
| held north of the Ohio river. For four
years Of war the tremendous profits in
supplies had been poured into that section
of the Union, and since It's close all the
| government money has been spent there.
| The immense interest on the National
debt is paid there every year. Allow for
these advantages. and tnen compare the
| progress the New Man has made, and the
| North IS nowhere.
Take the New Man of the South as a
| man Of ideas! He has shown far greater
| capacity for letting go the past auo
| stretching out into the future THAI
! any other American, and he far
| ahead Of what tie Republican leaders esJi
mate him at. Take the conditions through
which he has passed in the last twenty
| years; mark the rough road the Republican
party, by its experimental statemanship
| has compelled him to travel, and his pro
| gress is simply wonderful Ii we are IT.
judge by the public utterances in both sec
tions IN the campaigns just closed. chs
| New Man is far ahead Of his Northern
competitor on his road away from the war
hatreds Of the past and the sectional
hatreds of the present. He has adapted
himself to the new situation with a patri-
otism that the Northern Republicans d.
not seem able to comprehend. He sup
! ports the government, pays his taxes, i'm
proves his land, has peaceful elections,
votes larger per cent. of his voting
strength than nine out of ten of the North
ern Republican States, and all to
gether is first class American citiz9n
both in practical progress and in politics.
Now what do. the Republican leaders
at the North propose to do about this
New Man ? They cannot get ri d
of him that is certain. He is il
the field to stay. aud he is just now dis