The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-10
HOW THE SOUTH MAY REGAIN LEADERSHIP
IN INDUSTRY AND POLITICS..

Men, is All-Important-Cheap, Unskilled Labor is a
Curse to Any Community-Free Training and Free
Opinion Will Give the South a Commanding Position
in the Affairs of the Nation and the World.
address of DIR. Walter H. Page Editor of the Worlds Work.
at the Conference for Education in the south, Birming-
ham, Ala, April q, l904)
"Mr. President There is a class of men in
the Southern States who have a stronger love of
their country-I had almost said-than any other
men anywhere feel. They are bound closely to-
gether by an ardent patriotism which is the in
heritance of every Southerner, especially if his
family run back to the arge-minded period when
Southern men built the spacious house of our
liberties. And every such man should give his
work if he know how-he would give his life, if
need be-to restore the thought, the character,
and the influence of the South to the command
ing position that they held a hundred years ago.
at is to the Southern men of this metal that /
wish to speak, and, if the other distinguished
persons in this audience will pardon me, l shall
speak directly to them and to them only.
III address these, then, who answer to this de-
%scription of a Southern gentleman-a man who is
frank and fearless and generous to his fellows.
The weaker the man is with whom he has to do,
the more s~cruplous is his justice; the weaker the
woman is with whom he has to do, the more
scrupulous his honor.
THE UNFULFILLED AMBITION OF s%oUTHER MEN.
"And I speak to you in the intimate intonations
of our unfulflled ambition. For we have an I'M
fulfilled ambition that has given a deep seriousness
to our lives. Of course / do not speak of per-
sonal disappointments Personal disappointments,
if we have suffered them, are of too little import
ance seriously to affect the lives of men of our
traditions or of our temper. He is a small man
indeed whose mere personal fortunes or misfor-
tunes change his relations to his fellowman or to
his country. We were born far too large for that.
And / think we were born too large, also, for mere
personal ambitions. The desire to achieve some
thing for ones own glory-that, too, is the mark
of small men who do not feel sure of their station
or of their relations to their fellowmen or to their
country. We claim a larger ambition and a high
er patriotism than this. What / speak of is an
unfulflled ambition for our country-an ambition
for these States and these people as a part of the
Union. The ambition that men felt in the time
Of Washington, of Jefferson, of Marshall-this is
what l mean. They and their fellows, who were
our ancestors, wrought out their high wish. Our
wish, equally high, we have not wrought out, and
that is our sorrow. In the life, in the thought,
in the conduct of the republic, we have not a share
as large as they had. In our own fathers house,
we are practically disinherited.
why are not, why may we not, becomes leaders
in our ~country's progress? We do not believe that
we are incapable. We come of good stock. Nor
have we lost our ambition.
THE UNFRAMED MASSES HOLD Us BACK.
"Now / shall try to go straight to the heart of
this matter, which concerns us more than any
thing else in the world, and / shall talk, man to
man, in a mood that has no hesitation and no
fear-the mood of close kinship in a high hope.
Let us see what ails us or what ails the time we
live in. We are men, and we can face facts as