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Show THE CEORCIA CRACKER. Some WorilH Iq Defense of a MaehMa-ligiieil MaehMa-ligiieil Type of Southerner. There was onee a (ieoria Cracker, and we are his descendants, says the Augusta (la., Chronicle. From the blended stmins of Knirliph, Sahburtrer and Scotch-Irish which catno to this country, and which settled ovor the Savunnuh from Yamucraw to Petersburg Peters-burg there was evolved a cosmopolite who left his print upon history. Ho has carved out what Gen. Toombs used to call ' The State of (ioorgy." He grew tobacco and indigo, ho traded with the Indian for his peltry; he beat back the Spanish into Florida and kept the savage off his claim. He stoutly fought the British in the revolution, and under Troup and the treaty he opposed op-posed old John Adams and the general government He helped to build the steamboat and invent the cotton gin; he reclaimed the swamps r.ml du gold out of the hills; ho drilled in the militia mili-tia and pulled the gander's neck on holidays; ho hated everything wrong and burned up the record of the Yazoo fraud; he paid his just debts and rounded the watermalon into perfection; he led the way to secession with his pike and furnished moro troops than any other state; he was the first one to revive after the war, reclaiming tho state and making the best of a bad bargain. He builds up his cities, digs out his rivers and canals, leads the union in railway constructions and spins moro cotton than any other southern commonwealth. com-monwealth. He is religious, patriotic, public-spirited, believes in prayer and keeps the powder dry in fact he is the brother-german to Uncle Jonathan. Ho is called the southern Yankee; the light of tho new south, the hope of the nation is this Georgia Cracker. Judge I.ongstreet wrote humorously, but tenderly ten-derly of him in those incomparable Georgia scenes. Col. Thompson pictured pic-tured him gallant and picturesque, in that indescribable "courtship of Major Jones." Ready for a fight or a footrace, foot-race, high toned and rcllective, full of provincialism, but never dominated by prejudice; hospitable, helpful, tender, j quaint and true, the Georgia Cracker stands the peer of the Knickerbocker on the Hudson or tho Carrolls of tho Chesapeake. The Georgia Cracker was shrewd but full of principle. He could coin money out of the sunshine and tan riches from the fur of the gopher. He was not melancholy or Bourbonish but full of the now. He didn't watch his roof thatch rot like tho Arkansas settlor he went to work and repaired it. Ho was willing to work his lands with or without slaves. His first charter char-ter prohibited serfdom as it Vtrred out rum. He took his horn on Michaolmas with the lordly air of a Peter Stuyves-ant, Stuyves-ant, and kept the pledge all the rest of the year with' the stern stoicism of a Spartan. He worshiped Andrew Jackson Jack-son and yet believed in Troup. He sided with Joe Brown "agip the banks." Hewas-a tleraoorat by conviction a whig only by perversion. He regarded regard-ed Henry Clay's party as an aristocratic concern. He boycotted La Fayette for meddling with our institutions," just as he snubbed Jay Gould when he rode through tho south in his palace car. Troup was a Georgia "Cracker," so was Alex. Stephens, with his pale face and bright eye; so was Ben Hill, as he left the plow handles in Jasper county to go to the State University; so was Sam Thurmond, of Watkinsville, as he sturdily fed the forge with one hand and turned the pages of Blackstone with the other; so are we all Georgia "Crackers" the descendants of God's people the plain yeomanry of an empire, em-pire, the thriftiest, kindliest most helpful help-ful folks on earth. Sherman cut a swath forty miles wide and 800 miles long right in the heart and homes of the Georgia Cracker. One hundred millions of property was wiped out in eight months. Now the whole state from Dalton to Waycross blossoms like a rose. Iron and coal and granite are quarried from the base of the Kenne-saw, Kenne-saw, and the railroads which have given us Cordele and Americus and Brunswick have ligated the last wounds of war. France has not leapt into luxuriance more swiftly than South Georgia from pillage and devastation. Look what the Georgia Cracker is doing! There is one million of him. He is at work. His children are at school. He lives well, reads tho papers pa-pers and thinks for himself. He is building an empire. There is nothing half so sweet to him as the red old hills of Georgia. Long may he live! May his tribe increase and his shadow never grow less! |