REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH 



Twenty years ago I listened enthralled to the gospel of 

 a diversified agriculture preached by Clarence Poe to 

 a great audience of Carolina farmers. Their shouts and 

 whistles pronounced a clamorous "Amen." Yet who in 

 the South would deny that a single cash crop, be it 

 cotton or tobacco, peanuts or oranges, is still a potent, 

 pernicious influence? 



Have there been changes in this familiar Southern 

 situation? Is the angry protest that the South is not 

 economic problem No. 1, but our first economic oppor- 

 tunity, anything more convincing than the old claim 

 of the professional boosters? Is there really a new pat- 

 tern of Southern thinking that justifies Frederick Mc- 

 Donald's gratitude to the Almighty? 



During the past dozen years there have certainly 

 been many great changes throughout the South. The 

 outward and visible signs of these have come as benefits 

 from the New Deal or results of the World War II 

 effort. Political largess has been showered upon this 

 section. Throughout recurring emergencies, relief has 

 been more than generous. Millions have been spent in 

 various reclamation and conservation programs. It is 

 a poor Southern town, indeed, that has not a new post 

 office or school. During the war, for reasons admittedly 

 as political as strategic, factories, camps, and airfields 

 brought more new jobs and fresh dollars to the South 

 than to any other region. 



The South has received these generous economic and 



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