USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 74
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Besides the consideration of cheap and contented labor, that of cheap fuel is of the utmost importance for the success of the cotton mill. In Manchester the great cost of extracting coal from the deep beds of the coal mines of England makes the price of that commodity far higher than it is in the Southern States, where limitless coal mines abound, whose surface strata alone is being utilized by casy obtainment and at a small cost.
But the difficulties of climate, distance, labor and fuel are all obviated in the states of the South. Holding, therefore, these splendid advantages, the states of the South will naturally seek for a widening foreign market. This she will surely find beyond her European trade in China and Japan and the islands in the Pacific, when direct communications will be established with those countries through the cutting of the isthmus which unites the two Americas, which engineering fcat has now become the imperious commercial necessity of this age. The states of the South, command- ing a short and direct route, with her inexhaustible forests at hand wherewith to build the necessary shipping for this trade, would supply this rich and prolific market with their varied products and manufactures. Nor could any section or outside power successfully compete with them; for a closer proximity gives, necessarily, a suprem- acy none may disputc.
The history of the Suez Canal, which has poured millions into the coffers of England, and that of the Sault Ste. Marie's Canal, on the great northern lakes, gives the basis for the assumption that the tonnage of vessels passing through annually would average nine million at a low estimate.
By opening this canal, breaking bulk in transit, a matter of immense monetary
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importance, would also be eliminated; and the coasting trade for small craft among those rich and fertile countries lying to the south along the Pacific, which embraces most valuable product, would grow to enormous proportions and would belong exclus- ively to the Southern States.
Indeed, the condition attendant upon the throwing open of direct and easy commu- nication, through the Nicaragua Canal, is so supremely and undeniably advantageous that they justify the prediction that San Francisco on the Pacific, and New York on the Atlantic, will thereby command the markets of the world, while the ports of the states of the South must proportionately grow and prosper under the splendid impetus of expanding trade to become shortly great and important commercial centers.
The Southern group of states has an area of eight hundred thousand square miles, with a population of a little over nineteen million. Running through their center extends the southern Appalachian region, along whose northwestern slope stretches a continuous and unbroken coal-field of incalculable value, heavily timbered, with a productive soil and a healthful and cool climate. Lying toward the east spreads another strip of high, mountainous country, rising over two thousand feet above sea level. These ranges are covered with dense forests of varied and most valuable wood, and are prolific in slates, fine clays, marbles, ores, copper and other minerals, with a wealth of iron which only equals its colossal wealth in coal. Piled up in the center of these Southern States lies this magazine of enormous natural resources, greater far than those ever possessed by Great Britain, and surrounded by more than a half mil- lion square miles of lands whose fertility and productiveness is beyond computation.
It is incontestable that here is the section which offers the most advantageous sites for economical iron-making, for the needed materials lie close at hand, and economy in transporting this raw material gives to the manufacturer of iron enor- mous advantages over competing branches of that industry, located as they are at great distances in the North and West. The irresistible logic of circumstances has been recognized, and Birmingham, the iron city of the South, has grown into import- ance and wealth through her blast-furnaces and great iron industries, while others are being erected in various localities to make of the South, as Mr. Edward Atkinson says, "the future situs of the principal iron production of the world." And it may be pertinent to add that the recent splendid invention, called the Basaic process, for making steel of iron containing phosphorus, will unquestionably turn the scale for steel manufacture in favor of the South, by throwing open to her the possibility of fur- nishing at a lower cost, for the Southern railroads, whose extension and ramification over vast areas establish an inexhaustible market, those steel rails now manufactured by the steel mills of Pennsylvania and Illinois, and furnished by them to the Southern railroad companies.
In the Flat Top Region, in the great Kanawha Basin, in the Warnor Field, and elsewhere throughout these states, where coal mining has but recently been inaugu- rated, the coal trade amounts to millions of tons yearly, and gives employment to thousands of men, besides furnishing an enormous volume of paying freight to the railroads. The coal fields of the South, by their extent and depth, are practically beyond the limits of definite measurement, and the coal trade, yet in its infancy in that section, bids fair to spread far beyond the limits of this country.
It may be added in this connection, that Mobile and Pensacola are now making extensive improvements in their harbor facilities to accommodate the greatly increas- ing export trade of coal to Mexico and Central and South America, brought by rail- roads for shipment from these ports.
These rich timber districts are vast in area and extensive in variety. Here the yellow and white pines, the white, black, Spanish and chestnut oaks, the chestnut, walnut, hickory, poplar, cherry and laurel intermingle their luxuriant foliage and mutely testify to the keen-sighted lumberman and manufacturer of the West and East, that the lands which produce so superb a growth will likewise furnish the means to satisfy a most laudable ambition-that of becoming, through their agency, a successful and wealthy citizen.
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There are two other salient features in Southern industrial life which may not be overlooked, for their importance imperiously and justly clamor for attention. Over a far stretching area of country to the southwest of Norfolk lie a series of highly prosperous truck farms, under the most improved methods of culture, whose varied products furnish the inexhaustible markets of the large cities of the East. Running back from the old and sedate " City by the Sea," Charleston, and encased between the broad sweeping waters of the Ashley and the Cooper, extend a succession of truck farms, admirable from the perfected culture.
Passing through the wealthy and prospering State of Georgia, from cast to west the traveler's attention is attracted by the continuous succession of handsome farms which cover the gently undulating lands and form a pleasing and charming panorama; while the orange groves of Florida need no comment to recall their beauty and their moneyed advantages. Nowhere on this continent does truck-farming and fruit-grow- ing offer so uniformly good and profitable results as among the Southern States.
After cotton, the product giving the most lucrative returns to the cultivator is the sugar-cane of Louisiana, whose wealth of vegetation and salubrious climate make it truly the Garden Spot of the South. Grown in rich alluvial soil, in a most healthy region, by a population thoroughly educated concerning its culture, the cane-fields of Louisiana present one of the most beautiful sights in the world. The splendid luxu- riance of this crop, the waving grace of its billowy green rows, when swept by the gentle breezes, under the radiant light of a glowing Southern sky, must needs enchant the beholder. The cultivation and manufacture of sugar give remunerative employ- ment to a large and industrious population, and brings millions of dollars annually into the State of Louisiana, which circulates abroad for the perceptible benefit of all.
Through the old and historic states of Virginia and South Carolina, whose annals contain names which will ever adorn American history, down through the prosperous states of Georgia and Alabama, through Louisiana, glorious in her unrivaled fertility, and through the undulating plains and vast expanse of Texas, whose wealth and power in the coming years may not be measured, arise prophetic voices from field, forest, mine and workshop, telling of all that a sagacious and mighty population will accomplish in the near future, when the glorious possibilities of the states of the South will be stirred into life by the gigantic breath of extended commerce, enterprise and capital.
" These beautiful states of the South," swept by the ocean and mountain winds, nursed by the glowing sun and gentle rains, what a glorious invitation you grandly tender the stranger to seek rest and contentment amid your fertile plains and teeming valleys; how sublime has been the struggle of your people for what they deemed was their constitutional right! how undaunted their attitude and how unsurpassed their fortitude amid the upheaval of their colossal ruin! And now that the glimmering dawn of a stupendous future is faintly spreading its transcendent glow of prosperity abroad over the great Southern States, the throb of a pulsating triumph beats in the hum of the factory, glows in the smelting furnace, and ascends in the soft twilight hours from the rich furrows of her incomparable fields, while the salt-sea waves, as they rock her shipping and dash against pier and wharf, add their exultant voices in prophecy of the coming prosperity they so plainly foresee.
May the advancing wealth, which will crown with a fitting reward the efforts, ambitions and genius of this people of the South, never diminish those high and true aspirations which have hitherto adorned her annals and made of her citizens, in pros- perity and in adversity, a lofty and noble race.
Standing today amid the magnificent achievements of the great Northwest, a vis- itor to this imposing World's Fair, in the name of the South I tender the warm hand of her true and steadfast friendship to her noble host, applauding her successful efforts to demonstrate the power and capacity of the American people. And I render heartfelt thanks to this gracious audience for their courteous attention to this most imperfect showing of the grand possibilities of the states of the South.
WOMAN-THE INCITER TO REFORM. By MRS. MINNIE D. LOUIS.
We are all familiar with the generally accepted source for the traceable origin of the wonderful creation of man; that every word of that condensed statement is fraught with deepest meaning no one will doubt. We read that on the sixth day God created beasts, reptiles and man. Man stands at the head of the animal cre- ation. We read further, and find that woman is formed afterward. And without any reductio ad absurdum may we not utilize the Darwinian theory, and call her a higher evolution of man, the mental development; in fine, the very perfection of God's noblest work. As the poet says;
" He tried his 'prentice hand on man, And then He made the lassies, O."
The great Creator caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and then He formed Eve out of one of his ribs; which means, palpably, that being formed from only part of him she could not possibly be endowed with as much physical strength. But in His benefi- cent law of compensation, by which the beautiful balance of all distribution is maintained, He be- stowed upon her keen perception, which, like the delicate diamond-drill, easily penetrates where the MRS. MINNIE D. LOUIS. sledge-hammer would only shatter. She was given to Adam in his quiet moment; not when he was frolicking with the other denizens of Paradise, reveling in his superiority, but after he had slept, when his brain was in a condition to be influenced by her gentle presence, then she appeared unto him, the embodiment of a new revelation of his power, his slumbering, æsthetic nature.
I suppose it is as patent to others as to me that it was Eve who first gained knowledge and then imparted it to Adam. It was she who first espied the lurking enemy, and she who bravely dared confront him. The Serpent was not the enemy; it was Laziness, that destroyer of Divine growth in mortal. The subtle, telepathic serpent discerned Eve's mental unrest, and despite all the interpreters, translators, annotators and commentators on the Bible, Eve's interview with that gorgeous, calm-eyed ophid- ian was the first whisper of her energy and ambition. the real tempters; Adam's inborn sloth was exacerbating to her active, progressive mind. There was no philosophy in her brain to tell her it was better to bear the ills they had. Quick impulse, true as the magnet needle, told her that pain, toil, endurance, exile, anything was better than the
Minnie D. Louis was born in Philadelphia, Pa. When four months old her parents moved to the South, so that in all but the accident of birth she claims to be a native Georgian. Her parents were Fannie Zachariah Dessau, a woman of rare beauty and energy, born in Chatham, England, though a child when brought to this country, and Abraham Dessau, a native of Hamburg, Germany, a man of wide learning and exceptional purity of character. She was educated in academic schools in Columbus, Ga., and at Pecker Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. She has traveled in the United States and Canada. She married Adolph H. Louis in July, 1866. Her special work has been in the interest of uneducated and needy children of the Jewish poor in New York City. Her literary works consist of essays and poems and the "Personal Service " Department in the " American Hebrew," as yet uncompiled. She is a Jewess and a member of the Temple Emanuel. She is a beautiful, accomplished and most attractive woman. Her rare good taste in dress and deportment are a subject of remark. Her permanent postoffice address is No. 66 West Fifty-sixth Street, New York City.
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weariness of pleasure provided, over which they had no sway. Adam saw not this serpent, this charmer, that wooed beyond the gates of brute-inhabited Eden; it was Eve who in turn tempted him. And who can gainsay that, had she not first tasted and then given to Adam, there might now be but a race of satyrs frisking over the earth.
The ancient Greeks were not slow to recognize the due weight of woman's influ- ence, for in their Pantheon male and female rule conjointly over the world. But mark the nice distinction they make! To the gods are given all physical power, to the goddesses all intellectual. Minerva is the living essence of Jove's brain, for she lit- erally was born of his head. And through this belief to what excellence in war, and song, and art, and virtuc, did men not attain? Perceive the contrast in countries where the female mind is ignored. Look at emasculated Turkey and shriveled Arabia. How far the association of a female in the Christian religion has exercised a humanizing effect " he who runs may read." The co-ordination of woman with man in the laws of the Hebrews has given them that vitality which day by day impresses mankind with the conviction of their immortal truth.
It would be too sweeping an assertion to say that all great men only attain their eminence through the influence of woman. Poets and musicians receive their gifts direct from the great Creator. Genius is a self-feeding flame, kindled from within; it does not borrow fuel. And yet, would, Petrarch ever have been bonneted had he not so sonneted his Laura? And while Virgil dragged Dante down to hell, it was Beatrice who lifted him up to Paradise. Everyone knows that Madame de Maintenon forged the glittering rays in which Louis XIV. shone so grandly. Queen Bess was the female Vulcan, who with all her brusquerie hammered out her own " Golden Age" of poets and statesmen and navigators. A woman's finer sensibilities and foresight compassed the way to America. And what is called today " the best government under the sun " hails a woman at the helm. How much the abrogation of the Salic law in monarchial France might have lessened the causes that made it volcanic in its eruption of fiery, devastating hate, succeeding generations will pronounce; and whether the stepping of our own government on the downward grade is to be arrested by woman suffrage remains also to be demonstrated.
In the carly days of American independence many famous men wore their laurels more gracefully that the wreath was reflected also on the wifely brow. Mrs. John Adams quietly upheld her husband's dignity during his ministerial absence, and enhanced it when the demands of his position elicited her ability thereto. Mrs. John Jay added brighter luster to the name of her liege lord. Mrs. William Bingham was the admired lady, at home and abroad, who gave tone to the sex of her country. And surely the memory of Washington's mother and wife descends to us with their own halos of virtue and noble simplicity, contributing somewhat toward the glorious light in which shines the, " Father of his Country."
As the whole machinery of a watch without the small, delicate, almost unseen mainspring is useless, so does the whole machinery of the terrestrial world require somewhere the delicate, unseen influence of woman. Her care or neglect protects or endangers mankind through the evil or the virtue that she propagates, and her subse- quent fostering of it; while her individual character is Parcæan in its fiats. The unfaithfulness of a Helen plunged almost a world into war; the chastity of a Lucretia transformed a kingdom into a republic; the compassion and equity of Harrict Beecher Stowe unbound the fetters of a nation of slaves and led them into the sun- light of freedom. There is in the temperament of woman that which makes for weal or woe; the question is how best to dispose of it.
I am not prepared to say that the mere concession to woman of the privilege to cast her vote will purge all governments of corruption and establish a Platonian republic, unless such restrictions could be imposed that only the most intelligent and unbiased of her sex could be eligible, but in this country the wild scuffle for office to subvention it to private ends has so become the "tramp! tramp!" of the nation's march, that there is danger of the women too following this " Pied Piper of Hamelin."
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She has some propædeutical work before sharing the ballot-box. The money-mad men with outstretched, rake-like hands, who scamper into position of whatever nature, and who hope to scamper out again just grazing the portiere of the penitentiary, are so many villainous dynamite bombs in the good Ship of State that threaten to explode her. Does women see wherein she can help to avert the calamity? Does the thought occur to her that extravagance and vanity are the charges in these bombs? And does she entertain the thought that she has aided in charging them? That this desecration of our paradisical country is a reflection of her yieldance to the gorgeous serpents that woo her? Yes! Palatial mansions, regal toilets, Lucullus' feasts and Dionysian pleasures are the tempters whispering to our Eves, and the Eves tasting first, make the Adams do likewise. Certainly neither luxury, nor aught contributing to refine- ment should be ignored. With every object created is also a corresponding thought in man, and when the affinity is attained, the object is unfolded into higher and higher degrees of usefulness and beauty; therefore there can never be any limitations to the production of what is called wealth; the earth is full of treasure and we only follow out the plan of a Divine beneficence in discovering, utilizing and enjoying it; but let " the means justify the end; " let "what happiness we justly call, subsist not in the good of one, but all. "
There is not an hour of the day but some wail of woe from still-chained humanity pierces the American woman's ears. She knows that industries are paralyzed, that idleness and want are generating anarchy, that the laborers stalk stolidly, flaunting pallid banners behind which Famine slirieks for bread, that the " black bat, " Desola- tion, is hovering over the land! She sees the handwriting on the wall, and knows there can be no delay. Before she claims her half of the ballot-box she will cope with the impending disaster.
" Diseases, desperate grown by desperate appliance, are relieved, or not at all." "Similia similibus curantur" will be the therapeutics she will practice. It is through the purse -- the over-gorging of some and the evisceration of others-that this fair country has become sick, its once healthy, honest countenance scarcely recognizable in its present emaciation; and through the purse must it be cured. The remedy that the American woman proposes is indeed a desperate one. She is well aware that com- merce is the main pivot on which the civil world revolves, and that exchange with foreign nations is, in a degree, necessary to maintain it. She knows, too, that not- withstanding international courtesy, the Old World's interest in the New World does not extend beyond the material advantage it can gain from her as a market and a dumping-ground. And the American woman feels justifiable in obeying the dictum, "self-preservation is the first law of nature." She sees our ragged children, our despairing mothers, our hollow-eyed, hollow-cheeked fathers sitting disconsolate by the silent mill, the mine, the manufactory. And whether it be the tariff, or whether it be the silver-purchase bill, or whether it be the monopolist, or whether it be the land-grabber, one thing can restore life and vigor to all, at least for the present, and that she proposes to do.
And this it is: That for the next three, four or five years, or as long as the tonic is required to get our country on its legs again, she will not buy for her house, for her person, for her cuisine, for her pleasure, or for any purpose except for sickness or education, any article that is not produced and manufactured in the United States. If the merchants must in consequence cease their importations, the gold will remain in our own land; and if exportations, in retaliation, cease, and stop the influx of gold, then let all the mines be worked and make up the deficiency; and if there be not enough gold, our silver coinage, under honest and discreet regulation, must be accorded its parity. Think of the resources that would have to be opened up to supply every- thing! Think of the hands that would be needed to do it, and to convert the raw materials into all their uses! Why are we dependent on the French bourse, the Eng- lish exchange, the Indian or Austrian monetary policy? Are we not a whole new world? Are we not sixty-five millions of people? But are we all fed, all clothed, and all housed as our colonial fathers planned we should be?
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Why are we waiting for French cambrics, for English prints, for Scotch ginghams, when we grow the cotton here? Why are we waiting for superior qualities of cotton manufacture when we make the machinery for it here? If the manufacturers here will not make the best qualities, why can we not boycott them till they do? And if such manufacture should cost more than the foreign, which is not probable, for domes- tic gingham is eight cents a yard and Scotch gingham thirty-five cents a yard retail, eighteen cents direct from the factory, we must be willing to share in the just dis- tribution. If American silks will not equal those of French manufacture, we can wear them notwithstanding, and encourage the improvement. Our forests furnish all the beautiful woods for every appurtenance of use or grandeur; our quarries, as yet almost unknown, are rich in material for the finest structures or ornaments; our mineral realm, yet but superficially surveyed, can surely overtop the world; our fields groan with fullness of nourishment; in short, there is nothing that fails, if intelligent energy be directed to uncarth it. Even the contention-breeding wool could be produced in our vast downs if the coveted quick returns did not preclude the patient nurture for its prescribed standard.
It is positively disgraceful that there should not be employment here for every - one. If the laborers are unskilled, establish plenty of schools wherein they may be trained, which would be the most powerful extirpator of crime. We have the instruc- tion and improvements of all ages and all nations at our command. What prevents us from profiting by it and making all our people, the native-born and the latest refu- gee, happy and contented? Nothing but the wild desire, like the prodigal son, to seek pleasures away from home, and the mad pursuit of unrepublican opulence to enjoy those pleasures; but like the prodigal son, we come back to the father's house poor and humiliated. It is our own homestead that we must build up securely, this pure city of the gods, the most beautiful ever on carth, is proof of the mighty con- structive forces in our sons and daughters, and nothing short of the most determined, inviolable, energetic home-support will thus build it. It is directly in the power of woman, through her mercantile patronage, to accomplish this revival. "For if she will buy American goods, she will, you may depend on't; and if she won't buy for- eign goods, she won't; so there's an end on't."
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