The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-09-15
THE ONLY WAY FOR A
RETURN OF PROSPERITY
The Manufacturers Record.

OF machinery are WIFI Duol-
ness, general prosperity has not yet
returned to the country. People are
not building houses, stores or fac
tories as formerly. Vast construc-
ton and development enterprises are
not being taken hold of by the same
class of men with the, same vim as in
former times. Railroad building is
almost dead, and railroad repairs and
improvements are but on a very linn
tied scale.
These things are true n~otwithstand-
ing the enormous demands on the
iron and steel and coal interests
which are taxing their capacity by
reason of the European war. Why
is it, may be asked, has this period of
dullness lasted for so long a time
when nature has been so lavish with
the wonderful crops of the last few
years and when every natural advan-
tage for progress and prosperity has
been with US?
Those who car to study the stu
alton can easily give the answer. 1t
is this: For some years this eoun-
try has suffered from the efforts of
Government investigation of this.
that and the other thing, prosecuted
not so much for the purpose of doing
good to the country as in a spirit of
bitter hatred, Government officials
constantly appealing through the
newspapers to the mob spirit of the
land. Manufacturers, capitalists,
railroad men, in fact everybody ex.
cept the farmers and the labor ele-
ments of society, saw their associates
put o n the griddle a2f baked, or set
in the oven and roasted until they
were done to a turn, and the preva-
lent query everywhere was whose
turn would come next.
The trouble along these lines has
not yet passed, although somewhat
modified, and the same query persists
che war is beyond our control, but
the baking and roasting processes of
the professional agitators and inves-
tigators and barriers are not.
We look back with horror at the
days of the Inquisition, when men
were stretched on the rack and tor
tured in all other imaginable ways,
but the inquisition of olden days,
with its physical torture, was not
much worse than the inquisition Of
these latter days when everything
that men have tried to do in the de-
velopment of the business interests
of the country has been misrepre-
scented and the public made to believe
that men of the highest character
are scoundrels who ought to be hung
Signs of a let-up in these activities
have shown themselves, but until pub.
lie opinion declares itself roundly
against them there is little probabili-
ty of a complete cessation, which is
an essential preliminary to the re-
turn of general prosperity. So long
as men are bounded as they have
been during the past, and absolutely
false statements and misrepresenta-
tons Of all kinds put forth by public
investigators who seek to create a
mob spirit in order that they may
ride into power thereon, there will be
no general prosperity. W. may
have, and probably shall have, better
times than at present, but there must
be a radical change before that broad
sweep of constructive development
work will again be seen throughout
the land. Until the fires beneath
the griddles and around the ovens are
extinguished and the whole caboodle
of false leaders and agitators be
sent to-Guinea or elsewhere, so that
they will not be heard of again for at
least a long period, we shall not have
that fullness of employment and
prosperity to which the country is
justly entitled.
In commenting on this situation
Leslie's makes the following striking
statements, well worthy of consider
alton, by people everywhere, for the
mob spirit which finds expression in
one place in lynching of the body
finds expression in other cases in the
lynching Of the soul and character.
en- this point Leslie's says:
The lynching of character and re-
rutation by thoughtless writer's that
is going on in the United States is
little less reprehensible than the
lynching of men and 1t
tears the same fruits. Authority is