The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-02-23

a primrose path of dalliance"-on the
contrary, she has been making a fight
for the last thirty-five years which re-
quired more courage, fortitude and pa
thence than 1t did to carry on the four
years Civil War. She, without exper-
fence or adequate capital and beset
with race troubles on every side,
wherein the greatest kindness was non
interference, has met the fercest com
petition which brains and money could
supply, and like all great and lasting
achievements in the business world,
they have been accomplished by siren
uous and unremitting efforts and by
fighting over every inch of the ground.
Eic labor, hoe opus est A less brave
or less cheerful people would have
given up in sheer despair, 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 of which we are
all so proud--that of Americans.
When the South first commenced to
| manufacture iron ii was confidently as
serted by her competitors that while
Southern iron might be made cheaply,
1t was of an inferior quality and fit
only for cheap castings. but when the
Southerner commenced to ship and sell
his iron in Pittsburg, Cincinnati and
Philadelphia, and when the English
and German manufacturer began to
actually prefer the Southern over the
Pennsylvania and Ohio iron, that mis-
! representation died and was gathered
unto it's fathers Then it was said
the future of iron was steel and steel
could not be successfully made out of
the Southern iron for the reason that
! the cost of elimina ting the objection
able properties in the ores, and reduc-
ing the same to steel, would be more
than the steel would bring in the mar
ket. The enormous steel industries
now in successful opera ton in the
South disprove this assertion, and so
it died and was gathered unto it's faith
ers. Then it was asserted that the
Southern iron man paid so much high
er rate for money than his Northern
competitor that the advantages of his
location and cheapness of his raw ma
terials were neutralized by his lack of
capital and the high rate he had to pay
for money. The successful reorganiza-
ton of the Southern iron companies
giving them an abundance of working
capital at a low rate of interest dem
! onstrated that capital, with it's keen
instinct for profit, had unbounded con-
| fidence in the, future of iron in the
! South, ais1 was DESTROYS of developing
and utilizing it's great natural
J resources TO the mutual dQ-
| vantages of both lender and
borrower, and SO this last misrepresen-
tation died and/was gathered unto its
| fathers.
The development of cotton manufac-
turing in the South is even more re-
markable than that of the iron and
! coal business. 1t is simply inconceiva-
BILE even to those among whom this
| development is taking place, and those
h. 4 til
| idea of the wonderful transformation
going on there But a few years ago
the South had but few cotton factories
| and their output was a negligible guam
| tity. To-day there is hardly a village
| but what has it's one or more cotton
| factories, sometimes as many as ten
| or twelve. To-day 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?
| Then it was said that the South
could never make the finer grades, but
must confne itself to the coarser
! cloths. Again we see a theory exploded
and find the Dwight, Merrimac and
ether Eastern mills duplicating their
| fine plants in the South with new and
| improved machinery and manufacture
| ing the finer grades of cloth.
You ask me the cause which pro-
duced these results? 1t is the old story
of the struggle for existence and sur
| vival Of the fittest. Did you ever see a
beehive when the hive was full of
honey? How lazily and slowly the bees
| go in and out. Did you ever see the
same hive when it had been stripped
, of its honey? How increasingly and in
| dustriously the bees work until it is
| full again. So it was with the South.
| Until the Civil War slavery and agri-
| culture were so profitable that nearly
| all the South's earnings were invested
| IN slaves and land, while our minerals
and other great natural resources re-
manned undeveloped, but when by the
| fortunes of war our hive was stripped
of its honey, and slavery was no longer
POSSIBLE or even desirable, it became
necessary for us to develop what we
| mad hitherto neglected, and we are
merely applying the lessons we have
| learned from the bees. The Young
men in the South to-day are not seeking
to know what are the rights of the
states, as did their fathers, or even
| what are lHelI rights. for
| they have been long since defined. but
they are seeking to know what are
| their opportunities and how they can
| best improve them. To them it is of
| more consequence to know how to To-
! cate and mine iron and coal, or how
to construct and profitably operate a
| manufacturing establishment. than to
| know the history or terms of the Will
mot Proviso or the Missouri .Compro-
| mise. To them the building of the
| Nicaragua canal, which would connect
| the two oceans at our doors and make
| Mediterranean of the Gulf of Mex
| leo in it's shipping nd commerce. with
| its resultant advantages to our Gulf
ports and inland manufactures. is of
| vastly more Importance than the
Hampton Roads Conference or even
than as to who was in command at
Santiago. There is no part of this
country which is living more in the
future than the South. and there is
no part for which the future holds out
greater promise of usefulness and de-
Vehement.
Judge Van Wyck's Address.
Judge VanWyck addressed the socie-
ty as follows
Friends and children of the Sunny
South l salute you in the name of a
race as courteous and as brave as ever
marched to martial music or drew