The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-06-17
DR.. AlDERMAN'S SPEECH
ONE OF THE DISTINCTIVE FEA-
TIyRES OF THE SESSION.
SOUTHERN EXPANSION TIE TOPIC
The Old Type Of Southern Leader Gone and
Now his Place Must be Supplied.
Many Visitors Still
Arriving

Morehead City, n. c., June 16.-(Spe-
cial.)-The Teachers Assembly has
elected the following officers for the
ensuing year:
President. ID. Matt Thompson,
of Statesville: First VicePresident, j.
Allen Holt of Oakridge Other vice
presidents. +. +. Hodgood. j. \.
.Joyner. Miss Mary Arlington, Il. T.
Harrison, J. H. Bridges, j. c. Horner,
W.D. Weeks. J. b. Carlyle.
PRES. ALDERMAN'S ADDRESS.
The address by Prof. Edwin A. Al
derman, President of the State Univer-
sity, which was delivered tonight, was
one of the distinctive features of the
session of the assembly. Southern
Expansion was the subject of the
scholarly and very able address, which
has received the highest commentator
from all who heard it. The sociological
conditions OF the South during the past
two generations and those of the f,l-
ture were discussed by the speaker. No
outline of the address us worthy of the
speakers effort President Alderman
said in part:
Il shall dwell upon the silent revOill-
ton, unguided by intelligent foresight,
and going forward under the stern pres
sure of poverty, which in a generation
has transformed the South from an agri-
cultural state of picturesque and enllght-
ened mediaevalism to an industrial dem
ocracy of free labor, free schools and
restless masses, fretted and vexed by all
the NOV ements to which science and in
vention have given birth and by some
nanuliar r1rob11srnS af r. hrapdinO
The South has found that civilization is
an economic as we'll as an ethical fact.
and that it expresses itself in terms OF
dollars and cents as well as in terms of
impulses and ideas and theories. We
have had to learn about labor and
finance and pallperism and kindred
themes. We have learned our lesson
we'd and quickly. like the English brood
that we are. Wealth is coming to us.
One ween growth in industrial enter
prises today exceeds one years growth
in 1860. An ancient. forceful and unique
civilization, bred into the bone of the
people. is going down before the trelnen-
dous influences of invention and modern
asm: and whether there shall issue some
thing really better than the old, blending
the loneliness and charm of the old with
the yigor and freedom of the new is the
sublime task for this generation of
.>outhern manhood.
1--WE have cause to be thankful to God
for one tnlng The raw material for cit
izealship anu growth exists for this so
cial struggle in the South, whether it
issues out of the old family stocks, so
bered and broadened by poverty and for
titude. or whether it issues from the
ranks of the plain people, who fought our
battles for us, who inherit the English
CONSCIOUSNESS, whose fathers earned lib
erty as a reward of sacrifice in a hundred
battles, here behind the cotton mills. yon-
der on the fiery crest of Kings Noun
tains. or in the swift marches along the
valleys of the Dan.
.~rhe cid type OF leader mas gone by
forever, like lost type in nature, and
the leader-ridden South of the past is
1eaderless now. | hear no commanding
voice in the Southern debates. whether in
lie halls of Congress or in Legislative
chambers, or in the pulpit, or at the bar.
or in the wide field Of journalism. There
are many clever men, but no command
ing, compelling men; and yet, | am no
pessimist. The coming leader has a
harder task than the leader of the olfeIl
time, and there must needs be time to
prepare him. His age is the least gov
eriiable since the revival of learning
He can no longer be leader Of a multi
tude, but rather one of Il multitude of
-e,;iders. 4Ae can no longer simply incar-
nate the dumb, dull aspirations of the
people and be a glorified figure as Clay
or Jackson or Vance to them. He mast
somehow contrive to furnish them with
ideas, help them to grow
1.-The high-minded y9Ing Southern man
Of the last two decades, desiring to serve
the State, found himself confronted with
the inevitable questions: the negro. the
tariff and the currency. The greatest OF
these is the negro. He is always to be
reckoned with. He has called every con
stltutional convention lin North Carolina
Dor hundred years. Sometimes we
thlnh that we have exercised that Lrob-
lem, as the partisans and sentimentalists
Oh the reconstruction period fantied they
mad done, but generally We find that we
nave just opened new phase of it, and
aus maj solution remains, the most por-
tehtous menace of the age. The South
efh man task has been not only to bear
me whlte mans burden in the English
sense, Dut to preserve the nhite mans |
inheritance of supremacy. The leaden
curse OF negro suffrage thrust 1Inm rs in |
our weakness, orr utter exhaustion of |
prain ana nerve by passion and folly. |
mas demanded crude and stern manaoe-
ment. Ardent. high-spirited young men
cultured in mind and conscience. abla f.
comprehend and execute great mes,ions
Of public policy have been comnelled in.
stead to stand at the ballot-box and
beat back again and again a blac, tide |
of insolent ignorance, as the Englisp, |
Squires beat back the mad Deryishers ~
Cmdurman.
Political self-preservaton has forced |
the Hover of our youth into a school
of political methods. wherein they |
learned to see without blush the suf
frage violated and reduced to neces-
sary war Of purchases and tactics and
intimidations, and wherein the sacred