The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-09-03
Southern Writer. writing Down the South.

4 prominent and not altogether credi-
table trait of very many Of the littera-
tours of the South at the present time
it must be confessed. is a habit of
writing down their own people for the
deectatiOn of Northern readers. The
thing is accomplished under the name
of IA study" To most Northern people
the South as it is and as it was forty
years ago. is an unknown country.
Northern people are impressed with the
marvellous fight the South made for
separate national existence in 1851 20.
With 600, 900 men in its armies, from
first to last, il met and for four years
successfully withstOOd. a vastly richer
and more populous country, welding an
armed force of 2.2l3.360 men. This
amazing fact creates naturally such an
interest in the home life. industries and
general characteristics of the Southern
people that any novel, story or magazine
article that pretends to depict Southern
society is eagerly read. There was some
thing great it is conceded, in a people
who exhibited the energy. talent cour-
age and patient persistence that marked
the history of the Confederacy. An ag-
ricultural people, shut off from the rest
of the world by blockading fleets, it i'm
pFOyiSed in the face of the enemy.
government. armies and the industries
required for their equipment and main
tenance. The superior qualities of such
leaders as Davis. Lee and Jackson chal-
lenged the admiration of the world dur
ing the civil war, and the moral hero
ism Of the Southern people afterwards,
during the dark days of ''reconstruc-
ton" excited the interest, not TO say
sympathy, of the more open-minded of
their opponents. The South is "a pro-
L. xrb
people feel a perennial interest. They
have been assured over and over that
there is no problem: that the South has
not now, and never had, any great traits
Of character; that its people are inert,
uneducated, improvident imbeciles-in
short. that there Is nothing 70 explain.
Yet they are not convinced, and they look
10 Southern literary men to reveal the
secret of the tremendous energy and abil
ity developed during the civil war. The
story of Troy has held the worlds at
tention for thirty centuries Ii is but
natural that the legend Of 1926
should interest the North for half cen
fury at least.
But so far the North has gotten lit
tie light upon the problem of the South
from Southern literati Most C. them
have failed to touch il at all. Many of
them, finding a market for writings that
turned upon the imperfections Of Ger.
tain small and obscure classes OF the
white people Of the South. have written
almost wholly about the eccentrcitics
of individuals of these unimportant
classes. The Georgia cracker" for ex-
ample, has been studied" ad nauseam.
He has been made TO appear TO be the ".
pical Georgian. The poor white" has
been put before the Northern reader as
being inferior to the poorer white of
the North. His oddities have been ex-
aggerated. and the idea is conveyed-un-
Intentionally. of course-that the"poor
white constitutes a sort of caste in the
South. aud that the ms jority of the peo-
pie belong to il. Some literary men have
been so perverted by the dollars they
get from Northern publishers for stories
depreeiating some class or other Of whit,
Southerners that they have become pos!
lively hostile to the whole South, and
go about the North lecturing upon the
alleged depravity OF the dominant ele
ment. Another set of Southern writers
have made their income by writing
up" the coiored man. setting forth bis