The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-26
THE VICTORIES OF PEACE.


THE VICTORIES OF PEACE.
Because they saw in the movement
throw of their peculiar institution" the
states of the South formed their Con-
federacy and fought to erect an inter
national boundary line between them
and the forces of abolitionism. The
dismal failure is now part of our his
tory. Long before that effort one OF
the same states with the sympathy of
others, attempted to nullify laws of
congress, procured by the manufac-
turers of New England and PennsyI-
Vania, to foster and protect their in
dustries, the unrequited cost Of which
was very largely borne by the South
ern states. Jackson squelched that
with his toast and Clay soothed it
with his compromise of 1892 What
cause Of irritation was left Walker re-
moved With the tariff of 1916, the best,
mcst eqUable this country has seen.
Bob" Toombs bombastic predic-
ton that he would call the roll of his
slaves at the base of Bunker Hill mon
ument, if the North resisted secession,
never reached nearer fulfillment than
the roll calls of Lees army at Gettys-
burg, and the notes of the bugles that
sounded his retreat from that sangui-
nary field were also the first notes in
the dirge of the Lost Cause, the last of
which died away in the calm that sue
ceeded to the din of war at Appomat-
tox. Then followed that dismal period
of destruction called reconstruction, -
when congres- tried to govern the
South, and the carpetbagger f1ourished,
and corruption and theft and jobbery
ran riot in the halls of states where
the newly enfranchised and their white
partners played the awful farce of
the government of intelligence by ig-
norance and cupidity. What the war
had not destroyed reconstruction fin
ished. The conquest of the South was
complete.
With the overthrow of carpetbag-
gism, the return of Intelligence to con-
troll in the governments, the real recon-
struction began. Then began an indus
trial campaign in which the glare of
furnace fires took the place of the
blaze Of cannon and RlUsketry, and
the swift-f1ying shuttles of the looms
replaced the deadly fight of the bull
let. There began an invasion of Penn
sylvania and later Of New England
that no forces those regions could mus
ter could resist. Pennsylvania iron
mongers, buttressed in their tariffs and
insolent in their power, had held the
iron and steel industries of the coun-
try under their tribute for years, but
when the iron mines of Tennessee and
Alabama, with their wonderful prox-
unity TO coal and limestone, were tap
ped by the new captains of industry
who had differed the army OF inva-
sion of the New South, Pennsylvania s
supremacy tottered, and her defenses
crumbled. Eighteen hundl ed and sew
enty-three was 10 the South what 1863
had been to the North. Pennsylvania S
arrogant mastery eliminated, and it's
downfall began. Southern pig began
to invade Pittsburg markets and I'M
Gersell them. It's advance was resist
less. It is q strange parallel that, as it
was a Minnesota regiment that check
ed and turned back the onslaught of
the South at Gettysburg. so it is Min
nesOta's iron ores that have come in
this industrial combat to save the day
for Pennsylvania.
Nor has New England been exempt
from this victory of peace won by the
Now South. The owners of the vast
cotton mills of Massachusetts and
New Hampshire announce that there
is no escape from the industrial condi-
ton forced by the development of
Southern spinning except through a
reduction of the wages paid their
working men and women. The compe-
tition of Southern mills, with cheaper
material and lower wage rate, makes
X utterly impossible for them to con-
tinue weaving cotton at present labor
cost. Tariffs prove useless. Economies
of production fail. 1t is either wages
lessened or mills closed. New England
cotton must make unconditional
surrender to the cotton of the South.
Toomhs doss not have to call the roll
of his slaves at Bunker Hill. New Eng
land capitulates to those slaves, now
frcemen, largely by the grace of New
England, making cotton in the fields
end spinning it in the mills of the
New South. Thus the whirligig of