The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-04-25

The South'S position in relation to
the whole country past, present and
future-was probably never 30 strik-
ingly and interestedly told as in a
2S-page pamphlet entitled, Uncle
Sans views of the South" issued by
the Manufacturers Record, Baltimore.
In an interview with the editor of the
Manufacturers Record the mythical
Uncle Sam as typical of the nation, in
a semi-jocular vein, but brimful of
truth, tells the story Of the South in
such way that any school boy or girl
can read it with fascinating interest,
while the hardheaded business man
and the student of history, whether
he be living in the South or in other
sections who reads the story, will have
a new realization of the South.
Uncle Sam starts out by admitting
his sins of omission and commission
against the South and telling how his
conscience lately got to work. He says
that at first he could not tell whether
it was bad liver or a real conscience
that was stirring him up, as you can
not always tell at first which it is that
sends the sinner to the mourners'
bench.
Uncle Sam reminds us that we are
indebted to the far-seeing, shrewd men
of the old South, whose ability to
handle great real estate transactions
enabled them to buy for this country
the hundreds of millions of acres of
land included in the Louisiana Pur-
chase, Florida and other regions, for
a few cents an acre. These big land
deals gave to Anglo-Saxon civilization
the domination of this country. He
credits the Southern men who made
these land trades with having added
about three-fourths of the territory
which now forms continental United
States, and says they were the best
bargain hunters In the world when it
came to making land purchase for
the benefit Of the nation. If they had
not had the vision to see the business
profit in making such wholesale deals,
and the energy to put them through,
this country never could have amount
ed to much.
And then Uncle Sam tells of how
the soldiers of the South between 1861
and 1865, men who lived on crumb of
bread could march all day and fight
all night, or march all night and fight
all day, proved to his entire satisfac-
ton that the old idea that had ex-
listed in the North that the people of
the South were inactive or lazy was a
great mistake. H Essays that in those
days, when trying to persuade the
South not to set up an Independent
government for itself, he learned to
hope that If the soldiers from the
South were inactive or lazy that Prov
idence might keep him from meeting
any hustling ones.
Admitting that for many years after
the war the National Government CO
operated with railroad builders and
bankers in the development Of the
West, giving away hundreds of mil
lions of acres Of land to railroads and
to settlers, all of which carried the
development westward to the disad
vantage Of the South, Uncle Sam says
"If the South had not had more ma
tural advantages than any other coun
try on earth, and II its people had no
demonstrated that in business they
had the same energy and ability tha
enabled them between 1851 and 1851
to live on almost nothing, to marcel
night and day and fight as few peopl,
in the world ever fought, that coun
try would have gone to the dogs lonl
ago.
It has often been said that the de
velopment of the South of recent year
has been due to the enegry and cap
tai Of people from other sections, blu
Uncle Sam points out the fact that tn
South has freely given to other re
gions many times as much as IL ha
received in numbers and energy, 70
between 1855 and 1900 100000 South
ern-born whites went entirely beyon
the borders of the South to the Mort
and West, and the Pacific Coast, an
became active factors in the develoI