The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-02
A M1sLEAp1Na TITLE.


 Tn a recent issue of The Portland Ore gonian under the heading. "A New South Carolina" there is an editorial from which we make this extract:
 In the old days before the Civil War and for twenty-five years after the war the leaders of public opinion in South Carolina were men conspicuous for intel ligence, culture and fine manners- Witn the advent of Tillman, men of brutal tempers and plantation manners, dema- gogues without culture or brains, have ruled the politics of South Carolina. The South Carolina old-time ruling class was represented by men like the late General Wade Hampton. who was framed on the moral and spiritual mold of those fine old South Carolina gentlemen, the Pinckneys and the Rutledges, whose brains and character adorned the early history of their State under President ton for fine manners and character was sustained by Calhoun, Hayne, McDume, Pickens and Butler up to the outbreak of the Civil War. Nobody regrets that of the system was that 1t created not merely arristocracy of wealth, but an aristocracy of intelligence and culture, so that when slavery was extirpated the old-time political leaders fell with it. The greatest curse of slavery was that 1t created an illiterate. pas sionate. ignorant mass of poor refused to follow the intelligent leader ship of the old- time slaveholder. but re- placed him with a noisy. ill-bred. imperi- ous, ranting demagogue.
 While the tone of most of this extract Is good the title Is misleading. for the lan- guage of the article itself shows that 1t is not "a new South Carolina but is really a return to power and influence of the old. The great men of the old South Carolina of whom The Oregonian speaks were an honor to their State, to the South and to the grandest civiliza- ton this country ever witnessed. That there are many good men in public life in. the South is very true That there are among them men who have come into prominence since the new order and the new generation came in is also true. in fact, few of the Southern States suf- fered so long or so grievously as did South Carolina, and 1t was the more bit ter and humiliating from the fact that in hardly any other of the Southern States were there so many men who so fully represented all that was noblest and best of the old and glorious South ern civilization of the before the war" period of history. Calhoun and Hayne. McDufie and Pickney, Rutledge and Pickens are names to ennoble any State and country. and to descend from them to politicians of the Tillman calibre was a fall indeed. "Oh, what a fall was there. my countrymen" when men who represented ''The Knightliest of a Knightly race" were forced into obscuri- ty to make room for the accidents who came to the surface as the result of one of the most degrading periods of Amcri- can history.
 Hayward, the newly elected Governor. is a young man who has come up since the war between the States. but from all that we have heard of him he is in all respects a worthy representative of all that was best in the old South Carolina civilization. He is an educated, high toned gentleman who will. it is believed. restore to his State much of the character and reputation 1t enjoyed in the old days before the black cloud of reconstruction settled on 1t.