The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-08-09

anu scotch. These newcomers united
WIN the radical phiiosphs. like JET
relson ana John Taylor, Of the old
regime and the middle-class native
stocks to give US the ideas of the
Declaration of Independence. and
.ileSe ldeas nave become the ideals Of
me men VINO grow the cotton ana the
.opacco OF that great region. Equal
10y ana a 'falr chance" are slogans
III the South, as we'll as in the West.
Notwithstanding the treatment of the
Tor whom neither North nor
SCUM give promise of shedding any
blood during the twentieth century.
But the North, especially New Eng
iahu' OF the revolution has disap-
peafed. For example, the majority
Of all church members in he former
puritan States as we'll as in New York
and most of the States he
Tucson and Chicago are now Roman
C~athollcs; and the great mass of peo-
pie are no longer small farmers, fish
ermen and tradeSmen, but men Of
European origin and of strongly pro
letafiat tendencies. The old North
tnat remains is not protestant and
democratic in the sense Of 1850. The
stronger families, which,, in spite OF
thelr sectlonallSt prejudices, fell a hun
dred years ago into the arms of the
Jefferson party, no longer believe in
the great Declaration; and their inter
est in the masses is not like thai Of
that of the ante-bellum S~outherner in
Abraham Lincoln, but rather like
the nte-bellu Southerner in
the negro: it grows out OF the desire
TO exploit them, fairly, perhaps even
unfairly. And like the old S~outherner
again, the wealthy men Of the North
control the masses Of the people who
labor in their mills or on their rail
ways. Where IL New England, except
in Springfield, or in New York or
Pan CYL Nc ni9 Ionc nra find u UopJin
advocate of democracy, of human
rights per sc. Of those great doctrines
which gave the United States her
character in the world? Whether the
man Of Influence and power in the
North. the solid North, nominally
votes the Republican or the Demo
cratic ticket, is a matter Of small sig
~niflcance; he votes always TO hinder
or checkmate democracy and to con-
serve property interests.
But the South is English-American,
homogeneous: it is, strangely enough,
the heir of New England Puritanism;
its churches are overwhelmingly Cal
whistle, and every Sunday from ten
thousand pulpits the people hear the
doctrines of the stern GeneVan or
Scotch reformers no matter whether
the preachers be Presbyterian, BaptlS
or Methodist. And the children are
taught that the evil-doer, the light
hearted, they who dance, play at
cards or drink whiskey, will certainly
come at last to the lake Of fire and
brimstone," which burns forever and
from which there is no escape. Young
people are held in restraint and older
ones read their Bibles to the exclusion
Of most other books. It is a new Puri-
tanism which the awful CONFUSION OF
1861 unWitting1y gave the nation; bu
there is less Of aristocracy, less Of for
NAL theocracy in it than there was II
the New England of Jonathan Ed
| wards. The leaders of this stern and
sturdy culture are not the present po-
litical representatives Of the South,
who are a sort of "hold-overS" from
| an earlier day and who personally con-
denim the new order while they pub
licly O it; the real eXpOnerts
of the new Puritanism are prominent
clergymen of the Methodist and Bap-
fist denominations in Richmond, At
lanta and Nashville or politicians O
q younger generation IN RalelSn
Montgomery and Jackson, but not less
important, the educators, presidents
of colleges and school superintendent
who constantly and publicly 'laud tt
the skies the old New England o.
which Boston and Hartford and New
Haven are rather ashamed to spear
in these latter days.
These conditions are fundamental
they are the very "under-plnnln5 O
the soma SCUM Whlcll ~ ~ 49,"
a menace to progressive
they underlie the marvellous temper
lance reform of recent years, the al
most warlike hostility to the encroach
ments of the great railway companle:
and other corporations; they are tht
cause Of the stOlid Indifference to tn
claims of religious liberalism which
a hundred years ago Jefferson ant
Marshall and Madison Valnly com
mended to New England. Lowe
middle classmen have arisen to b.
upper middle-class men,; they ar
conscious of their strength and tena
tious of their ideals which come t.
them from a most honorable parent
ope. and few who read history arlgh
will find fault ever with their narrow
ness. their adherence to the faith o
a by-gone age, for such have been IL
the past the harbingers of great thlng
to come.