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FLORIDA SENATE OUTRAGES DECENCY AND
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V O I. X—No. 9
“A Greater Nation Thru a Greater South”
SIXTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS MEETS AT MUSCOGEE, OKLAHOMA, APRIL 26-
30— DR. CLARENCE J. OWENS, LEADER OF THESE NATION BUILDERS, HAS FIXED THE EYES OF THE WORLD ON
HIS NATIVE SOUTHLAND.
[AI
S the great army of Southern patriots
and nation-builders move toward Mus
cogee, Oklahoma, April 26-30, for the
Sixth Annual Convention of the South-
ern Commercial Congress, the people of Geor
gia, South Carolina and Alabama where he
wrought so valiantly as a young educator, look
with peculiar pride on the chivalric leader of
this mighty host of patriotic men who are
building a greater nation through a greater
South. ’ ’
This brilliant leader is Dr. Clarence Julian
Owens, a Georgian by birth, a Carolinian, an
Alabamian and a Marylt nder by adoption and
an orator and an organizing genius “by the
grace of God.”
Seeing the opportunity when other eyes were
dim, and seizing the opportunity and fighting
upward in the night when other hearts were
faint, Clarence J. Owens has placed the South
ern Commercial Congress on a basis as firm as
the resources and the optimism of the South;
and while he has been doing this marvelous
thing he has touched elbows, measured arms
and wrought out mighty problems, not only
with the leaders of the nation but the “crowned
heads” of the world. No other man in the
South has risen so rapidly and few men in
the nation have done so much as Clarence J.
Owens in so short a time. If he were not so
useful and so absolutely indispensable in his
present position of constructive statesmanship
and patriotism The Golden Age would nomi
nate him here and now for United States Sen
ator from Maryland (which he refused to con
sider last year), or for the'Vice Presidency on
the next Democratic ticket.
The laurels belong to the victor, and Clar
ence J. Owens has won! In announcing the
Muscogee Convention Dr. Owens gives the fol
lowing glowing and comprehensive survey of
the work and purpose of the Southern Com
mercial Congress:
Nineteen fifteen marks the semi-centennia: of
the close of the titantic struggle when the confed
eration of Southern States for war passed into his
tory. Following that eventful period the States of
the South re-entered the Union and embarked upon
a career of restoration and rehabilitation that con
stitutes one of the brightest pages in American
history. From the desolation of war the men oi
ATLANTA, GA., APRIL 22, 1915
the South, with undaunted courage, emerged from
the ashes of defeat in war to the full fruition of
victory in peace. Year by year steady progress
was made. Decade by decade the story of the
South, written in actual achievement in agriculture,
commerce, finance industry, and education, gives
to the world the finest example of concentrated pur
pose, based on God-given resources, the proud her
itage of the Southeastern States of America.
The past decade marks the greatest forward
movement in the march of Southern progress in
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DR. CLARENCE J. OWEN.
any period of Southern history. To this period be
longs the inception and organization of The South
ern Commercial Congress, a confederation of six
teen Southern States in industry, agriculture, edu
cation, finance, commerce, and all activities, local,
state and South-wide, I hat stand for the progress,
development and power of the greatest third of the
area of the United States. The birth of the Con
gress, coming at a period when the South had
completely recovered from the physical devastation
of war. brought the vision of the restoration of
the South to the national life in the potency of
leadership in constructive statesmanship. The re
sources and opportunities of the South are related
to every national obligation and opportunity, and
even beyond the national life to her international
relations as vitally associated with the great move
ments of the century that have to do with the ex-
tension of the influence and power of the nation, in
fraternity, as well as commerce and finance, with
other lands of the Western World and the conti
nents of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The great meetings of Ihe Southern Commercial
Congress in Washington and elsewhere have always
emphasized the contrast between conditions as they
were and conditions as they are. But specifically
during the years of 1911 to 1915 it wi 1 emphasize
the contrast, in conditions of fifty years ago and
those of now.
Five Measurable Scenes.
The five great meetings in the years mentioned
represent five scenes in the great drama of In
South’s Recovery.” The stage is the South; the
audience is the nation and the world.
Ihe scene in Atlanta, in March, 1911, carried
out the idea of “The South s Physical Recovery,
the scene in Nashville, in April. 1912, carried out
the idea of “The South’s Agricultural and Educa
tional Recovery;” the scene in Mobile, in October,
1913, carried out the idea of “The South’s Com
mercial Recovery, using the 1 anama Canal as a
means of defining the increasing importance of
the Southern States as related to the commerce of
the nation and the world. Ihe scene in Muskogee,
Oklahoma, April 26-30, 1915. will portray the whole
question: “Agriculture, Immigration, Municipal Ef
ficiency and Foreign Trade.
Such a constructive move, so broad in all its
purposes, has never been undertaken for any other
portion of the United States, and, indeed such a
move is unnecessary for other portions of the
United States To make this clear, we state that
the division of the United States into North, South,
East and West, is indefinite relative to North, East,
and West, but definite only relative to the South.
When the term “the South” is used it has a defi
nite significance that has attached itself to it foi
generations and which in away, has been the
means of establishing a bias regarding the South.
The ease with which the word “South” has been
used in relation to untoward occurrences, partic
ularly in public print, created the general feeling
that the South is a region of strange diseases, of
social disorder, of educational backwardness, and
whatever other vivid imaginings chose to find lodg
ment in the minds of those who knew not and aid
not know that they knew not.
The Congress docs not deal with South Caro ina
as such any more than it deals w th \ irginia as
such. It is in the business of setting the facts of
“the South” before the nation, expecting that truth
will drive out error, that knowledge will supplant
misapprehension and that, through truth
knowledge, the mind of the nation may be. made
to listen to the message of the South and yield to
its offerings of opportunity, thus bringing men to
cast in their lot with the men already there in
working out and building up the great civilization
that is predicted upon the marvelous inherent re
sources of the South.
An Influence Irresistible.
The Southern Commercial Congress is exercising
an influence that is practically irresistib’e for bv
avoiding all contact and complications with definite
business and by holding fast to the convincing af
firmations that are true regarding the South, it
has become a fact that no one anywhere could
question the accuracy of what was said, nor take
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