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]

[Footnote 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
inter