60 



The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



Type of 

 People Best 

 Suited to 

 Develop Cut- 

 Over Lands 



Soutli Des- 

 tined to Be 

 Nation's 

 Industrial 

 Empire 



up to the highest ideals of educational advancement, unless they 

 have a bedrock of economic prosperity. 



After all, industrial prosperity is the rock upon which this 

 republic rests and upon which our South rests today, and the 

 greatest problem, social and political, which is before you today 

 is the problem of scientific agriculture — the problem of the colo- 

 nization and improvement of these cut-over lands in the South 

 (applause) — the problem of the foundation of the economic 

 structure reared by human toil and held firmly in place by the 

 average prosperity of all who have helped in its building. We 

 think this average prosperity exists whenever there is a great 

 middle class in our society — not a domain where the tenets of 

 socialism exist, but where the people are all animated by loyalty 

 to a common flag and a com.mon country. (Applause.) A great 

 French philosopher has said that civilization is like beer — froth at 

 the top, dregs at the bottom, and the substantial part in between. 

 Show me a nation or a section that has a great middle class of 

 people and I will show you a nation and a section that is ma- 

 terially prosperous, that is educationally progressive, and that is 

 morally what it should be. 



We need to develop, therefore, our 76 million acres of cut- 

 over timber land in the South, in order to build up a new South — 

 neither the top of society on the one hand, nor the submerged 

 tint on the other hand' — but to flood the South with a great 

 middle class of people, of people not tenants but landlords, and 

 of people economically self-sufficient. Now, it is estimated by 

 the distinguished gentleman who addressed you yesterday, who 

 delivered such a brilliant address at Little Rock on Monday 

 night, that of the 76 million acres of cut-over land, fully 15 

 million acres will have no second growth, and therefore are 

 thoroughly adaptable to colonization. I congratulate the great 

 railway systems of the South, and the great colonization systems 

 of the South, that they are fully alive to the immensity and im- 

 portance of this problem, and that they are utilizing their ac- 

 tivities and their publicity bureaus in order to stimulate an im- 

 migration to this greatest of all undeveloped sections of our 

 country. The South, my friends — and I know there are delegates 

 here from other sections of the country, but I believe they will 

 bear me out — the South is destined to be the great industrial 

 empire of the American nation. The Miiddle West, the West,- 

 and the East have shown a wonderfully progressive spirit, but 



