The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-12-17
GROWTH OF THE SOUTH.

GROWTH OF THE SOUTH. From the New York Sun.
 pE trust that none of our friends
 MAI have failed to read or will fail KE to read the accurate, interesting and instructive articles now appearing in the Sunday Sun telling the story of the marvellous growth and development of our southern cities, and, In fact, Of the whole southern country It has be- come a trite saying that the south of today is a new south and that the old south, ruined by the war has well-nigh disappeared Few people, nevertheless, really understand how completely this is so. The impressions on the subject are apt to be those gained from hur- ried trip in tho fashionable season to Palm Beach and St. Augustine; these are that tho south has become great win- ter resort, abounding in magnificent hotels that are the prldo of the whole country and the wondering despair of foreigners MT. Flagers superb invest ments In Florida have done a great deal for that state and the entire south, no
 doubt; but they arc really only small
 part, even if they may be the showiest
 particular of tho wondrous change, the
 deep and abiding prosperity that has l dawned upon tho southern country. How
 great all this Is The Sun is detailing each l Sunday.
 The articles thus far printed have related, mostly. to the extraordinary : :. t,, in q general way to the northern half of the south, lying between the Atlantic coast and the Allegheny mountains. Throughout all this country up to few years ago a large class of the popu- lation was what used to be called poor whites" an ignorant. poverty-stricken and helpless people. The possibilities pre- sented themselves to southern business men of utilizing this mass of unemploy- ed white labor in cotton manufacturing established, practically, upon the cotton fields themselves, the enterprise being peculiarly aided moreover by the ad- vantages enjoyed by the Piedmont re- zion over many New England and north ern localities in the matters of abundant water power, and proximity to seaports and to interior trade centers. So cotton manufacturing was started in the south on a small scale. It proved exceedingly SucceSSlul. Illll ONiCio NNiS Attracted and now the Piedmont coun- try is humming with spindles and boasts the finest cotton mills on tho globe The increase of investment in this one industry alone in the district In twenty years has been over S100. GOO, 900. But cotton manufacturing is by no means all. It may be doubted, even if cotton manufacturing Is the chief new business that has been started-in addi- ftasa af fn f1o T- tai industry of cotton raising. It Is the south's vast trade in lumber with its al- lied furniture manufacture; It's exceed- ingly profitable garden truck farming, its coal and iron and steel development: It's quarries of granite and marble and it's mines of precious metals by no means to be despised-it is the exploiting of all these on a scale that Is thus far the mere surface tapping of southern re- sources and capabilities that has built cities in ten years around the little towns of Charlotte, Spartanburg and Greens boro, that has created miniature New York in Norfok-where several trunk lines of railroads and twenty-siX steam ship lines terminate and has made Rich- mond the financial center of the entire imperial southern domain.
 The proper history of the railroad de- velopment of the south in a dozen years would also take pages of The Sun. The efficient railroad service there, in the hands of keen and experienced managers and backed by the greatest financial re- sources of the land, has perhaps more than any other one thing contributed to the material advancement of the southern country. It Is perhaps not gen. orally known that the Southern railway now runs a very fast and exclusively mail train every day to New Orleans
 so that the New York morning newspa- pers are in Atlanta at II o'clock each night and are In New Orleans at 130 fin the morning of the following day. Only a few years ago the mall business of the south would have rendered the service of such a train ridiculously su- perfluous. The beneficial effects of rail- way consolidation have done wonders for the southern states. The most prominent result of the process Is, of course, the requirement of the Louisville and Nash vile road by the Atlantic Coast Line, and the unity of effort that prevails be- tween the managers of tho new system and the Southern Railroad company.
 Nor is the new wealth of the south wholly material. An undoubted change has occurred in the mental and Intel lectua structure of her people or. rather reversion Is making after the depression of past years to the appreciation of the practical as well as the sentimental side of life and to the fearless and independ- ent political policy which marked the south when the brains and business of the country were largely centered within her borders. It was southern, not north ern. enterprise that laid the foundations of the cotton spinning in Piedmont. Northern capital merely followed the line the south laid down.
 The Sun today tells of the modern city of Charleston. Charleston is one of the richest and most conservative cities of the south, and her people have been among the last in that region to become converted to the modern doctrine of hustle" But with the development of her magnificent harbor and the awaken ed consciousness of her people to the fact that a large share of the shipping business now done at gulf ports belong rightfully to herself, Charleston, too. is putting the past behind her and her shoulder to the business wheel. No city in the south has greater possibilities than lovely and historic Charleston.