The Portland daily press., 1891-10-07
CAVALIER AND PURITAN
me Bold Southron Drops His coiors
to His Stern Northern Brother.

Oub VI LQ6 CaIuludl
can character" writes the edltor VI Tue
Taxas Iconocldst, who appears 70 nave
| fought on the losing side IN the war Oh the
| rebellion. sis propensity TO Drag. brother
| .Ionatban's egotism long since passed into a
proyerb. In no section OF this land OF the
alleged free and home of the ism does the
blowhard blow longer and louder and with
less excuse than in the South. We are the
people. the nonpareil; there are none like
unto us beneath the sun! From the empv-
rean we look down upon common hum nitv.
talk turgid, and swell up with the vain glory
OF young turkey cock with his first tail
feathers!
perhaps 1t were we'll. for us to drop the
King Cambyses vein long enough to INQUIRE
what we ever did that entities us to assume
airs OF superiority? Nothing in Gods great
world absolutely nothing. We are SO far in
the rear OF civilization that we foolishlv
imagine ourselves to be In the van, with the
whole world behind us, struggling Desperate
" to catch upl We speak sneeringly of the
ankees,' and yet the same despised Yam
KEGS are our guardians and tutors. even onr
protectors. Without them we were but a
Iost cali running ioolishly about in circles
led us to the SHAMELESS
Take the South proper. south of the 18th
paraliel-VirRinia and Kentucky, Tennes-
see and North Carolina, are Southern only
IN name-and how will 1t compare with
New England? Here we have a yeritable
Eden, broad and fertile savannahs, a land
OF perennial summer, the richest In nat
nral resources in the Western world. New
England is cold and sterile land, where
nature is ever at fierce war with man. Yet
New England was developed century ago.
Her rocky hillsides were made to blossom
ike the Vale OF Tempe; her mountains were
ransackedl Tor ore; her forests transformed
into stately. ships or still more Imposing
buildings: the hum of the factory rose in
| city and hamlet. and the rich commerce of a
world rolled in mighty waves over her
| wharves. Now we are stretching out eur
hands impl0ringly to that storm-cursed,
trost-girt land, praying that she will send
utilize our vast forests, build our railways,
| and teach our children the magic art of in
dustry; that they will do for us what we have
been too indolent or too inapt to do for our
selves, We look to the Yankee for every
thing; for our machinery, our very house.
hold utensils, our capital, our books, our
higher education flor brains to plan and
skill TO direct our great enterprises.
while New England has been making
reapers and sewing machines. spinning
Jennies and telegraphs, we have been max
| ing foolish stump speeches and moonlight
whiskey. While New. England has been
breeding statemen. scientists. and poets, we
John politicians! We cannot boast half
dozen men born south of the thirty-fifth
| parallel in the South! proper whom histor-
ians a century hence will consider worthy
| OF dozen lines. We have not produced
| dozen books worth burning; liz the field of
| Invention we have done little more than the
red Indians who so long lurked in our
forests.
are at least Incompatible fghtersl Behold
the recent civil war and how we did amaze
the world! Amaze it we certainly did, but
not In the manner we would like our chill
dren to believe. Whenever the civil war
| Is mentioned the South mounts to the top
rail of the fence. flaps its wings, and crows
lustily-for an unprejudiced critic to dis
| cover. 1t is now more than a quarter Of
\ century since Lees surrender; high time
surely that the foolish falsehood that for
| four years the South commended agalst FIVE
fold odds was relegated to desuetude in
| stead of being ostentatiously paraded by
able editors and aspiring Ciceros en- all oc-
| casions,
"Such fables but make us the laughing
stock of the world; cause our Northern
brethren to feel like thrashing us again in
stead OF helping to develop our country. 1t
Is fact patent to all the world, a fact that
no honest man any
bone OF the Southern Confederacy was
broken, that the cause was hopelessly and
irretrievablylost in1863 when theConfederate
armies aggregated between600, 900 and700, 900
fighting men-almost. IL not altogether,
equal In point of numbers to the Federal
forces. 1t was In 1868 that Vicksburg fell,
that Grant tore the Confederacy In twain,
that Lees magnificent army was rolled back
wreck from Gettysburg. With those re-
couraged and thenceforth gave to the new
government but half-hearted support.
| Naturally the Confederate armies rapidly
dwindled whilethe Federal Government con-
tinued to push men tothe front to hold the
conquered territory and overrawe the peo-
| pie. as well as to speedily crush the deci-
mated legions Of Lee and Johnston and end
the war. Practically 1t was man to man in
1868 when the Confederacy received its
| death blow. Furthermore. we were acting
t-ehiafag On the dAfensiue---W e-spass-ia.-es
own mountain passes. behind our own mag
nifcent Notifications. 1t was the busi-
ness Of the Yankees to dislodge US. How in
the DEVILS name they managed to accomplish
it matters not; they did 1t. Really the Won
der, If wonder there be, is not that we held
out so long, but that those despised Yankees
boosted" US SO quickly, and then magnani.
mously turned us loose to give to the world
our own explanation Of how it happened.
"These may be unsavory truths to some of
| the chanticleering swashbucklers and fun
| ing Falstatfs, but truths just the same obvi-
| GUS to all the world. Southern chivalry
rolled up against Northern valor and got the
| worst of it. That is the whole story. 1t was
| not that the former lacked courage. No
| drawer men than those who followed the
stars and bars ever won the mural crown
| But they were opposed to men equally fear
| less, OF superior physical strength, Injured to
| toll and hardship. and who knew how to use
| tools, to bridge rivers, make roads over the
mountains, and crumble bulwark and bastion
into dust. 1t was a contest of lower with
| higher civilization. and the former had to
down. The naughty but indolent Shareholder
and possum-hunting poor white struggled
desperately but vainly against men whose
heads and hands were educated In the exact
Ing school OF Northern industry. The men
who had outstripped us In the field Of labor
fairly 0utfought us ON the field of war.
sit were we'll for us now to cease our fool
| ish Boosting and con well the stern lessons
taught at the lannon's mouth. The first and
Dor, by earnest endeavor, can people be-
come truly great. The war swept away the
curse that was our weakness, negro slavery.
1t broke In upon our old execlusiveness,
shattered the foolish caste that held us In
iron thrall; made labor respectable and pre-
gress possible. 1t brought energetic nothern
people among us to teach us that the way to
greatness lies through the w0rkh0p; to
incite us to shake off our Incidence and en-
ter the race for preferment. Grants red
| thr0ated bitteries did more than break the
shackles from the wrists Of the blacks. They
tore the cursed letters of caste and custom
from the minds Of the ,whites-.a nobler
emancipation! They set the heart OF
Southern chivalry beating with truer, a
J stronger life. In the mad tempest of battle
: the new South was born. The crash OF arms
were the groans of maternity; the deluge Of
blood her baptismal rite. From the ashes OF
desolate homes and runined cities she spraDe
ph@nix-like, and Is now mounting the empy,
rean with strong and steady wing. The
emancipation proclamation was bow oil
promise that never again while the world
stands and the heavens endure will North
and South meet In battle shock: that the
greatness of the one shall become the proud
heritage of the other that the grandest sec
tion Of the American Union shall yet, with
Gods blessing, produce the greatest people
that ever adorned the earth.
"The war is long past; we fought and lost.
Our triumphant foe extended to us abrother' 8
hand, accorded US the honor due brave and
spirited people. That we should suffer re-
construction.pains was to have been expected.
That they were unnecessarily severe was
due chiefly to the greed of clique Of poll
ticians; partly also to the fact that the North
misunderstood us and our black wards, even
as we persist In misunderstanding the Yam
| kee.' But no gibbet rose In that storm-sWept