The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-15
SOUTHERN FINANCIERs.

The FOTtlanu OFeBOHldn IdS d tonPoi ate, and, in the main, fair editorial going to show that the South in the old days produced no financier of great ability. and that almost every man who has shown tributes this largely to the habits and the peculiar civilization of the South which brought forth statesmen. warriors. great military leaders. orators, and, in fact, great and noted men in almost every walk of life, except in the one thing of financial greatness. The editorial con- cludes thus:
 The South was not so good a man of business as the North, but if 1t had been the South would have held out at least a year longer than it did, and would prob- ably have worried the North into making peace. With the slave civilization ex- tinct, the South today leads the litera- ture of the generation that followed the
 war; and, with the extinction of the sil-
 ver craze, the South ought to be hence forth a sound man of business.
 There is much truth in The Oregonian s statementB and deductions. The finances of the Confederacy were at loose ends all most from the start. The first Confeder-
 ate money circulated freely at par, part
 ly because of the enthusiastic patriotism of the people, partly because of the pop
 ular impression that the war would last but a short time, and partly because the enormous issue which followed was not apprehended at the beginning. As all know who have either personal or histor- ical knowledge of the events during the war it really seemed as the struggle pro- gressed that the only financial system the Confederate Government had in view was to print and issue all the bills the press could turn out without regard to its value or of it's future. The entire Confederacy was not only figuratively but literally flooded with Confederate pockets would barely hold enough of it to buy a dinner. It was the history of the old Continental money over again, much enlarged and amplifed.
 The oregonlan's belief that with a sound financial system the Confederate Government might have held out another year, and probably secured an honorable peace is not so improbable as it might appear If it could have kept up the currency to something like par, it could have secured all the sinews and muni- tions of war. paid, clothed and fed it's armies and forced a very different result from the one which actually followed the heroic efforts of the Confederate armies. Whether 1t would have been possible for any financiers or statesmen to have main tained even a moderately stable currency under all the circumstances, is ques- ton about which 1t is useless to argue. The result of the system, or want Of system, which was pursued, is known to the world and any speculation on the subject is futile.
 The intimation of The Oregonian that the extinction of the silver craze may result in producing more able fnanciers in the South than has heretofore been done may or may not be true. It is certain that the South of today is much more devoted to money making than was the South of fifty years ago, and the time may yet come when this section will lead all others in finance as 1t once did in statesmanship and oratory. No one with eyes to see or ears to hear can now doubt that the silver question Is dead beyond resurrection, but whether that is going to make "a sound man of business of the South remains to be seen. It will at least require several generations to hiring our people to the belief that money making is the sum of all things desirable