Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-05-13

YORKVILLE,
We have all of their love of ease, their ex-
travagant habits, their dislike Of work, but
their mental activity, their sturdy self-reli-
ance and public spirit are gone. The four
years of the war was one long agony. Its
close was relief, though we were defeated,
and with our civilization overthroWn, socie-
ty all disrupted, every man, like wound.
ed animal, crept apart and applied himself
to his personal affairs. We felt we had
no country, and with liberty gone the feel
ing became universal, "let we live while we
are here and let the morrow take care of it,
SELF" Speculation ran riot, and the seeds
were then soWn which are bringing forth
such bitter fruit to day. The long night Of
Radical and negro domination followed
We paid taxes, and that was our only pub
lie duty. Our voting was farce, and we
knew it. There is phrase very common
of late, first used by President Cleveland in
one of his messages, "innocuOus desuetude, u
meaning harmless disuse. But the disuse
of our faculties as citizens, the getting out
of the habit of attending to our public af:
fairs, the loss of public spirit, the growth OF
selfshness these are the fruits of those fif-
teen years of war, of our cruel bondage
afterward under Grant. This disuse has
been most harmful and anything but 'innoc-
uous."
aye victis," (woe to the vanquished,) was
the old Roman rule, and under the yoke
those who were conquered were forced to 60.
We, too, have been under the yoke, and
more CALLING slavery was never endured by
any people. Our bodies were free, but our
minds became benumbed, deadened. The
disuse of citizenship made us unfit to be
citizens, and we farmers by reason of our
volition, have suffered more than all others
because of this fatal lethargy. The bird
cage has been open ten years-Wrenched
apart in '76-but we continue to stay in it,
crying with the startling, "We can't get
out, we can't get out" This mental slave
ry is more hopeless than merely physical
bondage, and unless we throw off these
shackles of the mind and become free in
truth as we'll as in name there is no hope for
US. The work done will 20 on, the ''insane
system of farming" will continue, the old
South, which now stalks abroad like a
ghost in its shroud, will be finally laid
away in its grave, and the "NeW South" be
bern. But when that time comes half our
lands will be owned by aliens and the sons
of many old Shareholders will have sunk to
the level of their former servants. 'The
survival of the fittest" will be eXemplifed,
and those who, shaving eyes will not see,
having ears will not hear" must sink out
of sight and become heWers of wood and
drawers of water for capitalists and mer-
chants. Until the people are aroused and
awakened to the danger, until they are
made to fully understand the real condition
of affairs and the inevitable result of the
present way of managing ones farm, there
can be no hope of reform and no change
for the better. Thomas Carlyle says, "The
only fatal and utterly hopeless man is he
who cannot or will not Think" Our urpresent
condition is attributable solely to lack OF
thought. Our future depends on whether
we shall awake from our long sleep and 60
to thinking, whether we shall inaugurate
such changes and devise such agencies as
will not only induce but assist the people to
analyze their methods and seek to reform
them. We must reform the farmers before
we can hope to reform the farming. Above
all there must be more brain-work, more
mind-p phosphate used in our agriculture be-
fore we can hope for any great change.
This almost spontaneous uprising Of the
people is proof enough that at last they are
beginning to awake; they realize their dan
ger and see the precipice towards which
we are fastening. l do not claim any credit
for but one thing. The fire was every
where, smouldering and ready to burst out.
l have only famed Into flame and brought
the dissatisfaction which existed to head.
The agitation which had for its object pri-
marily the establishment of a farmers COL
lege and forcing recognition of our rights
and needs in an educational point of view
has widened and broadened into grand
reform movement, looking to general
overhauling of the entire Government and
a thorough washing of dirty linen wherever
found. If we do our work in conservative
spirit, seeking to do justice to every class
and interest while looking particularly af-
ter our own, instead of injuring the DEM
ocratic party, we will, think, by such ac-
ton purity and save it from disruption and
possible defeat.
BY the way, will, just to relieve some
peoples minds, give you the latest news from
that interesting old lady, the Democratic
party whose exact habitatiOn no one knows.
She is supposed to dwell somewhere near
here, and during the ten years since '76,
when purified by suffering and long fasting,
she was put in charge Of our affairs, they say
she has grown quite corpulent, indeed
nearly as fat as my distinguished friend
Pharoah. She has become little souchy
in her dress, and doesn't watch after
her affairs with that close attention with
which she was wont. They say She has
also been beguiled into showing favor
itism to some of her children, and has
had one set pulling at her teats so long that
they are become lusty and arrogant. They
resent every criticism of their actions, and
rudely shove aside any of their brothers
who approach the old woman. In fact,
they and their friends, the lawyers, poll
ticians and a few editors, seem to think
they are the Democratic party, and neither
their mother or her other children have any
rights either of speech or action. These
favorites, some of whom were very silent
and very lukewarm in '76 have been
badly demoralized of late, and they have
kept the old woman in a great pother,
running to her with this tale and that OF
insurrection among the other children.