The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-12-22
CHICAGO TRADUcEs THE SOUTH
(The st. Louis Republic

The Chicago Tribune, a journal
which calls itself "The Worlds Great
est Newspaper" apropos of a lynch
ing in Georgia, launches this diatribe
at the entire South:
"The South is backward. It
shames the United States by litter
acy and incompetence. Its hill men
and poor whites, its masses of
feared and bullied blacks, its ignor-
ant and violent politicians, its rot
ten industrial conditions and its rot
ten social ideas exist in circumstances
which disgrace the United States in
the thought Of Americans and in the
opinion of foreigners.
The South is half educated. 1t is
a region of illiteracy, blatant self
righteousness, cruelty, and violence.
Until it is improved by the invasion
of better blood and better ideas it
will remain a reproach and,a danger
to the American Republic"
The Tribune is backward. AS an
American newspaper it shames the
United States by its ignorance and
incompetence. Its blatant self
righteousness passes belief. Until
it is improved by the invasion of a
better spirit and better ideas it will
remain a reproach and a danger to a
true nationalism. But its senti-
ments with regard to the South must
be typical of community opinion,
since otherwise they would have met
with public and concerted rebuke
from Chicago's citizenship.
When the Civil War broke out the
North was rich; the South, thanks to
an industrial system which was as
mistaken economically as it was
wrong morally, was poor. The war
stimulated the North ard prepared it
for the conquest of the New West; it
Frustrated and bankrupted tn South.
After the war tie North was as it
had been before; the South was Il
land in ruins. Not only its capital
was gone; it's institutions were to
rebuild, on new and better founda-
tions. And while the South stood
so bitterly in need the laws of the
United States were shaped to benefit
the protected manufacturers of the
North at the expense cf the agricul-
tural South. We recall that the
esteemed Tribune, in the Medill
days, used to argue powerfully
for a low tariff between campaigns;
then, when the time for action came,
it always became Irregular" and
fought with and for the tariff barons.
There is no more shameful story
than that of the Reconstruction" at
the South, for which the North was
responsible. There is no more in
spring story than that of the recon-
struction of the South by itself.
Which is typical of the South: the
shameful deed of a mob or the steady,
persistent advance of industrial re-
form, of popular education, of city
making, of literature and the arts,
of charity and philanthropy?
Is Chicago in a position to throw
stones? Has the Windy City moth
ing to learn from the despised South?
Look at the way in which Chicago has
muddled her terminal situation and
compare it with the splendid munich
pal terminals of New Orleans. For
Chicago to pirate of Ignorant and
violent politicians" is, as a certain
Venetian gentleman once remarked,
hypocrisy against the devil" Can
the South match Bath-House John
and Hinky Dink? Has the South
ever equaled the Lorimer scandal?
Yet Lorimer came from the great and
good City OF Chicago.
Chicago has, through Lorimer,
brought disgrace upon the politics of
a nation; its municipal government
has been sordid and corrupt; what
did Chicago ever do in a constructive
way to advance the political thinking
of America or help forward-looking
men to better things? Nothing at
all; in the realm of political con-
struction Chicago has been as barren
as a stretch of alkali desert under a
blazing sun. But look at little Gal
weston, a few years since stricken
by Ole of the worst disasters in his
tory; yet setting out, with a courage
that tempest and ocean combined
coul! not daunt, not only to build
a city impregnable in face of the
wrath of Nature but also to fashion
a city government on new principles,
where honesty and efficiency might