Revolution in the South 



IN ONE of his few inept phrases, Franklin Roosevelt 

 once hailed the South as "the nation's economic prob- 

 lem No. 1." While everybody enjoys hugging the notion 

 that his own problems are peculiar and most difficult, 

 nobody likes to be considered a problem to his family 

 and neighbors. So Southerners bitterly resent this well- 

 meant but tactless statement. 



Donald Nelson, Roosevelt's own chairman of the War 

 Production Board, swung to the opposite pole and de- 

 clared the South to be "the nation's economic oppor- 

 tunity No. 1." In a speech at Atlanta he inventoried the 

 South's wealth of resources and cast up a tidy sum of 

 postwar prosperity. This did not impress Southerners. 

 That particular flattery no longer tickles. Southerners 

 know all about their abundant raw materials, their salu- 

 brious climate, the new war plants that dot their land- 

 scapebut so what? Today most thinking Southerners 

 are as disillusioned and realistic as a surgeon at the 

 operating table. 



Both these distinguished opinions cannot be right. 



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