[107]Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 14. See p. 52.
[108]Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, pp. 19-20.
[109]Ibid., p. 20.
[110]Gregg, Speech on Blue Ridge Railroad, p. 67.
[111]Gregg, Speech on Blue Ridge Railroad, p. 29.
[112]Quoted in The News and Courier, Charleston, March 9, 1881. Said Olmsted in 1856: "Singularly simple, childlike ideas about commercial success, you find among the Virginians.... The agency by which commodities are transferred from the producer to the consumer, they seem to look upon as a kind of swindling operation: ... They speak angrily of New York, as if it fattened on the country without any good in return." (Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 138.)
[113]"... the labor of negroes and blind horse can never supply the place ofsteam, and this power is withheld lest the smoke of an engine should disturb the delicate nerves of an agriculturist; or the noise of the mechanic's hammer should break in upon the slumber of a real estate holder, or importing merchant, while he is indulging in fanciful dreams, or building on paper,the Queen City of the South—theparagonof the age. No reflections on the members of the City Council are here intended, they are no doubt fairly representing public opinion on this subject...." (Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 23.)
[114]"The State of South Carolina has been extremely guarded in extending grants to banking institutions, and in this she has shown her wisdom, for it is an extremely dangerous power to exercise." He hoped, however, that the danger to be apprehended from banking privileged would "not be confounded with, and brought injudiciously to bear against the charters which are necessary to develop the resources of our country, and give an impetus to all industrial pursuits.... The practice of operating by associated capital gives a wonderful stimulus to enterprise, and where such investments are fashionable, no undertaking is too great to be consummated. Why is it that the Bostonians are able in a day, or a week, to raise millions at one stroke, to purchase the land on both sides of a river, for miles, to secure a great water power and the erection of a manufacturing city?... The divine, lawyer, doctor, schoolmaster, guardian, widow, farmer, merchant, mechanic, common labourer, in fact, the whole community is made tributary to these great enterprises. The utility and safety of such institutions is no longer problematical.... If we shut the door against associated capital and place reliance on individual exertion, we may talk over the matter and grow poorer for fifty years to come, without effecting the change in our industrial pursuits, necessary to renovate the fortunes of our State. Individuals will not be found amongst us who are willing to embark their 100, 200 or $300,000 in untried pursuits: ... If liberal charters were granted, one hundred successful establishments would spring into existence, where one, of feeble order, could be expected from individual effort.... About three-fourths of the manufacturing of the United States, is carried on by joint-stock companies: ... We shall certainly have to look to such companies to introduce the business with us...." He showed the perpetuity of the corporate form by instancing one South Carolina cotton factory operated by a joint stock company; "... there is but one of the original proprietors living, yet the factory is still going on prosperously, producing as good results as it ever has done ...", and this mill he contrasted with the venture of an individual which was prosperous until his death, when the legatees, not able to carry on the manufacture, forced the sale of the property at half its value. (Gregg, An Enquiry into the Propriety of Granting Charters of Incorporation for Manufacturing and Other Purposes, in South Carolina, pp. 4-11.)
[115]Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 314-315.
[116]Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 361.
[117]Ibid., pp. 358-359.
[118]Ingle, Southern Side Lights, p. 32 ff. "There were 101 persons in the jails of Georgia on June 1, 1860; Virginia had 189; Massachusetts, 1161 and Illinois, 489. In the open life of the South and West, where men could easily get to the land, there was little crime and jails were often empty; in the industrial belt the prisons were always occupied. In like manner and for the same reasons Southern and Western hospitals for the insane and homes for the poor often showed very small percentages of these unfortunates." (William E. Dodd, Expansion and Conflict, p. 231.) Cf. the map on p. 188, showing the industrial belt of 1860 to extend along the Atlantic Seaboard from New Hampshire to the head of Chesapeake Bay, covering the coastal States, with scattering development indicated to the westward. The territory south of Maryland shows a few plants of an output of $250,000.
[119]Upon this whole matter, see Scherer, p. 179 ff. "In 1816, when Webster opposed protection, there was a capital of only about $52,000,000 invested in textile manufacture, of which much still lay in the South. In 1828, when he reversed his position, this capital had probably doubled, and had become localized in and about New England." (Ibid., p. 181.) Cf. Ibid., p. 234.
[120]Scherer, p. 152. "When the United States of America was formed, manufacturing interests were as well developed in the South as the North. Slavery ... existed under protection of law more than a hundred years in Massachusetts before it was tolerated by law in Georgia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the tariff was not a matter which was exclusively political.... The subject ceased to be an economic one and became a political one in proportion as slavery grew in the South and diminished in the North, and in inverse proportion as manufactures dried up in the South and became of greater importance in the North.... The time came when the South stood for free trade and the North for protection. This was because slavery made agriculture more profitable in the South and protection made manufacturing more profitable in the North with the South as a protected market." (Tompkins, The Tariff and Reciprocity.)
[121]Tompkins, Tariff and Protection.
[122]Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, p. 316 ff. See pp. 30-31-32. Contrast Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, pp. 133-137.
[123]But some of the agitation in favor of industries in this period, as in other ante-bellum and indeed post-bellum years, had a flavor not symptomatic of healthy desire for improvement. One hundred and thirty-one delegates represented nineteen North Carolina counties at a meeting held in Salisbury in 1836, at which resolutions were adopted asking the legislature to give assistance in the building of railroads; another evidence of this interest was the Knoxville railroad convention of about the same date. Of the advantages which it was agreed would flow from the building of the Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad, it was declared that "it will form a bond of union among the States which will give safety to our property and security to our institutions." (Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, p. 125.) Of more positive character was the utterance of a Southerner who viewed with deep concern the danger that the North would crush slavery and place the South under complete submission to tariff aggressions, congressional representation for the latter section finding a stop in the limit to slave territory: "Under these circumstances, the true policy of the south is distinct and clearly marked. She must resort to the same means by which power is accumulated at the North, to secure it for herself. She must embark in that system of manufacturing which has been so successfully employed at the north.... All civilized nations are now dependent upon our staple to give employment to their machinery and their labor.... If, then, we manufacture a large portion of it ourselves, we reduce the quantity for export, and the competition for that remainder will add greatly to our wealth, while it will place us in a position to dictate our own terms. The manufactories will increase our population; increased population and wealth will enable us to chain the southern States proudly and indissolubly together by railroads and other internal improvements; and these works by affording a speedy communication from point to point, will prove our surest defense against either foreign aggression or domestic revolt." (J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Resources of the South and Southwest, Vol. II, p. 127.) J. H. Taylor, of Charleston, combatted the antipathy toward massing the poor whites in factories with the reflection that small farming in competition with slave labor brought discontent that might mean social upheaval, whereas the factory opened a door of opportunity that allowed of intelligence and stability; with the chance of coming to own a slave, "they would increase the demand for that kind of property, and would become firm and uncompromising supporters of Southern institutions." (Ingle, Southern Sidelights, pp. 25-26.)
[124]In earlier pages he has developed with much care the promising industrial status of the Colonial and Revolutionary South. "In the Southern colonies iron making became an important industry, even before the beginning of the eighteenth century." The activity in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia is shown: Governor's Spottswood's ventures in Virginia, the passage in 1727 by the Virginia General Assembly of "an act for encouraging adventures in iron-works"; South Carolina forges built in 1773 are dwelt upon. His original investigations reveal valuable facts as to iron-making in North Carolina and upper South Carolina—details are given of the works of E. Graham & Company, formed in 1826 and later merged with the King's Mountain Iron Company; the Magnetic Iron Company, 1837, near the former plant, and the South Carolina Manufacturing Company. It is to be noticed, however, as a modification upon the good effect which might have been expected from these enterprises, that the Graham Company had a considerable part of its capital invested in slaves, and sixty per cent. of the Magnetic Company's capital of $250,000 was used for the same purpose. (Richard H. Edmonds, Facts About the South, Ed. 1894, pp. 3 ff.)
[125]Ibid., pp. 10 ff.
[126]Edmonds, p. 18 ff.
[127]In reference to the false idea of wealth and prosperity in the ante-bellum South, it has been said, "A delusion of great wealth was created in the listing as taxable property of slaves to the amount of at least two thousand millions." (A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 218.)
[128]Edmonds, p. 2.
[129]Ibid., p. 14.
[130]Edmonds, pp. 1-2.
[131]Ibid., pp. 2-8, 19-20.
[132]Edmonds, p. 21. Cf. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
[133]E. G. Murphy, The Present South, p. 97.
[134]Murphy, p. 102.
[135]Murphy, pp. 10-11.
[136]Murphy, p. 21.
[137]There were earlier expressions of the same spirit, some, as if in foretaste of the South's fate under the old system, before the Civil War, and others immediately following the war. But the motives were liable to be selfish and unsound, as for the purpose of retaining slavery, and if they did not lack, that fire and conviction which marked the full movement commencing fifteen years later, they were fruitless of large results. "We are going to work in good earnest, not only to repair the waste places of the war, but to build up and improve and prosper, and to show the world that we can be good soldiers in peace as we are in war." (W. J. Barbee, published 1866) Cf.
[138]News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 9, 1880.
[139]"... business is driving sentimental politics to the woods." (News and Observer, Dec. 31, 1880.)
[140]Reprinted in News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., July 11, 1881.
[141]"... they (the New York Times, which carried an editorial questioning the word of General Wade Hampton, and the 'malignants' of the Republican party) must realize the difference between a Southern gentleman and a Northern malignant. They know that the former cannot prevaricate, while the Northern leaders of the Republican party and the malignants are usually devoid of personal honor." This is from an editorial in the News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., and is too characteristic of most of the political writing in the South which was an outcome of reconstruction.
[142]Reprinted in News and Courier, May 14, 1881.
[143]Reprinted from the Memphis Avalanche, in The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., March 30, 1880.
[144]Reprinted in News and Courier, March 18, 1881. The writer had been a slave-holder.
[145]A sentence occurring in an editorial of the News and Courier, in the issue of March 24, 1881, is indicative of the love with which this city looked upon the undertaking proposed: "A man who has been in the whirl of New York or in any of the brand new cities of the great West coming into Charleston might readily enough come to the conclusion that the old city was in a sad state of decadence ... but our own people ... if they have their eyes open (or hearts open would perhaps be the better expression) could not fail to see manifest improvement."
"They dub thee idler, smilingly sneeringly, and why?—How know they, these good gossips, what to theeThe ocean and its wanderers may have brought?How know they, in their busy vacancy,With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught?Or that thou dost not bow thee silentlyBefore some great unutterable thought."—Henry Timrod
[146]"The people of South Carolina are nothing if not heroic, and right or wrong, they are sincere, earnest, and brave ... the same heroic qualities are now leading in the restoration of the South to prosperity, and on a basis that must speedily give the reconstructed States a degree of substantial wealth and power that was never dreamed of before the war." (A. K. McClure, "The South: Industrial, financial and political", p. 55, published 1886.)
[147]The News and Courier, in an editorial on March 19, 1881: "Every true South Carolinian must rejoice at the prudence and energy exhibited by the citizens of Columbia in their management of the cotton mill campaign.... It will be a happy day for the whole State when the hum of myriad spindles is heard on the banks of the historic canal. Columbia will then grow rapidly, speedily rivalling Augusta in the number and success of the cotton mills. Thousands will be added to the population, and from our political center additional life and energy will flow to every part of the State.... we confess to having a weakness for Columbia, which suffered so sorely at the end of the war, and which is the only place of consequence in South Carolina that has not improved its business and enlarged its boundaries since the overthrow of Radicalism in 1876. But cotton mills will soon make amends for the vicissitudes and hopelessness of the past, and for that reason The News and Courier takes the warmest possible interest in the cotton mill campaign at Columbia." The Observer, Raleigh, N.C., July 11, 1800: "... when our people once begin to mingle freely, having a community of interests and a common purpose, sectional feelings will be obliterated, and we will forget that there has been an East, a center, or a West, and remember only that we are all North Carolinians, sharing the same fortunes, blessed with a common hope and ennobled with the same proud memories of a glorious past." The News and Courier, January 25, 1881, carried a plea for State aid for Columbia in her enterprise to build a 16,000-spindle mill, the same as forms the subject of the first part of this note. The editorial especially advocated the placing of convicts at work on the construction: "... The capital,because it was the capital, was laid in ashes by Sherman's troops. In the person of Columbia, all South Carolina was ravaged and laid waste. The city which suffered so sorely may reasonably expect the just assistance of the State in the endeavor to repair her losses caused by war, and intensified by years of contact with political profligacy and misrule."
[148]"What the South should do is the caption that graces the editorial effusions of all classes cf papers, and especially those of our own deeply solicitous and anxious friends of the North. Many of us think we know. The South should depend upon its own virtue, its own brain, its own energy, attend to its own business, make money, build up its waste places, and thus force upon the North that recognition of our worth and dignity of character to which that people will always be blind unless they can see it through the medium of material, industrial and intellectual strength. We may proclaim political theories, but it is the more potent and powerful argument of the mighty dollar that secures an audience there, and the sooner we realize it the better for us." (News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 27, 1880.)
[149]Editorial in News and Courier, Mar. 9, 1881.
[150]It is interesting and pathetic to observe how unaccustomed the South was to the most obvious facts of business. Concentration upon one crop had precluded from the Southern mind—speaking in the aggregate, of course—the first reasonings springing from diversification of industry and from ordinary competition. But once the necessity for a different attitude became apparent, the statesmanlike manner in which this was pressed must provoke admiration. The article in J. D. B. DeBow's "Industrial Resources", etc., pp. 124-125, presents the consideration that the cotton crop of Tennessee, amounting to 200,000 bales, 90,000,000 pounds at 6½ cents an average pound, gave the producers 11½ per cent. profit on their investment, while the manufacturers of the same crop made 24 per cent. profit—more than twice as great. "Are there any so blind as not to see the advantages of the system?" Much earlier Southern statements of the true fact from manufacturing cotton was to be found, but in the delirium of the latter days of slavery these were lost sight of. Wm. J. Barbee, in his "The Cotton Question" pp. 138 and following, commends for the reflection of capitalists in 1866 the "Manufacture of Cotton by its Producers, suggestions of S. R. Cockrill seventeen years ago." Cockrill speculated as to the gain to be derived from cotton mills in the cotton states, and said: "Facts like these should fix the attention of the cotton planter, teach him his true interest, and stimulate him to become the manufacturer of the product of his field, instead of permitting others to reap the entire profit."
[151]News and Courier, Feb. 2, 1881. The editorial appeared apropos of the opening of books for subscriptions to the Charleston Manufacturing Company, which occupies a prominent place in the history of cotton manufacturing in the South. The editorial concluded: "This is the logic of the investment of money in cotton mills in Charleston. It will pay the stockholders their ten or twelve per cent., and the city at large will get a dollar's profit on every dollar's worth of raw cotton that the mills consume."
[152]While the manufacture of cotton was the most prominent manifestation of the newly quickened spirit in the South, it was by no means the only one. Every opportunity for productive enterprise was eagerly investigated; the discovery of one of these was hailed in the papers with an enthusiasm like the joy of a child in a new-found plaything. Properties of soils, the use of the telephone, the most profitable employment for State convicts were some of the topics of interest. There was, of course, a complete absorption for a time in railroads in the Southern Atlantic coast states, either for the further building of small independent lines, the merging of these into systems, or the extension of the coastal lines over the mountains into Tennessee.
There was also a phase of the movement distinctly moral in tone, as, e.g., the wide formation of temperance societies about this time.
[153]News and Courier, Aug. 1, 1881.
[154]While it is clear that the purpose to build cotton mills in the South arose irrespective of the means at the disposal of the people with which to do so, and would have come about had their financial limitations been even more discouraging, it is certainly true that a revival of business at the time of the commencement of the cotton mill campaign was a spur to the widespread investigation into the profitableness of cotton manufacturing. That there was coming to be money seeking investment, or at any rate capable of investment, was good reason for the searching out of opportunities for productive industry. The following gives an insight into the better times that had begun: "The year that is just finished will be to the present generation a red-letter one, for it brought to an end the long and weary period of enforced economy and restricted business that followed the panic of 1873, and put every branch of industry at work. Agriculture was encouraged in the West and South by good crops and remunerative prices, the factories received more orders than they could fill, the railroads were blocked with freight, the mines were pushed to a greater extent than ever, and all other interests were quickened towards the end of the old year in a way that was full of promise." This summary of the year 1879 appeared in The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, January 7, 1880. The return to specie payments did much to stimulate trade. A contribution to the Savannah, Ga. Morning News, quoted by W. H. Gannon in "The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Classes of the North", pp. 6, 7 and 8. The article was probably written by Mr. Gannon himself.
[155]Quoted from Savannah Morning News by W. H. Gannon, The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Classes of the North. "The cotton mill to the cotton field" was the familiar dogma which crystallized out of the course events were taking.
[156]The term is taken from The News and Courier, where it was used first, perhaps, in the issue of January 31, 1881. Before long it had come to be a phrase in everybody's mouth, and proved to be apt beyond any thought, probably, of the editor who first ran the line over a column of notices of new mills established.
[157]"The News and Courier busies itself with every enterprise, big and little, that will turn a dollar's worth of raw material into more than a dollar's worth of manufactures." (News and Courier, Mar. 19, 1881.)
[158]Reprinted in Daily Constitution, Mar. 9, 1880.
[159]News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.
[160]Ibid., Feb. 22, 1881, see p. 11, note 3.
[161]Ibid., January 26, 1881.
[162]"While Charleston and other points in the State are discussing and initiating their cotton manufactories, Spartanburg is pushing ahead with her grand enterprise. (Spartanburg correspondence of News and Courier, Feb. 4, 1881.) The same purpose to encourage new mills actuated the News and Observer, December 24, 1880, in referring to Edward Richardson, of the firm of Richardson and May, cotton factors, in New Orleans ... the cotton king of the world. He runs ten to twelve plantations.... Has built a town (Cresson) ... where he has factories employing 400 looms, 18000 spindles and 800 hands. He is worth from $15,000,000 to $18,000,000, all accumulated in the South, the poor South." The encouragement lent by one mill to others to come into the field was recognized. In working for the establishment of the Charleston Manufacturing Company, the News and Courier was starting a force that would grow in power through the years: "When this pioneer company shall have made a good start, other companies will speedily follow...." (January 28, 1881). And again (Observer, January 2, 1880): "Another large cotton factory. The Charlotte Observer chronicles the erection in the immediate future of a cotton factory in that city, and regards it as the beginning of a prosperous growth of manufactures." An item in the Barnwell, S.C. Sentinel, reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881, declared: "The people of Charleston should have never hesitated as long as they have about embanking in the manufacture of cotton goods, and we firmly believe, as the ball is started, that it will be kept moving...." The Keowee Courier, in an editorial also reprinted in the Charleston paper, commended Charleston as setting an example to the entire State. A Georgia note, carried in the News and Courier of February 24, 1881, is especially specific in this connection: "If the organization of this manufacturing company (the Enterprise Factory, Augusta, Georgia, which was to be greatly enlarged after making good profits) proves a good omen—its extension may work as an invaluable stimulus to other enterprises now. It will hurry up the walls of the stupendous Sibley Mill, where 25,000 spindles will soon mingle in our industrial acclaim. It will quicken the shuttles of that giant corporation, the Augusta Factory." "It will spur on the Globe Factory and the Summerville Mills to renewed effort, while our South Carolina neighbors cannot but catch the spirit of improvement."
[163]Reprinted in the News and Courier, Jan. 31, 1881.
[164]Reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 23, 1881.
[165]Ibid., Jan. 27, Mar. 20 and May 4, 1881.
[166]The commencement of the movement was right clearly marked in the minds of the people. The News and Courier (August 1, 1881) in an editorial commenting on the address of Major Hammett on cotton manufacturing in the South, printed in that issue of the paper, had these words: "Major Hammett was the founder of the Piedmont Factory, which, under his management, is one of the finest and most profitable cotton mills in the South. The Piedmont Factory was projected and built before the opening of the cotton mill campaign in the South, and Maj. Hammett ranks, therefore, as one of the pioneers in cotton manufacturing in South Carolina."
[167]News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881.
[168]"We people of the South should embrace every opportunity which, like the opportunity offered by this exposition, will bring among us intelligent and interested observers of our industrial condition, resources and aptitudes. We have in the midst of us the raw material, so to speak, of a magnificent prosperity. We lack knowledge, population and capital. These may be slowly accumulated in the course of years, or they may be rapidly by well directed efforts to obtain them from beyond our own borders. We advocate the latter plan." (Interview with one of the officials of the exposition, printed in News and Courier, Mar. 14, 1881.)
[169]News and Courier, Dec. 27, 1881.
[170]An Atlanta dispatch to the News and Courier, February 25, 1881, said the executive committee of the exposition was fully organized, with H. I. Kimball, chairman and J. W. Rickman, secretary. By March 8 (News and Courier) $20,000 had been subscribed in Atlanta, and General Sherman had headed the Northern subscription to the capital stock with $2,000. By the 17th (News and Courier) the stock had reached $40,000, four subscriptions of $1,000 each having been received from private individuals, and eleven of $500 each from like sources. Railroad subscriptions at this date were: Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, $10,000; Louisville and Nashville, $5,000; Richmond and Danville Road, $2,500; East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road, $2,000. By the first day of April (News and Courier still) New York bankers seemed likely to increase by $5,000 the amount of subscriptions sought from them, and make their shares $30,000. Inman, Swan & Co. subscribed to $2,000 worth of stock Drexel, Morgan & Co. took $1,000; and Brown Bros. & Co. $1,000. Before the week was out, (News and Courier, April 5) the Boston Herald had taken $1,000 worth of stock. The executive committee had sent an agent to Europe and had made a tour of investigation through the North earlier.
[171]News and Courier, Oct. 21, 1881.
[172]Ibid., Oct. 7, 1881.
[173]News and Courier, Oct. 10, 1881.
[174]November 1, 1881. This paper maintained Mr. Hemphill as staff correspondent at the exposition for some time after its opening.
[175]News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. The speech details the number of miles of railroads that spread like a web over New England. "I have said that there is no better simple standard than the proportion of railroads to the square mile of territory of any State, by which to gauge the condition and prosperity of the people. I ask you, gentlemen of Georgia, if you will lag behind. I ask you men of the South what you will do in this matter." "I told you last year you needed the savings bank more than any other institution; there is a vast unused capital in your Southern States in the hordes of the working people waiting for us, but there is one condition precedent to the savings bank—you must set up schools." This paragraph illustrates Mr. Atkinson's ideas singularly well. His advocacy here of common schools was a part of his great desire to see the South rebuilt, and so was his proposal of savings banks. But he could not understand how the South wished to see money taken out of savings banks and placed immediately in cotton mills, where it would be more productive to its owners, and to the country. As far as Mr. Atkinson went, his reasoning was astonishing sound, but where he stopped, he stopped irrevocably.
"Where are your dairies? You farmers of the hills of Georgia, from the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, aye, from the North Cumberland valley, from the French Broad River, even from that great blue grass country of Kentucky. Where are your dairies?" he seemed to think of everything but what to his hearers seemed most obvious. He suggested stock raising as profitable in the South, and finally the culture of Pongee, Tussah or Cheefoo silk worms, though the latter would be, he thought, perhaps of doubtful success. A week after this speech, Mr. Atkinson had a talk, reported in the News and Courier of May 8, 1881, with the press representatives in their pavilion. He discussed first "whether a single roller gin, operating against a saw gin, will do an equal amount of work with less motive power and less labor." He had arranged to take to Boston to lay before the New England Cotton Manufactures' Association samples of cotton from all the gins on the grounds. "Mr. Atkinson has proposed another trial of every kind of gin, cleaner, press and picker, to be made in the building of the New England Mechanics' Institute in Boston, in December, 1882. Every man in the South who is especially interested in cotton production and manufacture will be invited to plant a specific acre for use at this trial, which will be the second step in what has been so well begun in Atlanta. The picking and saving the cotton wasted on the ground, the cleaning, ginning and packing of the staple in good condition, offers to the Southern States a branch of manufacturing the most important in the whole series of operations which neither the Northern States nor Europe can share, but in which there is greater opportunity for profit in ration to the capital invested than in any other department of manufacture. 'No staple in the world,' said Mr. Atkinson, 'except the sugar raised by the Maylays, is treated so barbarously as the cotton produced in the Southern States of the American Union'." Tests, Mr. Atkinson thought, showed that cotton from the Charlotte steam compress worked up more smoothly, though the yarn was somewhat weaker, perhaps, than cotton from the county compresses and loose cotton just as it came from the field. It may be that this interview was written by Mr. Atkinson himself, and run into the reports of the day at the exposition as sent out by the correspondents.
[176]Examples of this abound. The Manufacturer and Industrial Gazette, Springfield, Mass., was quoted in the News and Courier, Feb. 3, 1881: "They (the Southern States) have the advantage of cotton location, and, when they have secured new and improved machinery, will do any unrivalled business. They can save freights, buy cheaper and hire cheaper labor. They save buyers' commission, and warehouse delivery and cartage, sampling, classing, pressing, shipping, marine risks and freight and cartage to interior towns, which amounts in all to some seven dollars per bale. The Northern mills also lose from receiving cotton poorly ginned, containing a good deal of leaf and sand, which is computed at six per cent. of the entire crop. The difference between the cost of a bale sent to Fall River, Mass., and a bale sent to Columbia, Ga., is eight dollars and six cents. This makes a tax of eighteen per cent. which Fall River pays in competition with Columbus. It is estimated that, if the planters could manufacture their cotton near home, they would save $50,000,000 in transportation.... As yet the South manufactures principally coarser goods, yarns, ducks, unbleached muslins, sheetings, shirtings, osnaburgs, jeans, etc., but the time is not distant when it will come to make prints, cambrics, laces, and all the finer qualities of staple goods."
[177]News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. (In the same issue excerpts from the address were printed.)
[178]News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881. In the following editorial comment of the Augusta, Ga., Chronicle and Constitutionalist (reprinted in the News and Courier, Dec. 8, 1881) the contrast between Mr. Atkinson's views and the facts as the South was finding them is made sharp: "Augusta has an abiding faith in her manufactories, despite Mr. Edward Atkinson, and people outside seem to think as well of them, at any rate they are willing to invest their money in such enterprise.... For such factories as the Augusta, the Enterprise and Sibley and the King are of immense importance to a city. There will be when all of them are at work, fully twenty thousand people dependent upon them, including the operatives and their families, to say nothing of the stores that will be supported by their trade. Each factory like the Sibley or the King adds five thousand to the population."
[179]"We have found that we cannot stand alone, that our fight must be made within the Union." (News and Courier, Oct. 24, 1881.)
[180]News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., July 13, 1881. When Garfield was shot, July 2, this paper carried an editorial of similar content. Five days after the appearance of the editorial here quoted, when recovery seemed assured, the paper said this: "One thing the President's desperate illness has unquestionably effected. It has done more than years of ordinary events in bringing the North and South together—vainly will the politicians flourish the 'bloody flag'. The people will not rally on the ensanguined colors again. For the Republic, as well as the President, the danger line is well nigh, passed."
[181]News and Courier, Sept. 20, 1881. Garfield died at Elberton, N.J., September 19. That Charleston meant what she said is shown in the reception which was accorded the First Connecticut Regiment, invited to visit the city after attending the Centennial Celebration at Yorktown, Virginia. The New Englanders came six weeks after the death of Garfield—October 24. On this day the newspaper carried at the head of the first column the Connecticut and South Carolina flags crossed, above them the words "Yankee Doodle Came to Town", and below "A Welcome Invasion!" An editorial headed "Happy Day" had these words: "It does not strain the probabilities to believe that the visit of the First Connecticut Regiment to Charleston is the outgrowth and sentiment and interest which found expression when the President of the United States lay dying, and when after his long agony he died. Had not President Garfield been slain, and the South felt differently and, therefore, acted differently, this present unpremeditated fraternization would have been impossible. There is no shock now in removing mourning trappings to make room for the wreaths and garlands of joy. It is the fit succession of events, a consequence of the murder of the President. The blood of the Chief Magistrate is the seed of union. Yorktown in itself a reminder of the days when North and South had felt one aim and purpose, furnished the opportunity or occasion, and the unselfish sorrow of the Southern people during the President's mortal illness furnished the motive. The relation of the two events is too plain to be ignored or misunderstood. This is the significance of the coming of the Connecticut First from the land of abundance and diversified wealth to battle-scarred and struggling Charleston."
[182]Interview with C. C. Baldwin In the New York Herald, reprinted in News and Courier, July 11, 1881.
[183]The Daily Dispatch, Richmond, Va., March 5, 1880.
[184]News and Observer, Dec. 1, 1880.
[185]News and Observer, Mar. 25, 1881.
[186]Mar. 18, 1881. In this instance also it is apparent that the State was looked to as a natural unit upon which the company had claims. The dispatch says: "The estimates of the subscriptions here has (have) been raised, in view of the encouragement received already, to at least $125,000, and it is believed that with this substantial backing the whole State will be assured of the character of the organization, and join in the enterprise."
[187]News and Courier, Jan. 14, 1882.
[188]News and Observer, Raleigh, Nov. 9, 1880.
[189]Dec. 24, 1880.
[190]Newberry Herald, quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.
[191]Quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.
[192]January 28, 1881.
[193]The same dual basis of appeal was recognized in a notice supplementing an advertisement of the company appearing the day before the editorial here quoted (Jan. 27, 1881): "The advantages, direct and incidental, accruing to every citizen of Charleston from this industry about to be started in our city are so manifest that those who have inaugurated the enterprise have every reason to feel confident of a ready response to the call for capital and for abundant success."
[194]News and Courier, Apr. 13, 1881.
[195]Quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 31, 1881.
[196]Quoted in News and Courier, Jan. 31, 1881.
[197]News and Courier, Sept. 1, 1881.
[198]Thompson, P.
[199]Rock Hill Correspondent in News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.
[200]News and Courier, Dec. 17, 1881.
[201]Yorkville Correspondence, Ibid., March 25, 1881.
[202]Ibid., Feb. 26, 1881.
[203]Ibid., Apr., 6, 1881; see p. 19.
[204]The Observer, Sept. 10, 1880. The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, on Mch. 9, 1880, carried from the Columbus Enquirer: "... there are 213,157 spindles to Georgia's credit.... Of this number Columbus has 60,000—near a third of the whole.... The Eagle and Phenix mills alone operate 44,000 spindles. All this has been done since 1866 ... with Southern capital and brains." The editor of The Observer, Raleigh, paid a visit to Durham and Winston, North Carolina, and went back to his desk glowing with enthusiasm for what they had accomplished. In an editorial (May 19, 1880) headed "Manufacturing Towns"; he wrote of Durham: "Literally the town has been created through the energy and enterprise of its inhabitants. They began with no capital to speak of, and now they levy contributions on hundreds of thousands of people who live in distant parts of the Union, and with their gains have built and beautified a town whose history should be continually kept in view by all who would have their own homes to prosper."
[205]C. C. Baldwin, president Louisville and Nashville Railroad; the interview was reprinted in News and Courier, July 11, 1881.
[206]Staff correspondence from Spartanburg to News and Courier, May 21, 1881.
[207]Ibid., Feb. 4, 1881.
[208]News and Courier, Oct. 24, 1881.
[209]News and Courier, Mch. 8, 1881.
[210]News and Courier, Mar. 19 and 25, 1881. The personnel of committees appointed from among the early subscribers is significant. The names are all, or nearly all, old ones in South Carolina, and some of the men are still among the first citizens of the capit. The committees were made up of W. A. Clark, Jno. C. Seegers, Nathaniel B. Barnwell, F. W. McMaster, Preston C. Lorick, T. A. McCreery, Jno. T. Sloan, Jr.
[211]Ibid., Mar. 17, 1881.
[212]Columbia Dispatch, Ibid., Mar. 31, 1881.
[213]News and Courier, Jan. 28, 1881.
[214]See p. 14.
[215]News and Courier, Jan. 9, 1882.
[216]News and Courier, Dec. 14, 1881.
[217]Ibid., Mch. 25, 1881.
[218]"Brutus", writing from Barnwell to News and Courier, May 25, 1881.
[219]Sumter, S.C. Southron, quoted in News and Courier, May 14, 1881.
[220]News and Courier, June 28, 1881.
[221]Ibid., Mar. 14, 1881.
[222]Quoted News and Courier, Aug. 18, 1881.
[223]Observer, June 27, 1880.
[224]Dispatch quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 25, 1881. Francis Fontaine, commissioner of immigration for Georgia, did not represent the method of appeal of his fellow Georgians, when he said tritely and smugly: "The truth is only to be made known, when capital will find its own way to the sunny land." (Observer, Mar. 20, 1880.)
[225]Gannon, W. H., The Landowners of the South, and the Industrial Classes of the North, pp. 6, 7 and 8.
[226]News and Courier, Aug. 9, 1881.
[227]Quoted in News and Courier, July 7, 1881. The isolation of this editor and the provincial quality of his utterance are clearly seen in such phrases as "we welcome foreign capital down here". Even without the context.
[228]Quoted from New York Herald, in News and Courier, July 11, 1881. Hon. Cassius M. Clay, writing in The Industrial South declared: "I am tired of hearing the deprecating cry of 'We want Yankee brains and enterprise.' We don't want any such thing; We want Southern brains and enterprise." (Quoted in Gannon, pp. 18 and 19.)
[229]Quoted in News and Courier, Nov. 5, 1881.
[230]Feb. 13, 1880.
[231]News and Courier, Nov. 5, 1881.
[232]Quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 8, 1881.
[233]Quoted in News and Courier, Annual Trade Summary, Sept. 1, 1881.
[234]Winnsboro (South Carolina) News, quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.
[235]July 30, 1881.
[236]Quoted in News and Courier, Apr. 25, 1881.
[237]Ibid., Apr. 9, 1881. The Batesville Cotton Factory, built by William Bates forty years before, was bought by G. Putnam, of Massachusetts for $8,000, and he invested $10,000 additional in the plant. The building was frame, two and half stories high, all was burned in March of 1881, catching from sparks from the boiler room. It was believed that Mr. Putnam would rebuild the plant on better lines. (Ibid., Mar. 2, 1881, et seq.)
[238]Ibid., July 11, 1881.
[239]Ibid., Nov. 10, 1881.
[240]News and Courier, July 11, 1881.
[241]Ibid., Jan. 14, 1882.
[242]News and Courier, Jan. 12 and 14, 1882. When the Sibley Manufacturing Company of Augusta, Georgia, was increasing its capital by $400,000, President W. C. Sibley received from Boston a telegram ordering $20,000 of the new stock. (News and Courier May 21, 1881.) Cf. Thompson.
[243]News and Courier, Apr. 6, 1881.
[244]Ibid., Mch. 15, 1881.
[245]Ibid., Mch. 29, 1881.
[246]News and Courier, Apr. 1, 1881. These subscriptions may have been partly influenced by the purpose of Mr. Atkinson to have the Exposition further the cultivation and preparation, and not the manufacture, of the staple.
[247]Jan. 27, 1881.
[248]March 21, 1881.
[249]News and Courier, Jan. 21, 1881.
[250]It seems to have been usual to call first for a payment of 10 per cent. of the stock subscribed, rather than to require a certain proportion in cash at subscription. Thus the books of subscription of the Charleston Manufacturing Company were opened January 27th; on March 29th the directors called for the payment of the first instalment of 10 per cent., and at 2 o'clock on the morning of April 9th—how closely the progress of the undertaking was watched by papers and public!—more than half of the amount was in the hands of the officers of the company.
[251]Ibid., Feb. 10, 1882.
[252]Ibid., Feb. 5, 1881.
[253]Ibid., Feb. 7, 1881.
[254]News and Courier, Mar. 25, 1881.
[255]Hartsell, J. L., interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[256]C. B. Armstrong, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[257]Joseph Separt, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[258]S. N. Boyce and J. Lee Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[259]Ibid., Feb. 26, 1881.
[260]News and Courier, S.C., Feb. 24, 1881.
[261]Augusta Trade Review, Augusta, Ga., Oct., 1884.
[262]News and Courier, Apr. 9, 1881. This paper in the issue of Feb. 26th spoke of the additional stock as being $350, but puts the amount at $100,000 lower in this later notice.
[263]North Carolina Herald, Salisbury, N.C., Nov. 9, 1887, quoted in minute book of Salisbury Cotton Mills.
[264]The meeting was held Dec. 2nd; the minute book record is signed by F. J. Murdoch, sec. pro tem.
[265]Klutz, Theodore F., interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1918.
[266]J. B. Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.
[267]News and Courier, Mar. 31, 1881.
[268]Barbee, Wm. J., The Cotton Question, pp. 138 ff.
[269]March 18, 1880.
[270]Clement F. Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.
[271]J. L. Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[272]W. R. Odell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[273]L. Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[274]News and Courier, Feb. 23, 1881.
[275]Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.
[276]From Cotton Field to Cotton Mill, pp. 82 ff.
[277]Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[278]L. G. Porter, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[279]Potter, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[280]Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.
[281]B. B. Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.
[282]Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[283]Ibid.
[284]Hartsell, interview. Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[285]Rogan, G. W., interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[286]Sterling Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.
[287]C. S. Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.
[288]Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.
[289]Charles McDonald, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 3, 1916.
[290]Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.
[291]J. W. Norwood, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.
[292]Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916. J. A. Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916. The mills around Spartanburg had a nucleus of local capital, and the commission houses and machinery manufacturers took an interest in the development.
[293]Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[294]Wood, Interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[295]Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.
[296]Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916.
[297]A. A. Thompson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.
[298]Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.
[299]Clark, David, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.
[300]C. D. Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.
[301]Seport, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[302]Wood, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.
[303]Separk, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.
[304]Charles E. Johnson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.
[305]Bernard Case, interview, Greensboro, N.C., Aug. 30, 1916.
[306]Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916.
[307]Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.
[308]Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.
[309]Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.
[310]Odell, W. R., interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.
[311]Norwood, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.