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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLAKTA, GA„ 6 HOSTM FOBSTTH ST.
{ Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter ol
, the Second Class.
' t — .
JAMES *. OKAY, ^
President and Editor.
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What a Western Ranchman
Thinks of Southern Cattle.
The representative of a large Oklahoma ranch
who has spent the greater part of the year in the
South, buying cattle and shipping them West to be
. -fed "and marketed as beef, is quoted in the Suwanee
: Democrat, of Live Oak, Fla., as paying: “You have
better facilities in this State for raising cattle than
- ■ any other place in the Union.”
The same observation might as truly be made
, of neighboring States, certainly of Georgia, in so
far as natural resources are concerned. Soil and
climate are ideally suited to the production of live
■» stock. The most nutritious grasses will flourish.
The mild winters reduce to a minimum the cost of
: housing and feeding. There is abundance of land.
Indeed, there is every opportunity and no serious
■ obstacle for the development of a great and profit
able cattle industry in the South. Yet, with the
supply of beef continually diminishing and the price
steadily Increasing, the South has done little or
nothing to utilize its rich advantages in this regard.
- In Florida alone, the cattle buyer to whom we
■have referred has purchased this year some twenty-
three thousand head of stock which have been
shipped to the West and which will be sold as steaks
and roasts at incomparably higher prices. The buyer
said that yearlings sent from that State would at
tain, after twelve months on the Oklahoma ranges, a
weight of a thousand pounds. If these cattle were
fattened and converted into food products at home,
i^hat a tremendous gain .they would be to the wealth
> pf "the South! The Manufacturers’ Record makes
the apt comment: >
“There Is hardly’ a greater waste conceivable
than that involved in sending raw material to a
"distant point and then buying back the finished
product, when only human initiative and energy are
heeded to carry on at home all the processes and,
Consequently, to retain all the advantages and legi
timate profits.”
| Georgia’s need in this connection is more ele-
tuental than Florida’s. This State has not produced
lenough cattle to interest Western buyers. Indeed,
jnany, if not most of our counties, because of the
prevalence of cattle tick, are under a federal quaran
tine which prevents the shipment of cattle. The
Georgia farmer should first of all co-operate with
State and national agencies In freeing his stock
from this pest; then, plant a sufficiency of forage
and improve the breed of his stock. The. way would
thus be opened to really profitable cattle raising and
packing and market facilities would duly be pro
vided. —
Oscar Underwood.
; When Mr. Hobson burst into his windy attack on
Oscar Underwood, he was talking, of course, for
'‘Buncombe.” The coolness of his colleagues mattered
jittle to the valiant trencherman, if he could only
•impress the boys at home. Being hungered for a
■seat in the Senate and peeved that Mr. Underwood
{should aspire to the same hqnor, he determined upon
the most glaring course of personal publicity at his
command. He would denounce the House leader in
set, round terms, would call him “the tool of Wall
street,” the ally of liquoF interests and thus by sheer
audacity wfn the ear of Alabamians.
But we cannot ttelieve that the folks at home will
takfe this matter otherwise than do the members of
Congress and the country as a whole. Following the
Hobson tirade, the House of Representatives, irre
spective of party lines, cheered Mr. Underwood as an
expression of confidence in his integrity and pa
triotism. The people of the entire United States, and
especially those of the South and of Alabama, have
good reason to be proud of the useful and splendid
statesmanship which Oscar Underwood embodies. Who
ever may have contributed to his campaign fund for the
Presidential nomination, with or without his knowl
edge, this one important fact looms up: As leader
of the Democratic majority in the House he has work
ed with an eye single to his party’s honor and the
public’s good. ■ .
He has stood stanchly by the Wilson administra
tion in the enactment of a tariff law which special
interests bitterly fought and in the passage by the
House of a currency bill which Wall street opposed
with all the vigor and cunning it could muster. The
end has proved the man. His record is clear; his
achievements tower. And there are still greater
things in store for Mr. Underwood.
In West Virginia.
The recent congressional election in the First dis
trict of West Virginia disclosed interesting and sig-
iiificant facts. h
The Democratic candidate won by a plurality of
more than thirty-five hundred votes; last year he was
elected by a scant one hundred and sixty-nine votes.
The “Progressive” candidate received four thou
sand votes and the Republican some ten thousand. '
These figures compared with the returns from the
same district in 1'J12 show "rst that Democracy has
more than held its own and furthermore that the
“Progressive” party has gone backward.
The Call of the South.
A Frenchman who recently called at the state de
partment of agriculture for information concerning
Georgia farm lands is one among hundreds of pros
pective settlers now interested in the south. This
visitor remarked that the Georgia climate reminded
him of southern France, where he was reared, and
that the general appearance of the country was most
inviting. He has lived the past five years in Canada
but the story of the south’s natural treasure and its
varied opportunities called him; he came and' was
I convinced.
The fact that the tide of immigration which a few
years poured steadily from ,the United States into
Canada is now ebbing must be ascribed largely to the
wider publicity which southern resources have been
given. Home seekers and investors are learning that
in this genial corner of the continent the paths to
progress and wealth are most numerous and free.
This is true of industry and commerce but especially
is it true of agriculture. An abundance of land, com
paratively cheap and capable of producing rich crops
the year around, awaits development.
So soon as Georgia and her neighbor states make
an organized, systematic effort to bring the advan
tages more widely to the country’s notice, a great
inflow of new wealth and population will follow.
Praiseworthy plans to this end have already been
j inaugurated and they are bringing results. Particu-
i larly seasonable is the recent establishment of the
Georgia chamber of commerce which purposes not
only to upbuild the state from within but also to
advertise its wonderful resources beyond the home
borders. A movement like this means much to the
individual Georgian and to the commonwealth, as a
whole. It merits the earnest support of all good
citizens.
Pass the Currency Rill.
The need of currency and banking reform has
been discussed for years and years. Statesmen,
business men and bankers, particularly, have long
seen the defects of the present system, while the
people as a whole have often felt the sharp pinch of
its inefficiency and injustice. Divers conventions
have met to consider this problem, special commis
sions have studied it and various recommendations
have been offered; but not until President Wilson
called Congress into extra session and urged definite
legislative action in this regard, was there any clear
prospect of relief. Thitherto, those interested in
currency reform had worked fitfully or at cross pur
poses, unable to agree upon the essentials of any
change proposed and powerless to set the law-mak
ing machinery in motion.
Today, however, these conditions are completely
altered. A hanking and currency bill which, in the
main, meets the approval of all interests concerned
and which will undoubtedly protect the country
from the dangers cf the existing system has passed
the House of Representatives by a towering majority
and awaits the action of the Senate. Never were
the true friends of currency reform so closely agreed
as now; never in the course of this great issue was
there so opportune af’moment for practical service to
the nation. What will the Senate do with this splen
did opportunity? Will it reconcile its minor differ
ences of opinion and clear the way for a prompt en
actment of the bill, or will it quibble over mere de
tails and hold the country’s business in prolonged
and disquieting suspense?
If the Senate heeds public opinion, it will settle
thi^ question with the least possible delay; it will
pass a satisfactory bill at the present session.
Criticism of the pending measure proceeds mainly,
if not entirely,- from bankers, or rather from certain i
groups of bankers; And even,they warmly commend
its general purpose and its’chief provisions. Their
dissent, in the matter of detail was to be expected.
In truth, hankers themselves are sharply divided
in their views as to just what the country needs.
Should Congress wait for a currency plan that would
be equally satisfying to all men or all interests, it
could never move a step toward reform. The bank
ers will be no easier to please in December or Janu
ary than now. The essential features of the present
bill will come nearer their wishes than any other,
unless it be one framed by themselves for the pur
pose of retaining in their own hands complete con
trol of the nation’s monetary resources.
No such suggestion, they may be sure, will ever
be tolerated. Perhaps the grayest of all defects in
the existing system is the fact that it leaves to pri
vate, and more or less capricious rule this tremen-'
dously important field of the country’s economic in
terests. Currency affairs and, to a great extent,
hanking affairs must be under public, that is to say,
under government control, if our common business
life is to be prosperous and secure. The cardinal vir
tue of the bill now before the senate is a guarantee
of this protection. It is this provision that means
most to the people and that will stand as a great
bulwark against financial panics and business alarm.
Congress is not assembled to make laws in the
interest of bankers alone but in the interset of mer
chants and farmers and working men as well, in the
interest of equal justice to all the people, without
special privilege to any.
It would be neither right nor reasonable to delay
the passage of the currency bill merely to appease
a particular class of interests, White the country as a
whole suffers from the lack of remedial legislation.
We have gone from year to year and from congress
to Congress talking about currency reform but this
is the first time that definite results have been at
tainable. Surely, the Democrats of the Senate will
not neglect so inspiring an opportunity te honor
their party and to bless the nation!
The proposal that this matter be carried over to
the regular session is ill advised. Conditions will
never be more favorable for an adjustmeent of such
differences as exist. The most effective work can he
done now when there is nothing to divert attention
from this one important issue. In the regular ses
sion, the members of Congress will be busied with
all manner of bills for their particular States or dis
tricts and the remaining features of the administra
tion’s program will require careful thought. Pro
longed delay would rob the bill of the advantage it
has acquired from its overwhelmnig adoption in the
House and would also tend to dissipate the public
interest it now holds. Senator Shafroth truly de
scribed the situation when he said last week that
postponement would only leave another pledge of the
Democratic party unredeemed and icould afford those
who are ill disposed an opportunity to bring about
artificial troubles in the monetary world.
It is important, first of all, that the Democratic
members of the banking and currency committee
reach an agreement among themselves to report the
bill at an early date and that every Democrat in the
Senate urge this course. This, it would seem, can
easily be done, if those who now differ over ques
tions of detail will get together in a spirit of “give
and take.” So numerous are the points at which all
honest and enlightened thought on this issue is at
one that there should be little difficulty among rea
sonable men in-compromising the comparatively few
matters in dispute. Further delay simply for the
sake of delay will be Inexcusable and grossly unjust
to the public as well as to the party.
The country’s business is anxiously awaiting the
outcome of currency legislation. Conditions will not
become normal until this question is settled. Pro
longed suspense .will be distinctly unfortunate.
Prompt action will be universally reassuring. A per
fect bill is not to be hoped for but the pending
measure will at least serve the larger and more
urgent needs of the time. Its benefits will be imme
diate; its defects can easily be remedied at the future
may demand.
Let the bill be passed at the present session of
congress and the country will be incomparably better
ou.
The Secret of Increased
Land Values in Tift.
The enriching influence of good roads and pro
gressive farming, which, by the way, generally go
side by side, was strikingly witnessed in a recent
s„le of country lands along the Journal-Herald High
way in Tift county. One hundred and fifty acres
we—- auctioned at prices ranging between eighty-five
and a hundred and twenty-five dollars an acre; an
entire tract of five acres sold at the latter figure and
several others were bought for more than a hundred
dollars an acre. In another part of the same county,
four hundred acres, much of which is swamp land,
sold for correspondingly good prices.
Tift county, as all Georgians know, is in the
forefront of the State’s good-roads crusaders. When
it was determinec some years ago to extend
the National Highway to Jacksonville, the business
men of Tifton and the farmers in the surrounding
district began a vigorous and systematic campaign to
bring the highway through their county; and they
succeeded by the excellent roads they produced. The
energy aroused and organized through this particular
undertaking was distributed among many parallel
enterprises. In various parts of the county connec
tions with the great central highway were estab
lished so that Tift county now enjoys the advantages
of a true system of good roads.
To this fact and to the accompanying development
of agricultural interests, must be ascribed the rapid
and really remarkable increase in real estate values.
Well built and well kept roads invariably raise the
price and quicken the demand for adjacent farms.
They upbuild the community as a whole. They make
schools accessible and bring town and country into
closer commercial relationships. They make the life
of the people more worth living. Little wonder that
lands in such a county sell for a hundred and
twenty-five dollars an acre; that is merely the be
ginning of their value.
It is a noteworthy fact that Tift county’s truck-
farm industries, which are fast becoming one of its
chief sources of wealth, have developed step by step
with' its good roads movement. So soon as improved
highways reached into the country about Tifton, the
idea of diversified crops gained popular favor. Long
before this, the gospel of scientific agriculture had
been earnestly preached but it was no| until good
roads made markets accessible in ail seasons that
new methods of farming were widely applied and
the production of foodstuffs seriously undertaken.
' The truth is there can be no progress in agricul
ture where roads are poor. Certainly, truck farming,
which is to play so important a role in Georgia’s fu
ture prosperity, cannot advance withofit the aid of
adequate highways. What Tift county has accom
plished in this connection is within the reach of
every county that will press forward with the same
foresight and energy. The town folk and the country
folk of that county have worked together for the up
building of their common interests. The Tifton cham
ber of commerce has steadily applied its thought and
means to agricultural problems and in all its efforts
it has had the farmers’ hearty co-operation.
These people began with essentials. They devel-
oped*their public roads so that the channels of trade
and all enterprise might be constantly open. They
thus brought into continuous touch all the interests
of their county, rural as well as urban. They made
possible the truck farm’s development and wider
utilization of the soil’s resources. That is why their
land is steadily increasing in value and is attracting
a larger and larger number of settlers.
And some men refuse to quarrel with their wives
because it costs them too much to make up.
Huerta’s Safest Course.
Reports that Huerta is about to resign the. pro
visional presidency of Mexico may not materialize
but they are certainly of a logical drift. His situa
tion, officially and personally, grows more and more
precarious. With a bankrupt treasury, a depleted
and sullen army, a treacherous circle of advisers
and a record that arouses the hatred of free-minded
Mexicans and the contempt of foreign governments,
he can find no reasonable hope of bettering his pres
ent fortune. The fact that he has clung this long
to his fragment of power shows desperateness rather
than strength.
Poriflrio Diaz ruled Mexico with a hand of iron.
His acts were often arbitrary and intolerable to the
spirit of a republic. But his rule was that of a vigor
ous mind, bent toward constructive ends and in
spired, we must believe, by higher interests than
merely personal gain. Old Diaz was a tyrant but a
wise one and when he realized that the country was
against him, he had the good sense and the grace
to retire.
In Huerta, all these qualities are lacking. Aside
from a certain craftiness and brute force, he has
scarcely a trace of leadership; certainly, he has none
of the mental and moral reserve that sustain men
and governments in time of crisis. His latest step
in dispersing the Congress and imprisoning more
than a hundred of its members, because they dared
criticise his policies, is a complete betrayal of his
weakness. It is doubtful that Huerta gives his coun
try a thought, but every consideration of self-interest
should urge him to resign while a voluntary and
peaceful exit is open.
Certain it is that so long as he is involved in
Mexico’s affairs the quiet restoration of orderly gov
ernment will be impossible. No regime with which
he is identified will receive the recognition of the
United States or retain the moral support of other
Powers. Dispatches from Vera Cruz credit John
Lind, President Wilson’s special representative in
Mexico, with a knowledge of Huerta’s intention to
withdraw. It is earnestly to he hoped that the re
port is well founded.
Said the maid to the bashful youth; “I’m going
to scream anyway, so you might just as well kiss me."
The Curse of Poverty
BY DR. FRANK CRANK.
(Copyright, 1013, by Frank Crane.
There is but one calamity—poverty. There fs ljut
one thing: to be desired—riches.
Any kind of poverty is bad: material, intellectual,
emotional, spiritual.
Every bodily disease is due to bodily poverty; of
the blood, of nutrition, of elimination, of co-ordination.
Malignant germs abound everywhere. But they are
snobs. They do not attack the rich-blooded, the richly,
functioned; they pounce upon the anaemic. A health-
rich boy can have a million pneumonia microbes in
his mouth and not be hurt.
Money poverty is bad. You do not have to be a
money worshipper to believe that you cannot lead a
decent life without income enough to get you comforta
ble clothing, wholesome food, a sanitary habitation,
and the saving bits of culture and leisure.
It is perfectly right for us to want money enougli
to secure a reasonable independence. Any one who is
rfot investing regularly a portion of his earnings is a
food. Thrift is just as sterling a virtue now as it
was in the days of Ben Franklin. Any child not
trained to save is wronged.
The newspapers are full of the news of domestic
scandal. It is due to poverty of love, and poverty X>x
character.
The richest rich people on earth are they who have
plenty of love.
And how terrible and far-reaching are the effects
of mind poverty!
The people are like “dumb, driven cattle.” herded
by shrewd political bosses. Their children are stunted,
their homes are cramped, their rights are denied them,
their food is poisoned, they are insulted, despised, pil
laged, and swindled, simply because they are ignorant^
they are victims of intellectual poverty, they don’t
know what to do.
Duly train just one generation of children and see
what a tremendous silent revolution would ensue!
It is the great army of the ignorant who stir up
violence, follow fatuous enthusiasms and bring defeat
in the battles of the people.
It is the moral poverty of the money-rich that ren
ders them pests.
It is the spiritual poverty of the church that makes
it ineffective. . .
It is the artistic poverty of the people that gives us
ugly cities, dreary streets, stuffy flats, hideous ad
vertising plastered over street cars and billboards.
It is artistic poverty that produces poor theatrical
shows, wretched, musically poverty-stricken comic op
eras, idea-poverty-stricken play 4 s.
It is moral impotence that causes the dearth of
honesty men as great leaders.
Y’et reformers hawk preventive remedies. Pro
hibit this, stop that, curb the other! Humanity needs
the bit, the brake and the restraint of its too powerful
forces!
Stuff and nonsense! The one thing mankind needs
is more force, more fire, more steam, more riches.
Never more than now. Democracy needs a thou
sand-fold more money than royalty. Freedom needs
more brains than serfdom. Virtue needs more energy
than vice. Love is aseptic in proportion as it is po
tent. Real religion is only in surcharged souls; watery
and timid souls can have but Pharisaism.
Give us riches! Rich hearts to love mightily, rich
brains to think boldly, rich hands to work skillfully,
rich bodies to live wholesomely, riches of culture to
keep us out of the bogs of barbarism, riches of music,
of sculpture, of architecture, riches of spirit to grasp
the majesty of moral laws, and riches of money to se
cure our personal independence.
The great man is the man of full life.
“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
of water, that bringeth forth fruit; his leaf also shall
not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Spirit of the West
During that hot wave last week when the sky was
cloudless and a thirty-mile wind sent waves of heat
through the cornfields and the mercury went up to
109, there was an eight-day Chautauqua held at our
county seat. In addition to that, a circus came to
our town on Thursday. We met folks from every part
of the county, and from other states. We met former
governors, congressmen, suffragists and jubilee sing
ers from the south.
We listened to lectures given by men of national
reputation, and we enjoyed the music - furnished by
bands as good as the best. We saw beardless youths
strolling around among the tall trees in the glimmer
of hundreds of electric lights, happy in the thought
that their “Jane” was with them, and that the sup
ply of ice cream cones was abundant. Women we saw
who were dressed in tight-fitting skirts. Some of
the dresses had bands or belts away up near the
arm pits, other dresses had the belt line near the
knees. \Some of those dresses were made from pil
low casings, and one stout old lady’s dress looked
large enough to use for a bedtick in case of emer
gency.
There were things that made us sad and things
that caused us to laugh until ‘ the tears trickled
down our cheeks, but the saddest thing was the pessi
mist—the man with good health, with his barn bulg
ing with hay, his granary bulging with wheat and
oats, the trees in his orchard bending with ripening
fruit, money in the bank to pay for gasoline for his
automobile. And yet the ungrateful old grouch was
going about from place to place with his mouth look
ing like a crack in a pumpkin, and his face looking like
a cast-off sweatpad that had been used for a scre-
necked horse.
It is the gospel truth that before the “showerlet”
came on Sunday evening our corn crop was ready for
the hospital. We now think that ten or fifteen bu
shels an acre is all that is left. The 800 acres of
sweet corn grown by the canning factory was “can
ned” in the field. Yet, I cannot help but ridicule that
poor old shrivel-faced, whining soul who pours his
stories of distress into the ears of every one he
meets until he causes his hearers to feel like they
had been dieting for weeks on green apples and sour
milk. I will go for miles to meet the optimist—the
man who is full of hope, who is figuring on the aver
ages of the country, who shuts his eyes on the fail
ures and recalls the years of big crops and good
times. He is like the man who would not complain
of misfortune, and who, after having had both feet
amputated, said: “I shall not be bothered again
with cold feet.”—Nebraska Farmer.
Quips and Quiddities
Jack was pulling the cat’s tail.
His mother Indignantly remon
strated.
“Stop it this moment!” she cried,
“Jack, don’t you hear me? You
stop pulling that poor kitty’s tail.”
“I’m not pulling it, mother,” was
Jack’s answer. “The cat’s doing
the pulling. I’m just holding on.”
Pat had joined the navy and was being drilled with
his shipmates on a pier.
“Fall in!” came the order. Im
mediately Pat fell into the water.
“Two deep!” was the next order.
Pat (sputtering in the water) —
“Bad scran to ye! Why didn’t yiz
tell me it was too deep before Oi
fell in?”
Old Salt—Yes, mum, them’s men-o’-war!”
Sweet Young Thing-—How-interest
ing-! And what are the little ones
just in front?
Oid Salt—Oh, them’s just tugs,
mum.
Sweet Young Thing—Oh, yes, of
course; tugs-of-war. I’ve heard of
them.
SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL
CONGRESS
BY FREDERIC J. HASKXN.
The fifth annual meeting of the Southern Commer
cial congress, which will convene in Mobile on October
27. bids fair to become the most notable commercial
meeting ever held within the confines of the southern
states. It will be very much a “Panama canal meet
ing,” for it will be especially characterized by an ef
fort to assess the possibilities of the big waterway
and to point the way to a proper capitalization of the
advantages it will afford. Every qther meeting that
has been planned for th e fall that might in any way
'interfere with it has been called off, and the forces
behind them have made common cause with the lead
ers of the Southern Commercial congress tb mako mo
bile the one great gathering place for all the forces
of the south to rally for a great movement toward a
new era ol’ commercial and civic growth. Even the
proposed pan-American Commercial confecence, which
was to be held by the twenty-two pan-American re
publics, under the auspices of the pan-American union,
has been postponed, and its work merged with that of
the .Mobile congress.
• • •
The members of the congress who desire to do so,
will be able to take part in a great South American
business men’s expedition. Under the patronage ami
assistance of experts from the department of agricul
ture and the pan-American union, fifty selected guests
will make a ninety-day trip for the purpose of giving
special study to Latin-American trade conditions. In
addition to this there will be a special trip to the Pan
ama canal open to all members, and it is the hope of
the officials of the congress that they may be able to
be the first organization to go through the can&L
• • •
The other matter (if unusual importance that wilt
come before the congress will be the report of the
American commission for the study of European co
operation. To show the people of the south how to
help themselves and how to aid one another is one
of the primary aims of the congress, and it has bor
rowed some remarkable pages from the book of Euro
pean experience—pages which show that intelligent co
operation has in it infinite possibilites.
• • •
The nation's best authorities on the divers subjects
with which the Southern Commercial congress deals
will be present to us© it as a forum from which to
present their ideas as to what may be done in the
south to capitalize its possibilities and to give
practical demonstrations of what will result if
the whole section moves forward in step with
some of its progressive communities. President Wil
son will tell the congress about the canal in its hew
ing on our international relations. This promises to be
one of the most notable utterances yet made by the
present oqcupant of the White House, and will put
the world on notice as to what the policy of the Wil
son administration is going to be with reference to the
international questions that will arise out of the open
ing of the canal.
• • •
"the Mobile meeting will be the first one in which
the women will figure. A woman's auxiliary of the
Southern Commercial congress has been organized, and
will hold its first annual convention. There will be
addresses on women in industry, women in religion,
women in club work, and women of the American coun
tryside. Co-operation wiU also occupy the attention
of the women, and the Countess of Aberdeen, on be
half of her European sisters, will tell the southern
women how co-operation helps the women of Europe.
• • •
A number of the representatives of Lattn-Ameri-
can governments in the United States will tell the con
gress what their countries are expecting from the
Panama canal, and what they are doing toward get
ting ready for the International trade expansion they
expect to share as a result of its opening.
• • •
The yield of opportunity in the sonth is a rich
one, and the service of the Southejm Commercial con
gress in advertising to the world just how these op
portunities may be found and developed has been in
no mean degree responsible for the remarkable expan
sion of Industry in the south between 1900 and 1910.
The world has been so accustomed to thinking of the
south as a region of run-down plantations and worn-
out soil, where the people live from hand to mouth,
that it may come as a great surprise to be told that
the south shows a higher gross acreage value for its
crops than the remainder of the United States. Ac
cording to the crop reports of a recent year the value
of the crops of the south per acre amounted to I17.2S,
while the per acre value for the other sections of the
United States amounted to *14.07—a difference ot -J
per cent in favor of the southern farmer. These tig-
urea were confirmed by the census inquiry as to crops
made in 19b0. That inquiry showed that the returns
from farming, based on the value of form values, was
27 per cent in the south and IS per cent in the other
sections of the country.
• • •
The south has a longer coast line than all of the'
rest of the United States together. This gives it op
portunities for mole commodious harbors and better
shipping facilities than any other part of the country.
At the same time two-thirds of all the navigable riv
ers are found there. If the navigable rivers which
pass through its territory and are accessible to its
steamboats be taken into the account, it will be found
that 24,000 miles of the 27,000 miles of navigable river
waters in the United States are at its command. When
the inland waterway improvement policy that the open
ing the Panama canal promises to put into effect is
carried forward to a successful culmination, the south
will have one of the finest systems of inland water
ways in the wprld.
• O •
No part of the country is richer in water power
than the southern states. New England has developed
less than 2,000,000 horsepower in its industries, yet;
this has made the New England states one of the in
dustrial centers of the earth. The officials of the
Southern.. Commercial congress call attention to gov
ernment statistics which show that the south has
5,000,000 horsepower running to waste.
• • •
These few instances will serve to show how differ
ent the south of reality is from the south of popular
fancy, and how much greater its possibilities for the
future are than its achievements of the past. Swept
by a gory war that laid waste its resources, wrecked
the fortunes of its people, and depleted its supply off
abie-bodied men, in less than half a century it is back
on its feet with an Industrial status comparing favora
bly with any other part of the world, ar.d getting raw 1 ’'
to show its sister sections that it has only begun its
program of progress.
• • •
To carry out this program the Southern Commercial
congress s’eeks to assist. It desires to be an all-the-
year-round institution, serving as a clearing house be
tween those without and those within. It desires to
show the outside world where it may find safe Invest
ment of its capital in the south, and to show the
dwellers in Dixie how much they can do with their
own resources. It seeks to bring into the southern
states an Infusion of that sort of immigrant blood
that makes for civic and material progress wherever it
flows. It aims to bring the people of the north apd
south closer together, knitting the bonds ofr Intersec
tions! friendship so close that the differences of the
past may only serve to emphasize the concord of the
present, and to give all sections a common pride In
seeing the south go forward to that high industrial, com
mercial and Intellectual station to which it is fitted by
its resources, its advantages and the character of its
people.
Pointed Paragraphs
Even the vegetarian may try to make both ends
meet.
* * *
People who go away tor a change usually coma
back broke.