The age-herald., 1902-02-23

at Washington, although. as the wife of Louis XIV. once remarked, An old coachman does like to hear his whip crack occasionally Genius is but faculty intensified or, as pr. Johnson said, great general powers of mind capable of being turned away. Can it be doubted that the same intellectual forces in the South which controlled the policies and destinies of this whole nation for the sixty years preceding the Civil war, when now de- voted to commerce and manufacturing. will not be able to meet competitors when nature has given them the advan- tage of soil, climate and cheaper labor and cheaper raw material? He must needs be very rich or very reckless who invests his money solely upon the idea they cannot and regardless of all natural advantages.
 T would not nave you think, however, that these great strides in manufacturing in the South have been without effort, or that hers has been a 'primrose path of dalliance'-on the contrary, she has been making a fight for the last thirty-five years which required more courage, for titude and patience than 1t did to carry on the four years civil war. She, without experience or adequate capital and beset with race troubles on every side, wherein the greatest kindness was non-interfer- ence, has met tho f1ercest competition which brains and money could supply and like all great and lasting achieve ments in the business world, they have been accomplished by strenuous and un- remitting efforts and by fighting over ev- cry inch of the ground. Hic labor, hoo opus est A less brave or less cheerful people would have given up in sheer de- sps ir, and the fact that they did not has Justified the faith and kindness of their friends, and has shown that they are well worthy to be called by that name or which we are all so proud-that of Amen jeans.
 When the South first commenced to manufacture ircn it was confidently as- serted by her competitors that while Southern iron might be made cheaply it was of an inferior quality and fit only for cheap castings, but when the South- erner com menced to ship and sell his iron in Pittsburg, Cincinnati ard Philadelphia and when the English and German manu- facturer began to actually prefer the Southern over the Pennsylvania and Ohio iron, that misrepresentation died and was gathered unto its fathers. Then 1t was said that the future of iron was steel and stsl could not be successfully mado out of the Southern iron for the reason that the cost of eliminating the objec-
  ducing the same to steel, would be more ths the steel would bring in the market. The enormous steel industries now in successful operation in the South dfs- prove this assertion, and so it died and was gathered unto its fathers. Then 1t was asserted that tho Southern iron man paid so much higher rate for money than his Northern competitor that the ad- vantagts of his location and cheapness r.ss- nIA 1tao INxr his lack of capital and the high rate he had to pay for money. The successful reorganization of Sout hern iron compa- nes giving them an abundance of work Ing capital at Q low rate of interest dem onstrated that capital, with its keen in- stnct for profit, had unbounded confi- dence in the future of iron in the South, and was desirous of developing and uti- izing It's great natural reso srces to the mutual advantage of both lender and borrower. and so this last misrcpresenta- tor died and was gathered unto it's fathers.
 "The development in the mining of coal has kept steady pace with the manu- facture of iron, and fl anything, has ex- ceeded it, while ss to tho lumber business. 1t is generally admitted there are no tim Der forests of any consequence now stand ing available for manufacture except in the South. As to the oil business I guess you know something about that up here. Cotton Manufacturing.
 "The development of cotton manufac- turing in the South is even more remark able than that of the iron and coal busi- ness. It is simply inconceivable even to those among whom this development is taking place, and those who do not visit the South have no idea of the wonderful transformation going on there. But few years ago the South had bSe few cotton factories and their output was negligible quantity. Today there Is hard cotton factories, sometimes as many as ten or twelve. Today the South spins as many bales of cotton as New England, although it started in this business but yesterday. Who can doubt that the iron logic of events has decreed that in a few years practically the whole cotton crop will be spun into cloth in the South, thus increasing the value of that crop many fold, besides giving steady employment to hundreds of thousands of people? At the beginning of our cotton manufactur- ing it was said by our competitors that the South could never make a success of chief was the lack of skilled or capable labor, but here again reasoning from false or mistakenly assumed premises produced false conclusions as in the iron business. for the wife and daughter | of the so-called Southern cracker who have afforded our New England maga-