The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1892-07-29
EFFECTS OFA Fore ELL IN THE
SOUTH

The National Democratic platform
warns the people of the United States
against the policy of federal control of
elections, to which the Republican
party has committed itself, and in be-
half of which President Harrison is so
earnest champion. 1t is a measure
full of danger to the South and o:
menace to the North. If enacted into
a law the force bill, as it is rightly
called, would ruin the South indus
trially and undo all that has bee
done since the civil war to harmon
the once divided sections of our e
mon country. Mr.. Richard ii. Ed
Inonds, late editor of the Nahtl,tGtug-
ers' Record of Baltimore. ina compact
:. ticle in the Auous rum, shows
.."w rapid the prog. es of the South
has been under the stimulus of out
side capital and changed social rela-
tions. Mr. Edmunds states that since
1881, the corn crop of the South has
increased rs per cent, as against II
per cent. increase in the rest of the
country the cotton crop has increased
from five and a half million to nine
million bales-an increase in value,
even with the present low price, of
two hundred millions of dollars in
1891, there were nearly $4,000 miles OF
railroad in the South, against less
than "a 900 in 1SS1-a gain of 81 per
cent, as against gain of Sc per cent.
in the rest of the country. The pas
senger traffic of the Southern roads in
creased during the same period 3G9per
cent. us against an increase in the rest
of the country of only 1853 per cent.
In pig iron manufacture the South's
output jumped from 451 900 tons in
1881 to /, 914, 900 in 1991-a gain of 1923
per cent. as against a gain for the rest
of the country of 10 per cent; in other
words in 1881, the North and West
made more than nine times as much
iron as the South, in 1891 they made
made less than four times as much.
The increase in the number of mill
operatives in the South was 135 per
cent, as against an increase in New
England of II per cent. And SO in
every line of productive activity the
marvellous rapidly of increase is ex-
planned, showing that III assessed val
nations the property of the South has
III this period very nearly doubled,
and increased from $1S7 per capita to
$2271-a record that is probably with
out parallel in the whole history of
substantial industrial growth. And
i'll spite of the temporary depression
caused by an production OF cot
ton, the increase goes on.
Would it continue if a Force Bill
were to go into operation
This question is answered in the
same number of The Forum by Mr..
lloke Smith, of Atlanta, Ga. The
negro is the laborer of the South. He
has made the cotton he has built the
railroads. Everything depends on
the quiet and industry of the negro.
And the negro has done his work with
effect, precisely in proportion to the
absence of friction between the races
lie made little or no progress, and the
country made little or no progress,
during the days of Reconstruction. A
Force Bill would bring back substan-
TALLY the same state of affairs as ex-
listed during the Reconstruction days :;
and Southern industrial development
would be checked and thrown back.
So Mr.. Smith, himself q conservative
and energetic representative of young
er generation of successful Southern
men, argues with point and force.