ndustrial rivalries,
shall always terminate in the survival of the fittest. If in such a battle
the South sow seeds of economic weakness, when it ought to sow seeds of
economic strength, it will go down before its rivals, whether those rivals
be in this country or in any other country or part of the world. In such a
struggle if it would win it will need to avail itself of all the means
which God and nature have placed at its disposition.

One of the most important of these means, perhaps the most important
single factor in the development and prosperity of the South, is its Negro
labor. It is more to it, if viewed aright, than all of its gold, iron and
coal mines put together. If properly treated and trained it will mean
fabulous wealth and greatness to that section. Lest you say that I
exaggerate, I will quote the estimate put upon this labor by the
Washington _Post_, which will hardly be accused of enthusiasm touching any
matter relating to the Negro, I think. Here it is:

"We hold as between the ignorant of the two races, the Negro is
preferable. They are conservative; they are good citizens; they take no
stock in social schisms and vagaries; they do not consort with anarchists;
they cannot be made the tools and agents of incendiaries; they constitute
the solid, worthy, estimable yeomanry of the South. Their influence in
government would be infinitely more wholesome than the influence of the
white sansculottes, the riff-raff, the idlers, the rowdies and the
outlaws. As between the Negro, no matter how illiterate he may be, and the
poor white the property owners of the South prefer the former."

The South cannot, economically, eat its cake and have it too. It cannot
adopt a policy and a code of laws to degrade its Negro labor, to hedge it
about with unequal restrictions and prescriptive legislation, and raise it
at the same time to the highest state of productive efficiency. But it
must as an economic necessity raise this labor to the highest point of
efficiency or suffer inevitable industrial feebleness and inferiority.
What are the things which have made free labor at the North the most
productive labor in the world and of untold value and wealth to that
section? What, but its intelligence, skill, self-reliance and power of
initiative? And how have these qualities been put into it? I answer
unhesitatingly, by those twin systems of universal education and popular
suffrage. One system trains the children, the other t