A momentous change impends in the citizenship of the South, perhaps in character, certainly in number. For the South is vibrant with energy, its commercial interests have never before throbbed with such activity; and never before has the need of intelligent labor been quite so urgent. The negro, indeed, is here, and for certain kinds of work is the best toiler in the world, if he be properly handled. For field labor, for forest work, for outdoor rough work of every description, for numerous kinds of inside work and for porterage and drayage, he is unequalled, provided he be not given authority over others, or an official position of any kind. In such event he becomes spoiled, foolish and useless. To skilled labor in factories and mills the negro is not adapted, as a rule, and is inefficient; and the manufacturing industries of the South are growing apace. Extraordinary efforts are, therefore, being made to divert to the states south of Mason and Dixon’s line a part of the enormous flood of immigrants which for many years has been directed toward the West and the Northwest. And these aliens are coming South in ever increasing streams. Railroads transport them; land agents urge them; commercial organizations invite them, and farms and factories employ them—and what will be the result? Let us see! Until this horde of foreigners began to debouch upon the fertile soil of Dixie, this section possessed the purest Anglo-Saxon blood, not only in America, but in the world. In the area south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, there were, and still are, fewer foreign-born inhabitants than are found in the single state of Connecticut. How will the South be affected by the new trend? Can it preserve its old ideals and the purity of its blood, while utilizing the new elements in the building up of its material welfare? [Illustration] BOOKS AND AUTHORS CONDUCTED BY GENELLA FITZGERALD NYE. THE CLANSMAN: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. By Thomas Dixon, Jr. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. Price, $1.50. BETHANY: A Story of the Old South. By Thomas E. Watson. D. Appleton & Co., New York. Price, $1.50.