The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-03-01
THE NEW SOUTH, FoRsooTH!

From the New York Sun.
Why should Mr.. J. j. Willett of An
niston, Ala, go forth into the wilder
nesses of Chicago and like places and
pirate loudly of the new south and re-
instated harmony and all the rest of
the unmeaning yum-yum which plays
part at modern banquets? We have
been hearing this folderol for more than
80 years. There was a time perhaps
when the north didn't understand the
south and when the fluttering of the
bloody shirt by such professionals as
Keifer, Grosvenor, etc. fairly smoth-
cred the hustle of the New England and
middle western pioneers then settling
down to south bern enterprises and build
ing up the waste places with their
Drawn and brain and duly financed en-
! Georgia made a speciality of northern
banquet halls and foated pearly songs
of thingumbob across the nuts and
wine. He told us of the new south, of
the fratricida1 struggle which had
passed, of the harvests smiling over the
once angry scars of war, and of gulps
and ecstasies in general. Wry prolong
this flood of nonsense?
A month or two ago there was Gem
Rufus N. Rhodes of Birmingham, who
went to Augusta at the head of a dele
cation and there delivered himself of
such slush as this:
Judge Taft, If you knew the heart
l and tho haad of 0f he
and particularly of Birmingham, you
would know that they regard the result
of the last election as a benediction
| from God Almighty Himself to the peo-
| pie of the south over their own pro-
/ test. I am a democrat; most of these
/ gentlemen are democrats but we all
welcome your advent into the south,
because you want the south once
again to hold her place in the councils
of the nation. You will find no more
fertile field for the planting of your
seeds of patriotism independence of
thought, independence of political ac-
ton, than among the representative
men of Birmingham Ala.
1--WE want you to help US strike off
our hands the shackles of an ignorant
political system which does not do the
most to develop our resources or to
prosper and safeguard our happiness
We promise you real, genuine, tangi-
BILE results for the greatness and the
glory of this section"
Sound and fury, signifying nothing,
and when did "Rufe" Rhodes become a
general?
1t Is all rot and rigmarole. Northern
and western men are swarming into the
south and have been for many years.
The cotton mills of the Carolinas, the
steel, coal and iron mines and manu-
factories of Tennessee and Alabama,
the sugar and rice fields of Louisiana,
the lumber industries of Mississippi and
Florida, these and a hundred other pur-
suits have absorbed the immigrants;
intermarriage and community of inter-
est have drawn fasteners and middle
westerners into the local civilization
and identified them with the destiny of
the section. The southern boom was
born of it's own natural resources, not
of maudlin mounting over dinner tables
or at the head of visiting delegations.
Willett of Admission and Rhodes of Biz
mingham are merely tiresome huck-
sters of fiapdoodle.
Outsiders have seen that the south
offers them many f1attering opportuni-
ties. They have gone there with their
money and their activities and have
been assimlated. That's all there Is to
it. The New South" be blowed