The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-12-03

guests of honor to the exposition
grounds where they took part in an
appropriate program Of exercises.
In the afternoon all Charleston OBJ
served the day as a holiday and the
city was handsomely decorated. The
weather was beautiful. After the par
ade had been reviewed at the eXposi-
ton grounds, the guests of the day
assembled in the auditorium where the
ceremonies took place. The invocation
was delivered by the venerable Chas
Vedder, and Capt. w. A. Wagner
president of the Exposition Company,
and Gov McSweeney spoke words of
welcome.
United States Senator Chauncey M.
Depew was introduced by Major ].
Adler Smith He said;
"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentle
men:
This exhibition is the triumph of
revolution and evolution. There has
been no period since the Colony of
South Carolina adopted the theoretical
but impracticable charter prepared by
the great philosopher, John Locke, in
1914, down to the Treaty of Paris with
Spain in 1899 when this happily con-
ceived enterprise was possible until
now. 1t is an omen of future devel-
opment and prosperity for Charleston
that the moment it's citizens saw the
time had come they entered upon this
benefcent work with patriotism, cour-
age and confidence. 1t required nearly
a century and a half of struggle and
preparation before there existed an in
dustrial and manufacturing South in
the United States, and Spanish islands
in the Caribbean Sea free and indepen-
dent to meet upon the common ground
of united welfare and reciprocal bene-
fits.
Before the Civil War the South
was purely agricultural and had none
of that varied production necessary to
the expanding interchanges of COM
merce, but now she is rapidly develop
ing her unequalled natural resources
and entering with Vigor and success
the field of domestic and foreign com
petition. The founders of the republic
failed to make clear in their ConStitu-
ton the fundamental principles of our
government and left for posterity the
solution of the crucial problems of our
national existence. Until these ques-
tons were settled the United States
had no peace within it's borders and no
place or power IN the family Of ma
tions. Environment and industries
created the hostile schools of central
ization and state sovereignty, which,
after 70 years of high debate, submit
ted their differences to the arbitrament
of arms.
THE Southern States in 1866 were
facing a series of disasters and calami-
ties unparalleled in modern times.
Their wealth was destroyed, their
working capital lost, their farms dew
astated, their cities and villages in
ruins, and they were without manufac-
lures or industries. The problem Of
adjusting to their political, social and
economic conditions a suddenly eman-
cipated slave population of nearly
equal numbers, which had been grant
ed every civil right, including suffrage,
demanded immediate attention. The
unconquerable and invincible grit and
pluck of the American were never more
splendidly illustrated. Orderly govern
ment has been established, education
fostered, agriculture revived, railroads
constructed, mines opened, new indus
tries builded and the riches and re-
sources of the land brought out. LHe
farm wealth has grown from nominal
to real value of three thousand mill
lions of dollars In the place of no
manufacturing industries, a thousand
millions Of dollars have built and
equipped mills, factories and furnaces,
whose annual output is one thousand
five hundred millions, and rapidly in
creasing. The New South, regenerat-
ed and disenthralled. contributed in
1900 to the wealth and prosperity of
our country two thousand five hundred
millions of tons of iron, forty million
tons of coal, seven hundred and thirty
six million bushels of grain, and eleven
million two hundred and seventy-four
thousand bales of cotton.
Reduction of cost and superiority of
workmanship are the factors of mod
ern competition. Building the cotton
mill beside the cotton fields, and the
furnace and steel factories by the ore
and coal are redistributing industrial
centers. Upon these lines, and by the
application of these principles, the
South, from no place in 1866, has come
to the front in the production of iron
and coal, and while New England and
the Western States have practically
reached the profitable limit and are
standing still in the expansion of the
manufacture Of cotton goods, there has