The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-01-31
Inning alton West and South
(From Southern Agriculturist)

There is much talk of immigration
into the South, just as thirty years
ago there was a great movement west
ward into Nebraska, and fifteen years
ago into Oklahoma. But the condi-
lions are very different. The South
is the land of opportunity to the North
ern farmer today. 1t offers him the
cheapest land to be found within reach
of good markets, but it is not the vir-
gin prairie of Nebraska or Oklahoma.
1t offers better climate for farming
than any other part of the country
enjoys. But it's agriculture is new to
the Northern man and its labor will
be a difficult problem to him, while
it's people, the most kindly in all the
world, have their own standards,
which in some ways differ widely from
! his.
In the settlement of the West a new
land was entered Every man was a
stranger to the land and to his neigh
Dor Very naturally, in the formation
of the new society the personality of
the individual had more influence than
any other factor The successful man,
the man who did things, became the
recognized leader. To make good"
was every mans ambition, and the
ability TO accomplish this was the &C
cepted basis of Judging men and de-
termining their position.
The new West was a land of equal
social as we'll as equal business op-
portunity. Nobody was especially in
terested in the strangers pedigree;
nobody cared very much who his
grandfather was, nor what was his
wife's family name. Oklahoma was the
meeting place of a vast horde Of
strangers, and within decade OF their
coming some we're known as pioneers
while others were newcomers. They
came from every state and from all
Europe. All were new to the land.
They formed a new society, with
standards in which genealogy had a
small part.
Fifty years earlier the whole north
west had been settled in the same way,
except with a much greater admiXture
of Europeans, especially of Scandi-
navians and Germans. And the upper
Mississippi valley states are broadly
tolerant of the ways of new people,
largely because their own newness has
not had time to wear off.
But the South, like New England,
is an old settled land. There had been
time for settling down; in the West
there has only been time for a shak-
ing up. To the South has come the
establishment of a social order that
the West will have after it is older.
In the Northwest the unasked question
is, what can the stranger do?" In
the South it is apt to be, "Who is his
grandfather"
The older a country is the more its
people are likely to be controlled by
convention and precedent. In every
old-settled country there is a general
acceptance of social strata; it is only
in new land that efficiency becomes
| the common measure of man. So in
the South there is a certain respect
for tradition, for family, that has lit
tie place in a newer land. People
raised under the new order can hard
ly understand why anyone should be
interested in matter of great-grand-
motbers-they never saw one!
The South invites the Northern i'm
migrant But the Northern man,
seeking a new home, should remember
that coming to the South he is enter
ing an old-settled country, where so
cial customs have been long establish
ed, and where many things are vene-
rated merely, it may be. because they
are old The new man in any COM
munity is in very much the position Of
the new boy at school-let him not as
sert himself too aggressively.
The Northern immigrant leaves be-
hind him a land of cold winters and
austere manners, and comes to land,
not only of mild climate, but of mild
manners as we'll. The new man may