The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-05-27

ton the 'blacll belt" and for long
time it, with the exception of a few To-
calitics, lay suffering under the incu-
bus of it's dense negro populat ton.
Finally the white people got control
and it began to get up again. have
oftcncr than once travelled nearly Il
hundred miles on the railroad through
this section. and, outside of the towns.
not seen n single farm animal; this is
region which was once filled with
wcll-stocltcd plantations owned by
wcll-to-do people. There arc, of course,
in this belt localities whore there are
still good plantations. For instance.
along the Stanton and the Dan lie
some of the best farms in the state
On the Staunton is what think the
most beautiful country place in the
south, and the production OF yellow
tobacco has brought up another por-
ton of this section. But the country
generally, in consequence of new con
ditiOnS, has undergone an immeasur-
able change.
The number of men in this part of
the state who were forced into bank
ruptcy by the war and the conditions
which followed is almost indcscriba-
bic. Prior to the war it was custom
AIRY for gentlemen who were neigh
bors TO go security on each others
bonds, and aftcrward it was not I'M
usual to find whole neighborhoods
in the bankrupt courts. Indeed, be-
licvc that the outside world has never
taken in the complete and almost uni
vcrsal bankruptcy of the south by the
war and its consequences. 1t was not
merely that the property values were
destroyed, but that everything upon
which property values are based, and
by which they can be created. was
destroyed or rendered unavaila bic.
1t is difficult accurately to. conceive of
region in which nearly the entire
personal property has been wiped out;
the lands left unworked and useless:
the whole system of labor suddenly
changed; the entire former laboring
population thrown into n state of nm
certainty and partial hostility to the
land owners, their former employers;
the whole governmental system rcvo-
lutionizcd; the former wealthy classes
left burdcncd with debt and with
denly swept away; with the fatigue
them. and with an unknown future be-
fore them
1t is difficult to conceive of this as
applied To any considerable section of
country: but when it applies to a
vast territory embracing many states
and population numbering many
millions, the mind is incapable OF talk
ing in the whole fact. Such was the
condition at the south. A whole peo-
pie absolutely FRUSTRATED had to pick
itself up, reform itself, adapt itself to
new conditions, catch up with the gen
cral progress Of the world, and make
for itself anew its place in the column
of advance.
How it has succeeded all know: but
what il has endured and how it has
strivcn have been known only to itself
Those who fell in battle have had their
names inscribed on granite and bronze
Women have wcpt over them and poets
have sung of them, but those who
went down in the long and bitter
struggle afterwards are on no roster
and have no monuments. 1t is their
glory that they asked nothing and
went down without mnrmur. The
poverty and hardship which have been
endured at the south since the war are
something Of which the outer world
has had no idea.
That the results of the war have been
! advantageous to the non-slave holding
class, and, in the main. to the new gen
Grafton of the former wealthy class, no
thoughtful person of reasonably broad
views can question; but the older gen
Grafton OF the latter class has suffered
more than tho world will ever know.
II is not difficult to find whole neigh
borhoods, indeed whole sections, in