The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New South, by Holland Thompson

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Title: The New South
A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution

Author: Holland Thompson

Release Date: August 3, 2004 [EBook #13107]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE NEW SOUTH

A CHRONICLE OF SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

BY HOLLAND THOMPSON

1919

[Illustration]

CONTENTS

I. THE BACKGROUND

II. THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE

III. THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN

IV. THE FARMER AND THE LAND

V. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

VI. LABOR CONDITIONS

VII. THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE

VIII. EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

IX. THE SOUTH OF TODAY

THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

INDEX

THE NEW SOUTH

CHAPTER I

THE BACKGROUND

The South of today is not the South of 1860 or even of 1865. There is a
New South, though not perhaps in the sense usually understood, for no
expression has been more often misused in superficial discussion. Men
have written as if the phrase indicated a new land and a new
civilization, utterly unlike anything that had existed before and
involving a sharp break with the history and the traditions of the past.
Nothing could be more untrue. Peoples do not in one generation or in two
rid themselves entirely of characteristics which have been developing
for centuries.

There is a New South, but it is a logical development from the Old
South. The civilization of the South today has not been imposed from
without but has been an evolution from within, though influenced by the
policy of the National Government. The Civil War changed the whole
organization of Southern society, it is true, but it did not modify its
essential attributes, to quote the ablest of the carpetbaggers, Albion
W. Tourgee. Reconstruction strengthened existing prejudices and created
new bitterness, but the attempt failed to make of South Carolina another
Massachusetts. The people resisted stubbornly, desperately, and in the
end successfully, every attempt to impose upon them