action, as it were, and by showing the motive force as it developed, operated and concentrated. This responsible cause, catching the phrase from a writer of the day, may be termed "real reconstruction". The impulse for it came over the South in 1880 like a great ground swell, translating itself into a thousand activities and ramifications. "Real reconstruction" was spectacularly the outcome of the defeat of Hancock by Garfield in the presidential election immediately, but its roots run deeper and have their hold in the slow but sure recuperation of the South from the devastation of the Civil War through the troubles of radical rule, assisted by a brief breathing space from the termination of carpet bag government in 1876, when the lesson of fifteen terrible years soaked in thoroughly. It is sufficient here to say that in 1880[137] the South suffered a change of heart, a revulsion of conscience that was fundamental. The people turned on their heel, and faced about to find a new future of the largest promise. A newspaper which before had bent every effort towards the election of Hancock, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, as securing for the South political independence and revenge for Northern mistreatment, a week after his defeat printed an editorial headed "Our Refuge and Our Strength", with these words: "... we have been defeated in the national contest. In the administration of the national government for the next four years we need not concern ourselves, for as far as possible our councils will be ignored. What, then, is our duty? It is to go to work earnestly to build up North Carolina. Nothing is to be gained by regrets and repinings.... It is idle to talk of home independence so long as we go to the North for everything from a tooth pick to a President. We may plead in vain for a higher type of manhood and womanhood among the masses, so long as we allow the children to grow up in ignorance. We may look in vain for the dawn of an era of enterprise, progress and development, so long as thousands and millions of money are deposited in our banks at four per cent. interest when its judicious investment in manufactures would more than quadruple that rate, and give profitable employment to thousands of our now idle women and children. "Out of our political defeat we must work a glorious material and industrial triumph. We must have less politics and more work, fewer stump speakers and more stump pullers, less tinsel and show and boast, and more hard, earnest work. We must make money--it is a power in this practical business age. Teach the boys and girls to work and teach them to be proud of it.... "Demand all legislative encouragement for manufacturing that may be consistent with free political economy. Work for the material and educational advancement of North Carolina, and in this and not in politics, will be found her refuge and her strength."[138]