The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1906-01-23
Continuing, Mr.. Smith said

means for averting a threatened dis
aster to the south. Today we meet
to record the first distinct financial
VICTORY FOR THE INDUSTRIAL SOUTH
'Tis strange that it is so hard
to make any people realize the vast,
the vital Importance of the work
we are doing. Let some new polit-
ical idea be advanced. and men be-
come frenzled and spare neither
time nor money to carry it through,
yet upon this, the very life of Our
country, we find indifference and
skepticisn as to Our ability to real
ize Our hopes. Possibly the expla-
nation is found in the fact that for
forty years We: have been under a
cruel bondage. We have been pay
ing a debt incurred by our loyalty
to our southland and the terrible
consequences entailed by Our de-
feat. When the war was over, what
condition confronted us? Stripped
of all wealth, discounted in the
eyes of the world, with no money
and no credit, we of the south had
to begin a pilgrimage through a
wilderness more terrible than plo-
neer ever suffered in strange land.
Fo it was pilgrimage through
scenes which recalled at every
step happier days-days of plenty
and power. Beggars in Our own
domain! But even in this terrible
time cotton was the one ray OF
light in the darkness--the one hope
of existence. By virtue of the fact
that the south was the only place
where it could be raised and the
steadily increasing demand for it
by the world at large it became the
basis of credit and enabled Our
bankers to negotiate loans to start
us once again .... ".
WE learned some lessons
through this baptism of fire and
blood; we were taught an economy
that stands us in good stead now
The world taught us self-relianee;
the world taught us to make tins
wonderful fibre at 6 cents pound
taught us, through necessity, to
forego ali luxury; ali development,
education and rehnernent-and now
the debt is paid, the south, through
forty years of poverty and pain,
through sacrifice. and tears, has paid
her debt; and, having. learned how
to make cotton at 8 cents, she will
teach her sometime masters how
to pay IL cents for it.
| Just two short years Of profitable
prices and there are Sooo,ooo,ooo
to the credit of the south. The
crowded schools ord colleges, the
full banks. the whirr of the dynamo
and the roar of awakened industries
in the south gladdens the heart OF
every true sout;:cr"cr. Yes. IT IS
the basis of all CIR prosperity and
how is it to be made permanent?
It is not sensible or fair to expect
us to leave this great question to
the poor and ignorant to settle. 1t
calls for the best brain and the cap
ital Of the south for its solution.
Our destiny is at stake. We must
not, we shall not lose.
Il have stood by a coal mine and
seen the coal dug from the earth,
and I asked myself what was that
coal? It is the stored-up energy OF
thousand years-the sunshine, the
rain; the chemicals of the earth that
it took to produce it are still under
Gods great law Of the conservation
of energy still there; and when IN
combustion it gives out its energy
under another great law-the law
OF transformation Of energy. I've
seen these. the primal forces. the
sunshine of a thousand years, con-
vcrted into heat. heat into steam,
steam into motion-intO the marvel
Gus wealth Of modern commerce.
p. , +1,n SO,,+1,r--, ta--,r,rI- firOD