Year: 1877

ter has reference to particular manufactory,
are running constantly, making eight hundred
gross of matches per day, gross numbering
fourteen thousand, and chipping away in the
course of year six hundred thousand feet Of
pine lumber. This lumber is thoroughly dried
in kiln before being prepared for the ma
chimes. Two hundred thousand feet of bass
wood are annually made into shipping cases
Three hundred barrels of birthstone and nine
ty thousand pounds of phosphorous are taken
up yearly by these endless chains from the lit
tie reservoirs.


THE PRESIDENTIAL PEACE.MAKING.


A Radical Ohio Editors Experience in the


South with Hayes.


What have seen with my eyes, heard with
my ears, and investigated with my faculties
I am fain to believe, until otherwise convinced
by better testimony. I went South on the
recent Presidential tour with some misgivings
as to the manner of his reception, and incred
ulous about the sincerity of the invitations ex.
tended to him to accept Southern hospitality,
1 was the more incredulous because in addi'
tion to the shocking history Of some of the
Southern States during q few years past,
had witnessed violent scenes and heard viru-
lent sentiments in Louisiana, less than four
years ago, that had impressed me that the
Southern people Of this generation were incor-
rightly hostile to the nation which had been
established by arms in 1865. I had even
some prudential personal doubts about ven.
turing further South than Nashville, at least,
for in my correspondence from New Orleans
l had been plain spoken. I had reason to
think that there were those who read newspa-
pers who would not take keenly to cores
pondent who had told the truth as he saw it
and as it at that time was abundantly con.
6rmed. But the cordial, hearty and mani
festly sincere greeting of the President at
Louisville, where Southern feeling was as in
tense during the war, and since, as anywhere
else in theSouth, tempted me on to Nashville,
thence to Chattanooga, onward to Knoxville,
and finally I found myself marching through
Georgia to Atlanta. The contrast between
the spring of 1874 in Mississippi and Louis
lana, and the autumn of io77 in the great
battle ground of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ala
bama and Georgia, was surprising if not amaz-
ing. I could hardly have credited the peace.
full change from hearsay evidence. am free
to say that warm as have been in my feel.
ing about the South, incredulous as have
been about their professions, apprehensive as
I have been about the result of the Presidents
policy although I indorsed it from the be.
ginning-I returned from Atlanta assured
that had seen the beginning of practical per.
manent paci6cation, satisfied that it will be
as vain hereafter to check it on its onward
career as it was futile to attempt to stop the
irrepressible conflict of 1861 to 1866 with pa.
per protocols


did not, in the wonderful excitement Of
the tour, forget the humble freedmen, the
prominent object of all Republican sympathy
in the North. I inquired of many about
their condition, and they told substantially
but one story-"Since Masser Hayes been in,
we's all been treated better than afore" This
is good testimony, but it is not conclusive ev-
idence that they are not considered an infe-
rior people. They are, and he who expects
that the feelings and traditions of the master
class, or whites of all classes, can be subordi-
mated in ten or twenty or thirty years to the
sentiments of right which the North recogni-
zes in their treatment of the colored people,
knows little of human nature. All the legis.
lation and all the bayonets on earth could not
create such q revolution. Time and the
changed condition of things alone can do it.
But it is much for the colored people that
the "haughty" whites call them not "niggers,"
but "colored people :" that they have the right
of entry to public places, from which they
would have been cruelty clubbed but a few
years ago that not only the politicians but
the common people exhibit surprising re-
spect for their lawful rights, and accord to
them sympathy hard to be realized by the
people in the North who have read of the
atrocities of Mississippi and Louisiana. Much
more, it is great stride for the people Of the
South, utterly impoverished as they were by
the war, to attempt at this mparatively ear
ly day to provide educational facilities for their
former slaves. For it should be remembered
that their common schools for the whites are
not of superior grade, excepting in the cities.


The touch of nature, however, which brought
about the great civil revolution which Presi-
dent Hayes has inaugurated, was best express
ed by Southern men themselves: "Mr. Hayes
trusted u.s." Many Southern men with whom
I talked said they felt as if they had been
abused. They felt dishonored because the
professions they made were not believed in
he North, and it exasperated them. To
their astonishment, President Hayes accepted
their professions. They were put upon their
honor, and they said that they intended to
prove to the President and the country that
they could be relied upon. Hence their sim
cere and cordial reception of him. They said
that they we're grateful to him, and | could
not doubt it when l saw, as did, people
men and women-in Nashville, whom l had
personally known during the war were among
the most passionate rebels of the South, FORE
most among the throng to welcome the Presl'
dent with all public ceremonials and private
courtesies that could be accorded to the Chief
Magistrate of the nation. Nay, more; at all
points visited I took pains to circulate in the
crowds about the platforms, and in public
places to hear the remarks of the common
run of people, and the result was, as any one
might have judged from the cheering when
the President was speaking, that l was con.
vinced that the people generally meant ell
that they professed- d-not that they would
change their party, but that they sincerely
want peace, and that the policy of the Pres'
dent would assure it,


In the bar-rooms the ruder sort of fellows
drank to "our next ticket"-Hayes and
Hampton great round oaths that soun-
ded strangely enough. The wives, widows
and daughters of Confederate officers, the
elite of the South, were prominent in the ex-
hibition of courtesy to Mrs. Hayes, fact of
peculiar significance, as everybody who has
understood the intense feeling of the ex-Con-
federate women since the war may readily
comprehend. could enumerate multitude