The commonwealth., 1898-02-03
LET Us ALONE, PLEASE.
THE SOUTH CAN STAND NOW.
No More About Slaves.

negro slaves. New England is too
cold for the negro blood. New Eng
land sold her slaves to the southern
people, who lived in a climate that the
negro thrlved in. Then the New Eng
land and northern folks said it was
wicked and naughty to own slaves,
anyhow, and that the southern folks
must abolish slavery. The South
kicked against abollshlng her property,
much of which she had bought from
the good Puritan people of the far
Northeast. The two sections quarrel
ed and scrapped, aud the South, along
about the nlnety-ninth found, was
pushed to the ropes, fell down, and
was put to sleep, with no more slaves
and no money in their place.
When she was rubbed down and
got her eyes open and had her bruises
plastered, the South quit farming with
negroes and went to making cotton
fabrics With white labor Now the
New England folks had been doing the
cotton cloth making before and during
the time that they were raising the
racket fer abolition. The southern
negro slaves raised the raw cotton on
| white folks plantations, it was sent
to New England mills, made into cloth
and shipped back for both the white
| folks and the black folks to wear But
| when the South found her negroes free
her houses burned, and her plantations
devastated, she decided to diversity
her long-contlnued occupation of agri-
culture. She grew cotton at her doors,
she had water power to turn mill
wheels, she had contented Anglo
Saxon breed of white operatives, SO she
dotted her recent backgrounds with
mills, and went actively and earnestly
into cotton manufacture, and she sue
ceeded beyond her expectations. She
discovered that she could successfully
compete with the New England folks,
who are tar away from the mills, and
have discontented, restless, foreig1 i'm
migrants or their descendants for la
borers.
Now, in the course of some thity-
three years, the New England people
find themselves hard pressed by the
southern cotton-mills. They find that
southern goods undersell their own
goods, of similar grade. They come
down to see us, we show them our
mills, and how we run things, and they
go back home, say 1t is our long hours
and non-striklng working people that
give us the cinch, and forthwith reduce
the wages of their hands 10 per cent.
The southern folks have no kick to
make about this. But when New
England congressman tries to secure
congressional regulation of our south
ern working hours, we do kick. New
England, led by Massachusetts, is re-
sponsible more than any other section
of the north, perhaps, tor weaving us
from our peaceful, listless, easy-golng
farming life, on our Understanding,
sun-kissed acres of cotton and corn, and
impeIling us to hustle and get hump
on us, to rance to the music OF the
spindle and to double quick into pros
perity to the rattle of the shuttle. Let
New England move her mills down
among us. We will welcome her. But
she must not intermeddle. The Ashe-
vile Gazette hits it off right when it
says:
Now if some statesman whose patrol t.
ism covers this whole country like
blanket mortgage, will introduce bill
In Congress to do away with the "mon-
opoly" of a temperate climate in the
South. which works the disadvantage
of New England, the hope may be enter
talned of eradicating the discriminat-
ing conditions "that are now cramplng
our manufacturing industries" Con-
gresham Loverlng's bill introduced In
the House to place hours of labor under
national regulation, in order to do away
| with determinations In favor of the
South, ls altogether too conservative.
1t is merely temporizing with con-
/ aifinns that ahOnld ho viOlent1v over