President H. P. Hammett, of the Piedmont Factory, in a remarkable address before the State Agricultural and Mechanical Society and State Grange, of South Carolina, to which reference will several times be made, after describing the earlier absorption of the South in a single pursuit, and the ills that grew from this, said: "A new condition of things and a changed sentiment amongst the people prevail at present; with the changed relations of society and institutions a sentiment favorable to a diversity of pursuits has developed ... a disposition is manifested to develop the many resources heretofore lying dormant or hidden.[152] Capital when needed is furnished, and men of energy, enterprise and ability develop ... the general sentiment of the people is to utilize all the facilities within their reach.... Under such circumstances it is natural that the public mind should be directed to the manufacture of their great staple."[153]
There were a score of reasons making this course seem plausible.[154] They were advanced, scrutinized, at the South sometimes accepted with a grain of salt, at the North not infrequently flatly and stoutly challenged as absurd; they were patiently explained or difiantly, and not always with the closest reasoning, flung in the faces of their objectors--but finally they were proclaimed as gospel, and in this sign the South set out to conquer. Of these beliefs is to be placed first and foremost the conviction that, other things aside, manufacturing was most economical and so logically belonged, at the source of production. Here is the doctrine, given in all simplicity, and not without the force characteristic of newspaper correspondences of that day: "Sir, it matters not what anyone may say to the contrary, common sense tells us that other things--machinery, skilled labor, motive power and facilities of shipment--being equal, a cotton factory in the midst of cotton fields must prove more profitable than the same concern a thousand miles from its base of supply could possibly be."[155] Other factors there were--cheap labor, unused water powers, abundance of wood and coal nearby, local market for the sale of product, longer running time than in the North, a favorable climate, saving in fuel and light, absence of damage to cotton by compress, saving in bagging and ties, assistance to be given to women and children much in need of work--all of them bore their part in focussing the energies of the South upon that program which was to mean so much in so many ways--the "cotton mill campaign."[156]