Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Nov. 4, 1909, edition 1 / Page 9
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THD PROGRESSIVE FARMER. 9 j "What's The News?" The Coming Leadership of the South, i INCE THIS WEEK'S issue is a special for the young farmer and his sister, we are going to take our "What's the News?" age to talk with these young people about the movements with which most of the news that is worth while Is concerned, and to consider some of the deeper principles of which the the usual news items are only passing symptoms and evidences. In the first place, then, the; South is fast build ing up. and it Is with this Important piece of news that, you young people are going to have much to do. It is forty years now and more since the Civil War ended. We have recovered from the desola tion that followed in its wake and we have be gun an era of development on the farms and in our Southern towns such as is going to astonish the rest of the world during the lives of most of the young farmers who read this page. Some of the boys who ' read these lines will . e fo see. Southern men in the Presidency. They see great cities In the South, such as we have not to-day. -. We shall have great writers and poets and artists, such as conditions among us have not favored until now. The masses of the people will b'e. better educated and more prosperous than the South has ever known be fore. Men from other sections will come to help build up our industries instead of our being drained of our bright sons and daughters as has been too often the case heretofore. Great lead ers will grow up among us in literature, and in dustry, and finance, and statesmanship, and the South will become one of the dominant sections of our great American nation. For the boys and girls who live in the South this is about the biggest piece of news of all the coming leadership of the South arid the part that we can have in bringing it about. Our Most Troublesome Problem. BE HERE IS JUST, one drawback to this vision of a greater South, and this is the race issue, the menace of trouble between the white man and the black. It would doubtless be far better if the two races were separated, if the greed of the slave trader had never brought the black man from his own continent to America. But since the two races are here, and there is no likelihood of their not remaining here together, we have only to make the best of the situation as we find it. And with this view of the case let us remem ber that the greatest danger is not in the ne gro 3 becoming intelligent and useful, but in his being ignorant and unproductive, and thereby keeping the South poor by reason of his own poverty. Many a Southern county is poor to day simply because so many of its people are shiftless, poverty-stricken negroes. The 'larger the proportion of intelligent and prosperous people there are in a community, the better it is for you. no matter what you are do ing always remember this. If you are farming, your land will be more valuable; you can get more intelligent labor to take care of it; you can sell your Improved s ock and improved seeds to better advantage; ou can get more help about getting good roads r J. - : and good schools and every good thing that makes life attractive in your community. If you are a merchant, then It helps you to have intelligent and prosperous people in the ommunity because you can sell more goods of good quality and high price, and you will have fewer bad debts, and your business will be much larger. The man who buys only side-meat and flour will never give you much profit, but a man who buys carriages and harvesters will. It is the same way if you are a lawyer or a preacher or a teacher or an editor. Five hundred men who are making money farming, who have intelligence and skill, will contribute more to your support, will give you bigger fees and bet ter salaries, than five thousand shiftless, ignorant people who can hardly make ends meet. This, then, is our second piece of fundamental news: the danger to the South's future in the great body of ignorant, unprogressive people who threaten to hold back progress and check the prosperity which would otherwise be ours. Keeping the Demagogue in Check. N ; DEALING WITH our perplexing race problem, however, we must be guided by wisdom and courage and not by hysterics. We have no higher duty than that of preserving racial purity, but the great danger here is not political but moral. Let us remember this, and in politics see to it that we follow leaders who stand for issues and movements that will help the people and build up tne south, it is not the man who can re member the names of most voters, or flatter the people most at the political rally, or holler loud est and gesticulate most fiercely when speaking, that we should support, but it is the man who is going to do something to give us better schools and better roads, and who will help along all the forward movements that will build up our com munities. The South has never suffered half so much from an overproduction of cotton as from an overproduction of wordy orators more intent in flattering the people than on serving them. You see a man sometimes who seems to be afraid of taking a stand upon any question until he finds out which is the popular side. He is a coward: let him alone. Tou see other sneakers who depend on abuse rather than' argument: they insult your intelligence and should also beH let alone. We have had too many politicians of both classes; let us now have a new sort of leader. No People Ever Great Who Were Not Law-Loving. NOTHER TENDENCY in the South that we heed to guard against is the tendency to take the law into our own hands. No lynching nor any other form of mob violence is ever justifiable. You may hear some sort of ex cuse for it. but you may always be sure that there are stronger reasons against it than for it. We work through the day to lay up some sort of property for the future, and at night we lay down in peace to sleep, and only because we know in both cases that law in America is usually strong enough to protect both our lives and the property we try to accumulate. Remember, then, that every time you tolerate any form of mob violence or lawlessness, you weaken that respect for law on which all public peace and security must rest. Lynching, night-riding, white-capping all these things let down the gap for reckless men to kill and plunder, and no Southern farm boy should ever countenance any of them. Right now, for instance, while the South is bent upon the task of developing a sober citizen ship, the work is made difficult by lawless men who too often have the sympathy of other men who ought to know better. Whatever the cities may do, however, the farming people of the South are going to stand for curbing .the evil of intem perance, and this means that the country boys will have clearer heads, stronger bodies, and will be happier and more successful men than would otherwise be possible. J J Things the Farm Boy Must Stand For. HIS, WE WOULD say to our young farmer boys, is only a rough outline of the big problems with which you will have to deal as you grow up and become voters and citizens. First of all, we must give our lives to building up the South. It would be cowardly for us to run away from her need of us, if we wished to do so, but there are now really greater oppor- E trinities for young men in the South than almost anywhere in the world. The South during these next thirty years will grow faster than either North or West. Then the ever-vexing race problem must be wisely dealt with, and we must train the negro so he will help build up the South instead of be ing an ignorant land-waster, earning too little to be of much help to himself or any one else. The great danger to the South, therefore, is not that the negro will become more intelligent and learn to do better, but that he will remain ignorant and make us all poorer by mismanaging the land, buying in small quantities from our merchants . (and then being poor pay), and by giving us no help as a citizen in getting better roads and better schools, and all the other con' veniences and advantages that only a prosperous people can have. And this is the thing we need to keep In mind in considering immigration. The farmers of the South have wisely decided that they don't want any more poor, ignorant Italians, Poles, Hungarians, etc. They would only make us poorer. But Intelligent, wide-awake men from the West and North who would take farms and become prosperous would make us all richer. Next, in politics, we must encourage and follow the men who have ideas and plans that will build up our country not men who are only flatterers or bullies or dodgers or smiling handshakers. Only in this way can we grow men big enough to make the South the powerful section it was from fifty to a hundred years ago. And lastly, we must stand for the rigid en forcement of law alike with all classes rich or poor, high or low, white or black because no people has ever achieved or preserved greatness without this unflinching regard for. law. The "news" that we read from week to week or from day to day is useful only because of its relation to certain great principles, and most of our Southern news, as we said in the outset, has to do with some one or more of the principles set forth in this article. Four Recent Deaths. HE ASSASSTNATTON OF Prince Ito, the ' . . m . w m A. t liovernor-uenerai, or. i.orea, Dy a native Korean, shows the feeling of the, people of that country toward their rulers. There have been many charges that Japanese rule in the old "Her mit Kingdom" was unnecessarily hard, though, doubtless, the conservatism of the Koreans as contrasted with the progressive Japanese ideas accounted for much of this seeming severity. Prince Ito was the chief of the ' "elder states men" of Japan- that is, of the men who had been responsible for the introduction of Western ideas and methods and who guided the empire during Its rapid change from medieval customs and stand ards into one of the most aggressive and enter prising of modern nations. He had been Premier two or three times, and was generally regarded as Japan's wisest and most influential leader. His mission in Korea was said to be one of pacifica tion, and his friendship for the United States was well known. His death is unquestionably a great loss to Japan, and for that matter, to the world. since he ranked with the very greatest of contem porary statesmen. In our own country the death of Justice Rufus W. Peckham of the United States Supreme Court has called forth expressions of deep regret from men oi an parties ana opinions, tie was a demo crat, and was appointed to the Supreme Court Dench by President Cleveland in 1895. . Justice Harlan says that he was one of the ablest and most conscientious men he ever knew, and he seems to have been, in many respects, an Ideal judge, devoting himself to his work with the deep est seriousness and taking no part in political controversies of any kind. Oliver O. Howard, who was a major-general In the Federal Army during the Civil War, also died last week at an advanced age. He had long been noted for his interest In all religious move ments, but the great work of his later years was the founding of "Lincoln Memorial University" at Cumberland Gap, Term., for the education of the poor mountain children of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia Another death that deserves notice was that of PatriCK H. Mcuarren, tne Democratic doss or Brooklyn, N. Y. He was a politician of the Tam many type, although an inveterate enemy of Tam many, and retained his, mastery of the Brooklyn organization until his death in spite of determined efforts by the State's shrewdest politicians to over throw him.
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 4, 1909, edition 1
9
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