Asheville daily citizen. [volume] (Asheville, N.C.) 1890-1900, 1890-04-08
PLUCK AND HOPEFUL.
NESS.

Neoo.
We are in receipt of a letter from old
correspondents Of Louisville, KY, c. L.
Francke & Co., written few days after
the late disastrous tornado, by which
they we're sufferers In common with SO
many engaged in the tobacco business,
which illustrates the indomitable pluck
of the American people. We make few
extracts: "A few hours after the cyclone
had passed, a full force OF men were work
ing to clear the middle OF the streets
of the immense body of debris, and
hforc s a. M. the street cars were
going again as usual. On Monday the
31st-the tornado was ON the night OF
the 27th-all public tobacco warehouses
hut two are doing business. The State
was uninjured, the Planters n bad wreck,
selling ut anoth.r b use, the Crescent,
down to tie gr',und. dong the same, the
Central. with part or one.half standing,
under temporary root, selling at the
old stand, the Enterprise, two walls
partly down. root blown off, but already
replaced, selling as usual" and so on
with all the other houses, with the excep-
ton of the New Farmers, with its large
salesroom uninjured. Ourcorrespondents
add that "in week everything will work
more smoothly, and in n few months we
shall have finer houses than we have had
before"
This is the characteristic of the Amer
can people everywhere. No disaster
daunts them; no destruction, however
comprehensive, extinguishes their ener
gies, whether it come by fire or food
tempest or pestilence. The ashes of a tirt
are not cold before the work of recon
struction begins; the floods have not sub
sided before preparation for renovation
is made. When all property seems tc
have been swept away, all capital oblit
Grated, what has been lost seems only tt
have been the seed buried in the grount
Tor new and more bountitul crop o
prosperity. The fires OF Chicago, OF Bos
Ton, of Lynn. Of Seattle, are almost for
gotten history, the disaster at Johns
town only recalled tor its mourntul trag
cdies, and the Louisville tornado Seems
to have acted only as fresh stimulus t.
aroused energies. At the present tim
we see stretched along the course of tn
lower waters OF the Mississippi, wilder
ness of waters, towns, houses. planta
tions submerged, and men and animals
apparently helpless and hopeless, clingin,
to places OF refuge or safety protrudini
from the floods, wreck and ruin and tn
rushing desolation around, who struggl
with the water. rari nantes in gurgif
vasto; but so far from despondency
waiting with impatient expectation TO
the subsistence OF the food, eager an
ready again to renew the hard tough
battle with fortune.
And so it is everywhcrc IN this tountr,
whether it bc Oh the Atlantic or the =;
, citc, in the North or at the South. IN
the most conspicuous example Is tn
nished by the latter. Here desolation
its most universal torn ovcrsprcad Il
. whole country. The flower OF its me
rerished in the war, the foundation stot
of its system of labor was ulrootediro'
the ground, its property was almost o.
liberated, its financial system plunged in'
irretricvablc ruin. its credit obliterated, 4
means of recuIeration apparently ann'f
lated. it's work animals killed or TAKE
y away, its OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
to picccs or worn out with hard usaI
= to which was added the decay, alno
ruin, of it's railroads. Despair, apath
starvation, these were the condition
y associated with oppressive and unnd
ural political relations between the v
i tor and the subjuga,ed, that twcnty-h
years ago presented themselves to
I Southern people.
4, Things have changed now, and in I
splcndid material and moral attitude
4. the South it IL hard to realize that
y tempest OF war had ever swept over
=, South, and that il had ever been crush
" under the heel Of the conqueror.
-, American pluck, energy and hope'u'n'
Y have wrought the change.