The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-12-29
Editorial Visit.

Editor Langston Of the Anderson 1ntelli.
gencer dfned with the Press and Banner on
Christmas Day, and right glad we were to en-
tertain the most successful newspaper man
in South Carolina. The Intelligencer's circu-
lation stands at the head OF the list OF South
Carolina's weekly newspapers, and it does
not stand there without labor, sagacity and
fair dealing
While editor Lapgston was In town we
asked him If Anderson had any distinguished
dead, upon whose glory and fame the orators
might forever speak with absorbing interest
to the delight of listening audiences.
He said that Anderson was not afflicted In
that way. The city had no great celebrities
of whom orators might speak and poets sing.
The enterprise and thrift OF an active ener-
getic city, he said, furnished object lessons
enough for all the orators that ever came TO
Anderson, and the mention of those object
lessons was all that the people of the city Of
his nativity had to depend upon for their
glory and their fame.
The result OF having no ancestry has
brought thrift and riches to Anderson. In
that city the people have been actively at
work carving out name and fortune for
themselves while our people were still wear
ing mourning and delivering funeral orations
The fact is. our people have been given to
listening to funeral orations and singing
requiems over our glorious dead.
II II be said that no race OF people can be
great without history, let the reader trace
the genealogy Of our own great men. In very
few instances have our great men had great
grandfather, and seldom have our great men
had great grand children.
Reasoning from cause to effect: Cities,
towns and communities, are very much like
individuals. If they have been the home Of
great men. or the abiding place of social stars
1t takes a generation for that city, town or
community to recover.
Take Atlanta, for instance. It had no
ancestry. 1t went to work after the war, and
a great active bustling oity, with its myriad
Of Industries, has grown up since Sherman
razed the town.
Compare Chattanooga, Tenn, with Augusta,
Ga.
Compare Greenyille, Spartanburg, and
gress and thrift of grand old Charleston, with
her splendid manners, and her proud his
tory.
We have just spoken Of Anderson. That
city is full Of pluck and enterprise.
Although a much younger town or city
than Abbeville, that place has forged ahead
while we have stood weeping around the
grave Of Calhoun.
For forty years the population Of this town
did not percepibly increase.
But within the last seven years we have
thrown off our weeping and mourning for
our glorious dead, and our people have gone
to work with an energy and determination
which will be rewarded by bringing success
to a town which has so long lain dormant.
But strangers and orators still regale as
with their same old speeches. 1t seems that
every one of them discovers by some means
reminded Of 1t in such manner as to be ex.
cessiyely pleasing to those who live on that
sort of food.
These orators have not yet discovered that
there are today in Abbeville, living men and
women. who are factors in all that contri
butte to the moral, and intellectual we'll
being Of the people.
They have never seen our new streets our
long lines OF new houses have not come un-
der their notice; our magnificent temples
which were erected and dedicated to the wor-
ship OF the Lord our God have never come
within their vision; our splendid school
house, which has not It's superior
in South Carolina. is not worthy of notice; {;
our fine schools; our excellent stores; our
superior banking facilities; our first class oil
mill and the best cotton mill in upper South
Carolina. All these are unworthy OF notice,
and peoples best endeavors are overlooked
that we may howl q little more over the grave
OF Calhoun.
Our orators seem to think that all these
commendable enterprises OF which the town
should be proud, are as nothing. as long as
We can sit around the grave Of Calhoun, and
dream Of departed greatness.