Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/410

376 them came into contact with Northern people and met there with a much friendlier feeling than they had anticipated. It dawned upon them that this was, after all, a good country to live in, and a good government to live under, and a good people to live with. And it is this sentiment, grown up slowly but with steadily increasing strength and spreading among all classes of society, even those whose feelings against the Union were bitterest during and immediately after the war, that has made the New South as we see it to-day.

It is not my purpose here to show in detail the economic growth of the South since the war. The Northern visitor will still be struck with the enormous difference between the South and the North in the matter of wealth. Travelling from State to State and attentively looking at country and town and people, he will be apt to ask two questions. One is: How could Southern men, considering the sparseness of their population and their comparative poverty, be so foolhardy as to urge the South into that war with the rich and populous North? And the other is: How was it possible for the Southern people, considering the enormous disparity of means and resources, to maintain that war for four long years?

But, although still poor, the South is decidedly richer than it was before the war, while, of course, its wealth is differently distributed. New industries have sprung up and old ones are better developed. The mineral resources are gradually drawn to light. In the iron regions of Alabama new towns are growing up, the appearance of which reminds one of Pennsylvania. Cotton mills are multiplying. Manufacturing establishments of various kinds are rising in many places. While the sugar interest in Louisiana has much declined, other branches of agriculture, such as tobacco in North Carolina, have taken a new start. The cotton crop is constantly growing