Semi-Weekly Mississippian [Jackson, MS], April 17, 1860
There is much truth contained in the following communication which we take from the Nashville Gazette. However humiliating the acknowledgment may be, the people of the South are generally sending North for Superintendants , not only in cotton Manufacturing establishments, but in almost every other branch of Mechanics. This fault should be remedied, and the communication is well-timed and sensible. The correspondent says:
In the March number of Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine there is an article which declares the startling fact, that of the four million bales of cotton raised last year, only one hundred thousand was manufactured into cloth in the South. Of this amount, North Carolina manufactured 29,000; South Carolina 20,000; Georgia 26,000; Tennessee, 13,000; and Alabama, 10,000 bales. There has, however, been a gradual increase of the amount. In 1855 there was only 59,000 bales made into cloth, which amount has gradually increased, and in 1859, 100,000 were manufactured, which shows an increase of nearly double the amount in four years. The reports from most of the factories shows a healthful and prosperous condition, and gradual increase in the number of bales manufactured, proves conclusively that the business is paying.
This writer says that “the great bug bear in the South, is the cry that labor is too high, an assertion which is not true, as can be proven by the history of the factories which have been successively managed in Georgia. This kind of labor required in cotton factories, occupies persons to whom it is almost a charity to give employment, and the compensation is established by the employer. Women and children do most of the work, and a cotton factory well managed, operates as a blessing to the town, by giving the poor and helpless people employment.
It is true that all the factories do not pay good dividends in the South, neither do they all pay in the North; if badly managed, they do not pay North or South; and the fact that some do pay, is conclusive evidence that all might be made to pay. The objection is often urged in Nashville, that we must have northern men to manage our manufacturing establishments; that we have not the men here to conduct such establishments. Is this not a humiliating confession? Is Tennessee ready to make such a confession? Are we dependent upon the north for every thing? If we have no brains in the South, it would be well to import a cargo. Or to save our people the trouble of using the little they have, hire some men to do our thinking for us. Shame on such contemptible old fogies. No man can teach our children but a northern man and not satisfied with that, those of riper years are to be taught to manage their own business by men of the same sort—they must manage our factories. If such is the general feeling and sentiment of the south, then they ought to be made “the hewers of wood and the drawers of water,” for the north. If the northern people are superior, they deserve to enjoy all that superiority. But it is not so. Hear what a Georgian says on this subject:
“When the Macon Factory was first established, it was under the control of a man brought from New England at a high salary, but he soon convinced his employer that he did not understand our people, and would not answer for the place. Mr. William S. Holt, a Georgian born and raised, was then appointed as his successor, a position he still occupies with much credit to himself, and satisfaction to the Company; and this is not the only case in Georgia. Mr. Banington King manages a factory at Raswell with marked success. The Augusta mills are, also, prosperous.”
Then, according to this testimony, we may manufacture profitably in the south, and we are not dependent upon the North for a manager. The point is then settled as to our ability. We have the capital, we have the material, the hands begging for employment, and a market at our own doors. Shall we have manufactories in Nashville? There are many young men who would like to remain in Tennessee; who are too proud to work; the country is over-stocked with merchants as well as all the learned professions. What are they to do? Do the parents of such wish to see their sons a set of gentlemen leafers and drunkards? If not, let them have some useful employment. “Idleness is the great fomenter of evil.” Here is a field of usefulness, in which they may be made a blessing to the community in which they live. Let some of the capital be employed in manufactories, and our beautiful city will grow to be a giant in size, and make glad the hearthstones of many a poor family.
W. R. H.