Little towns, villages almost, did not fail of local enthusiasm and capital in small amounts.[214] In January of 1882 Fort Mill, in York County, was agitating the building of a cotton mill there, and $50,000 was set as the amount of stock to be secured.[215] Chester, a little earlier concluded her size would compel her to produce $300,000 for a mill within her borders.[216] A gentleman of Griffin, Georgia, offered to subscribe one fourth of the capital necessary to start a mill there.[217]
Having seen the character of the arguments used in attracting native capital to the Southern cotton mill projects, and the extent of the response to these appeals, it is next necessary to turn to the other source of assistance--outside capital. Practically this may be termed Northern capital, although Englishmen interested themselves in the Southern ventures, and much money came from what were strictly termed, the Eastern States. In the minds of the people of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and those States, capital stock of a Southern mill held in Baltimore would be classed as appertaining to the North.
It is proper first to consider the attitude of the South toward Northern capital; second, the appeals made to Northern capital; and third, the effect of these appeals or the response of them.
In many aspects the rise of cotton mills in the South was less an industrial development than a subtle drama, powerful in its great motives. As William Garratt Brown has said of the history of the Southern States in their struggle upward after the war, it is not only to be studied with diligence of research, but is to be viewed with passion. The story of the cotton mills is filled with elemental emotions; the moving characters are splendid, clear-cut dramatic types; there are the villain, the hero, the schemer, the lover of his fellow men. The vices and virtues take their part--self-sacrifice, jealousy, hate, charity, revenge, bravery, honor, patriotism.
The first act of the drama is constituted in the defeat of Hancock and the magnificent refusal of the South to be baffled--the oath to rebuild her shattered fortunes. The actors leave the stage with hope filling the future. The curtain rises on the second act to discover the chief spirits of the South setting systematically about "the cotton mill campaign"; their brethren converted to a belief that manufacturing the staple would transform the South, they turn in entreaty to their fellows for support, and the answer is loyal and gallant.
