The important industries have thus far been few and they have kept rather close to the original raw material. The South does not spin all the cotton it produces, does not weave all the yarn it spins, and does not manufacture into clothing any considerable quantity of the cloth it weaves. The greater part of both yarn and cloth is coarse, though some mills do finer work. Little bleaching or printing, however, is done. The South is a land of curious economic contrasts. It produces sugar but buys confectionery. It produces immense quantities of lumber but works up comparatively little, and this mainly into simple forms. It produces iron and steel in considerable quantities but has few machine shops where really delicate work can be done. It does not manufacture motor cars, electric or even textile machinery or machine tools, nor does it make watches or firearms in appreciable quantities. In short, the South carries some of the most important raw materials only a step or two toward their ultimate form and depends upon other parts of the country for the finished article.
Years ago the story was told of a Georgia funeral at which that State furnished only the corpse and the grave. Georgia, and other States too, can do much more today, if the funeral be not too elaborate. It can furnish a cotton shroud, each year of finer quality. The knitting mills of the South are able to supply an increasing proportion of the population with hose and underclothing, and a number of the mills are gaining a national trade through advertising. If demanded, Southern-made shoes may be found, and a Southern-made coffin may be drawn on a Southern-made wagon by Southern-bred horses and perhaps, though improbably, in harness of local manufacture also.
The South was once the richest section of the Union. The vicissitudes of the Civil War rendered it poor, but now it is rapidly growing richer and since the beginning of the Great War has shown a phenomenal accumulation of new capital. During this great struggle some of the cotton mills made in a single month profits as large as they were formerly accustomed to make in a year. Even though the farmer received for his cotton much more than usual, the price of cloth would still have yielded a profit to the manufacturer if cotton had been twice as high. Other enterprises have likewise been profitable, and when normal conditions are restored this capital will seek new investment. While prophecy is dangerous it seems probable that manufacturing in the South will grow as never before; and new forms of investment must be found, as the rural districts cannot furnish any greatly increased supply of labor for cotton manufacturing though the towns can supply some adult labor for other forms of industry.
The labor question is beginning to grow serious in some localities, though it is difficult to discover whether the problem is chiefly one of getting labor at all or of getting it at something like the wages formerly paid. Apparently, however, the industrial growth of the South has been more rapid than that of population. Heretofore the farmer has had little difficulty in obtaining some sort of assistance in cultivating his land, and this abundance of labor has lessened the demand for agricultural machinery. Now the migration of the negro to the North has created a shortage of labor which must force the farmer to purchase machinery. Too much man and horse power has been employed upon Southern farms in proportion to the results achieved. The South has been producing a large value per acre but a small value per individual. If the South is to become permanently prosperous, fewer persons must do the work and must even increase the production.
A practical cotton-picking machine would help to solve some of the South's problems, as any family can plant and cultivate after a fashion much more cotton than it can pick. Many attempts to produce such a machine have been made, but simplicity, efficiency, and cheapness have not yet been attained. Like the reaper and binder, a machine of this sort is needed for only a small portion of the year, but in that short period the need is extreme. Such a machine would revolutionize the tenant system, would permit a larger production of food, and at the same time would set labor free for other occupations. Meanwhile the general rate of wages in agriculture has risen and must rise still further, as it has done in other occupations. Any student of economics who draws his conclusions from observation of life as well as from books realizes how large a part custom plays in determining wages, and hitherto farm wages have been very low and labor has been inefficient in the South.
The economic future of the South must rest upon the advance of the farmer. This thesis has already been developed at length in another chapter, where the present unsatisfactory organization and conditions of agriculture were also discussed. Improvement, however, is already becoming evident. Cotton furnishes two-fifths of the value of all farm products, with corn, hay, tobacco, and wheat following in the order named. Gradually the West is ceasing to be the granary and the smokehouse of the Southern farmer, but the South does not yet feed itself. In 1917 only Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Oklahoma produced a surplus of wheat, though it is estimated that the South as a whole reduced its deficiency by more than 35,000,000 bushels. The abnormal prices of agricultural products since 1915 have brought many farmers out of debt and set them on the road toward prosperity, but many have not yet realized that they are no longer objects of commiseration. Though the high prices of war times have brought prosperity to the farmer, the crying necessity today is a larger production per man employed.
The political, as well as the economic, condition of the South today is full of interest. Politically the common man is in control, and as a rule he selects men of his own type to represent him. The primary was almost universal in the South when the West was only thinking of it as a radical innovation. The day of aristocratic domination is over, if indeed it ever really existed. In many instances descent from well-known ancestors who have held high positions has proved a positive detriment to a political candidate of today. Some of the successful politicians, as might be expected, are demagogues. States differ in the number of politicians of this type, and the same State may vary from year to year. It may at the same time send a demagogue and a statesman to the Senate. Men are permitted to hold offices, both national and state, for longer periods than formerly, and, as a result, in recent Democratic Congresses Southern men have held the most important chairmanships. ¹
¹ North Carolina, for example, had in the 65th Congress, the chairmanship of the Committees on Finance and on Rules in the Senate, and on Ways and Means, Rules, Judiciary, and Rivers and Harbors in the House, besides other chairmanships of less account. Seldom in the whole history of the country has the representation of any State been so powerful.
That the Southern representation in Congress is equal in ability, culture, and character to that of the Old South or to that of even thirty years ago can hardly be seriously maintained. There are in Congress a few men today who recall the best traditions of Southern leadership; there are more who are mediocre and parochial. For the most part they come from law offices in country towns, and have the virtues and the limitations of their environment. They are honest financially, if not intellectually, and do not consciously yield to "the interests." They are correct in their private lives and likely to be somewhat bigoted. Many are convinced that cities are essentially wicked and conceive them to be inhabited by vampires and parasites. Few can think in national terms, and fewer have either knowledge or comprehension of international relations. For a generation the South was excluded from any real participation in national affairs and was wholly occupied with local questions. It is therefore difficult for such men to realize the present position of the United States in world politics. With much perturbation of spirit the rank and file followed the President in the steps leading up to the Great War, though some of the would-be leaders attempted to rebel. On the other hand, some of the most valuable men in the great crisis were Southerners.
The dominant party in the South is called Democratic, but the name has little of its original significance today. The representative is likely to follow the sentiment of his district if he can discover it. Some of the Southern Democrats advocate doctrines which are far removed from traditional democracy, for Populistic ideas have not entirely died out and some of the farmers still demand special privileges, which, however, they would be the first to deny to any one else. Democracy in the South really means the white man's party, and the Democratic doctrines are those in which it is thought the majority of the white men of the State or section believe for the time. Though the negro is no longer a voting power, the malign influence of the negro question persists.