The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-10

opinion U1d our DuI1G III VIZ dFCn o u
the ranged Union. Then a tyranny of thought
followed the great economic error.
Public opinion was not the thought of educated
men in the community, but the blind push of un-
trained men. And these thoughtful men were
not free because of the mass of unthinking men
about them. Always an unframed mob will con-
troll thought if the people be not trained. In
an unframed democracy low minds will lead, and
an organized howl will lift demagogues to power.
This is the reason why other parts of the
republic have taken intellectual leadership from
us. This is the reason that our kinsmen across the
sea and our kinsmen across the Potomac regard
us as a problem Let us face this fact frankly
and finch not. We have suffered too long be-
cause the way to freedom of opinion was not
clear. But it is clear now. 1t is the very way
that Jefferson himself in his own free thought,
pointed out--by the training of all the people. In
this way the South will again come to it's own,
and public opinion here will get the full service
of our best minds and most generous natures.
THE HIGH Task TO WHICH SOUTHERN MEN ARE
CALLED.
Everything here is rapidly changing-occu-
pations, methods, thought. Nothing is fixed. We
have.in fact, a less developed land and people than
any other men of our race in all their far-f1ung
lines of settlement and industry. And a few
strong men now may make their impress on the
land and on the people for all time to come.
For this reason we cannot, In spite of our
dlslnherltance, regard ourselves as unfortunate.
We are, in fact, if we have the mettle for a great
task, the most fortunate of men. Those that sit
IN soft places and discuss academic propositions
(and mistake self-indulgence in criticism for the
intellectual Gfe) are welcome to their ease. We
would not swap blrth-rights with them. If we
have a rough task, it is a high task. When it is
done we shall leave the world better than we
found it; and, while we are doing it, we shall
have the joy of constructive activity. We look
forward to a golden age that we may surely hast
en- not hack TO one that never was.
THE NATIONS COMING NEED OF soUTHER LEAD
"Nor is this all. A time is coming, men of the
South, and it is coming before we die, when other
and even graver economic problems will press on
our national life for solution. They press already.
They are new problems and no government has
yet met them. When we grapple with them IN
earnest we shall need leadership of a quality that
is got only from a hardly won victory. The men
who have passed resolutely through one struggle
for economic truth and free opinion will have had
the best training for other struggles for other
economic truths and for free opinion. Again,
opinion is to be freed from other tyrannies. Now
a democracy in it's days of trial calls its leaders
from those who struggled last. When we win this
battle here-over ourselves and over inherited err
ror-the nation may have need of you.
A NEW DECLARATION.
"Let us rouse up, then, and proclaim this
declaration:
Wnen the course Oh human oNcuIS IL US-
comes necessary for a generation of men to dis
solve the intellectual bands that have connected
them with an economic error and to assume
among the workers of the world an independent
and equal station, to which the laws of nature and
their economic capacity entitle them, a decent
respect for the opinions of the laggard suggests
that they should declare the purpose which impels
them to this emancipation.
eve hold these truths to be self-evident; that
all men should have equality of opportunity; that
they are endowed by our institutions with inalien-