The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1908-12-23

ignorant or educated, Is progress
ing or retrograding, IS prosper
ing or suffering"
I come to you today to tell yo'
that this is the telling that ha
cost the South leadership. Thi
is the sentiment that has KEEP
our manufactures, our commerce
our literature, our education
that has kept one and all Of thes'
chained down to the unproitabl blt
level of our unprohta bic averag;
man. our man behind the plow
Increase his earning.cap~city ane
you increase the earning capacity
and you increase the earning ca
pacity of every other worker il
the South: free him from the
chains of Improbable, because
misdirected, labor, and you cu'
the hindering shackles Of every
other worthy interest in the
Southern States.
hh, if our statesmen and pub
lie men in the South these las
thirty years could only have real
lied the fundamental truth II
Lanier's utterance-"A vital rev
olution in the farming economy
of the South is necessarily carry
ing with it all future Southern
politics and Southern relations
and Southern art, and such an
agricultural change is the one
substantial TACT upon which any
really New South can be predic.
ated!w All, if they could only
have realized that the prosperity
OF every man depends upon the
prosperity of the everage man!
Prosperity OF Every Man Dependent UpoI
Prosperity of the Average Man.
I do not know whether or moi
it has ever beeu worked out as a
principle of political economy.
but anyhow it is unquestionably
true that wealth shy nature not
aristocratic, but democratic. The
poorer every other man is, the
poorer you are. The richer every
other man is, the richer you are.
Every man whose earning power
is below par, below normal, is
burden on the community: he
drags down the whole level of
life. and every other man IN the
community is poorer by reason OF
his presence, whether he be white
man, or negro. or what not. Your
unframed, inefficient man is not
only a verty-breeder for him,
self, but the contagion of its cur,
ses every man in the community
that is guilty of leaving him un,
trained. The law of changeless
Justice DEGREES that you must rise
on fall, decline or prosper, with
your neighbor. You will be rich
er for his wealth, poorer for his
poverty.
And so to day every man who
is tilling an acre of land in the
South so that it produces only
half what intelligently directed
labor would get-out of it is a bur-
den on the community, is drag.
ging down the Level of life for
every other man in the commun-
ity. Suppose you are his fellow
citizen; then because of his inef-
fciency, his poverty; because OF
his failure to contribute to public
funds and public movements you
must have poorer roads, poorer
schools, a meaner school house
and courthouse, a shabbier
church, lower priced lands; your
teacher will be more poorly paid,
your preachers salary will be
smaller, your newspaper will
have a smaller circulation, your
town will have a poorer market:
yourrailroad smaller traffic, your
merchant smaller trade, your
bank smaller deposits, your man
diminished patronage,
and so on and so on.
Negro Must Become More Efficient or Give
Way to immigration.
The ramihcations are infinite,
unending. And the doctrine is
true whatever the color Of the
man. The ignorant negro in the
South is one Of the greatest eco
nomic burdens with which any
people has ever had to contend.
From travel and observation in
ten Southern States. I have al
most worked it out as principle
of political economy that, other
things being equal, States and
communities are prosperlng IN
proportion to their white popu-
lation. I do not know what we
are going to do with the negro. !
do know that we must either
frame a scheme of education and
training that will keep him from
dragging down the whole levei
of life in the South, that will
make him more efficient, a pros
perity- maker and not a poverty.
breeder, or else he will get out
of the South and give way to the
white immigrant. No acre of land
will long own as its master the
man or the race who mistreats il
and makes it untruthful. Either
we must have the negro trained
or we must not have them at all.
Unframed, he is a burden on US
oil Pat+o,. q million acres of IN.