374 CHARLES M. HARVEY 



eracy. Population and wealth in the south had fallen off dur- 

 ing the four years of war. Had a census been taken in 1865, 

 it would probably have shown that in the eleven ex-confeder- 

 ate states there were fewer people than there had been in 1860. 

 In the half a dozen years of reconstruction there was no 

 chance for the south to make much real progress. The carpet- 

 baggers piled up immense debts in most of the states of the 

 confederacy. In nearly all of them, through the enfranchise- 

 ment of the blacks and the disfranchisement of the confeder- 

 ates, the bottom stratum of society was put on top. When 

 President Hayes' withdrawal of the troops from South Caro- 

 lina and Louisiana in 1877 led to the overthrow of the last of 

 the carpetbag state governments, reconstruction was com- 

 pleted and the work of undoing it began. 



But while the south's political troubles were at their 

 highest, the south's natural resources were beginning to at- 

 tract the country's attention. West Virginia, Tennessee, 

 Alabama and other states had coal and iron deposits which 

 were unthought of before the war, and these have been util- 

 ized in an increasing degree in the past quarter of a century. 

 The United States was far down on the list of coal producing 

 countries twenty* five years ago. It passed England in 1900, 

 which nation led the world until that time, and it now pro- 

 duces 37 per cent of all the world's coal. The south has made 

 a large contribution to this gain. In 1880 the United States' 

 pig iron product was 3,800,000 tons. It was 18,000,000 in 

 1903, and will be 21,000,000 in 1905. Here, too, the south 

 has made an important contribution to the sum total of the 

 country's expansion. The Birmingham (Ala.) district is a 

 rival of the Pittsburg region, and has advantages over the 

 latter in having the coal, iron ore and limestone nearer than 

 in the Pittsburg field. 



There have been complaints from the south recently 

 about the low prices for cotton. These come from the im- 

 mense crop of that staple which was produced in 1904. That 

 year's yield was over 13,500,000 bales, which was 2,000,000 in 

 excess of the largest crop ever raised previously. The cotton 

 crop of 1860 was 4,800,000 bales, that of 1904 being almost 

 three times as great. The cotton crop has much more than 



