The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-25
Conference Re=eleCts RObt.
Ogden President.
Continued from First Page,)

to the loss OF the Accommodations ana saw
ing of many years, the losses
in other property, which the
vanquished must always bear IN
war, the even greater calamity IN
the death and manning of its strongest and
best bread winners. and some faint idea on
the poverty which the South faced IN
1865 may be grasped. The utter aoJect
poverty, involving the denial of the com
mon necessities. can never be known or
appreciated. Better still, in order 10 get
at the losses sustained by the south, as
a result of war, let US suppose that TO-
morrow in New England and the Middle
States every dollar invested in factories
and in banks, and deposited IN savings
banks and trust companies, was COM
pletely swept away. And, in addition to
losing all that represented the savings or
past generations, the present and future
generations should be forced to pay the
interest upon bonds isused when the
banks and factories were prosperous-if
you could suppose such calamity to
those prosperous commonwealths-yo
would then have some conception OF the
dire distress and almost hopeless poverty
that confronted the South when
Lees soldiers returned from APP
pomattox. Talk of the heroes OF
war! Those brave men who wore
the gray as we'll as the brave men
who wore the blue have added imperish-
able glory to American valor,-they are
among the immortals. In song, in story,
in marble, in bronze they live and Will
forever live, enshrined in the affections of
their countrymen. But-men and breth-
ren,-the race of heroes in the
South who bore the heat and burden Of
the day from the surrender until the
black tide of reconstruction receded-
those men sleep in unforgotten graves
and their deeds Of daring have too often
been regarded as the rash actions of i'm
pulsive and reckless men. Some of them
belonged to the Ku-Blux Klan in its
first days, when that. or some like or
ganization was as necessary for law and
order as Cromwell's dismissal of the
Rump Parliament was essential to Eng
lands peace and safety. These men, many
of them reared in affluence, living then
in self-denying poverty, opened the
public schools of the South, gathered to-
gether the children, and laid in tears and
faith the foundation Of the edifice you
are laborfng to bring to turretted perfec-
ton. Instead Of dwelling upon statistics
of illiteracy and the like-painful facts
that have the highest import and which
stimulate to greater efforts-I challenge
the whole world to parallel what the
South has done for public education out
Of empty public treasures and depleted
private purses. You say it could have
done more? Yes, and it would today
have been richer if it had mortgaged the
future to do more, but it has done more
under adverse conditions than any peo-
pie in all the history of mankind, and It's
motto is the command of Moses:
Go forward All honor to every man,
North and South, Whatever his political
or religious creed, who holds up the
hands of the men and women whose work
is bringing about that glad day when a
good teacher, a good school and a long
term will be within the reach of every
child south of Mason and Dixon's line
But the South is still poor. 1 know
that this will be denied by those who
take a superficial view OF think all the
South is as rich as the Carolina truck
gardens, the Virginia cities, the Texas OIL
wells, or the Alabama coal fields. The
South is growing richer every day. 1t is
developing it's resources, its young men
have gone to work in the factory, the
mine, the field; on every hand you
see evidences Of prosperity. The future
of the South industrially is assured. Out
of the poverty of war, out of the disas-
ter of reconstruction, by twenty
years Of we'll directed industry it has
built large cities and established great in
dustries. But, while it has done Won
ders in these short years and
laid the foundation for greater prosperity,
the South is relatively still poor. The
Southern Educator says that 10000 peo-
pie live in log houses Georgia. In every
State there are thousands whose incomes
are so small as to make everything beyond
the common necessities OF life impossible.
There are fewer of these every year,
thanks to the building of railroads which
open new markets and avenues of wealth.
and the varied industrial devel-
opment which is blessing the
South. But it will be gen
erations before the South catches up with
Ot0eT SeCllOuS Oh the 1NepuDllC anu IeCON-
ers from the losses of war and reconstruc-
ton. But she will do it. Her sons are
strong, robust, industrious, confident
self-rel!ant, ready and willing TO work
with head and hand; In the face Of all
the progress it is making, l know it is
not popular to say that the South is poor
but those who are acquainted with the
rural conditions know that, while grind
ing poverty has passed, the bulk of the
people have succeeded as yet in making
but small accumulations.
Ill
The third obstacle has been the lack
of trained teachers and the lack of in
centive to capable men TO become teach
ers Most of the male teachers between
1869 and 1880 were Confederate soldiers
many of them teaching to secure bread
They had gone into the army from schools
in which they had but begun their educa-
ton. With one leg or one arm gone
they were unfit when the war was over
for the manual labor which their comrades
undertook Equipped with meagre edu-
cation, but rigid discipline they taught
the children the three RS and In the re-
ceas delighted them with stories of the