Newspaper Page Text
° |
The Fitzgerald Leader
ENTERPRISE AND PRESS
Issued Daily By
LEADER PUBLISHING CO.
Isidor Gelders _—.____.___...Editor
S, F. Gelders —______._.__Man’g Ed.
SUBSCRIPTION RATE
By Carrier .........:....20c pér wk,
By Mail ................23¢ per wk.
ADVERTISING RATE
: Display Ad in Daily
30 cts per inch
Same Ad in Daily and Tri-Weekly
Both for 45 cts. inch
BEN HILL COUNTY SHOWS
POPULATION INCREASE
Elsewhere in this issue of the
Leader is carried the first com
plete official census returns for
Georgia for increase in rural pop
ulation. Those figures show that
Colquitt: county was the second
fastest in rural growth. Fulton
county, whose, rural growth is
really urban in that it consists
largely in overflow of homes. oc
cupied: by Wwhose business is in
Atlanta, really does not:count.
That makes Ben Hill county sec
ond only 'to Colquitt, another
South Georgia county, in agricul
tural developmeng during the last
ten years.
In that news story the Leader
and its editor find full payment
for the effort: expended in that
period to make Fitzgerald a better
city and to base its improvement
on better rural development.
During the lasti ten years, during
the larger part of which the edi
tor of the 'Leader was secretary of
the Chamber of Commerce, was
the largest contributor to its sup
port, supplying it with all its
printed matter without charge,
and giving'to it uncounted hours
of thought and labor, Ben Hill
has made its largest bid for rec
cognition as a “land of promise.”
During that ten years the Fitz
gerald Leader, the Leader-Enter
prise, and the Leader-Enterprise
and Préss have been owned, edi
ted and published by their present
proprietor and have worked un
ceasingly through every avenue
open to'a newlspaper to build up
Ben Hill county and Fitzgerald.
The Leader believes it has earned
some measure of credit for the re
markable showing the county has
made. The Leader believes that
the next ten years, in which its
efforts to develop its city and sec
tion ‘will be redoubled, and in
which its efforts will be aided by
those of a live wire Chamber of
Commerce and a citizenship that
is awake and reaching for bigger
things, in these next ten years
Ben Hill county and Fitzgerald
are going to make even longer
strides toward leadership, to
ward f{ull development, toward
substantial prosperity.
FARMERS HAVE FACED |
GREAT HANDICAPS ‘
During the decade that ended
January 1, 1920, rural sections in.
the South faced their greatest
handicaps since reconstruction.
The boll weevil played havoc
with the one important staple
crop ; the war came on and war in
dustries, offering unprecedented
wages, drew thousands upon
thousands of farmers from their
farms and into the cities. Nature
has seemed to frown on agricul
ture in the South for the last few
years, offering the farmer an oc
casional will o’ the wisp of pros
perity only to make it vanish 'n_l a
swamp of uncertainty. A price
failure on cotton in 1914 was a
great blow, followed by the boll
weevil, and other handicaps. And
still Ben Hill county grew.
The decade 1920-1930 opened
with great promise, with visions
of wealth in every farmer’s head,
visions of wealth built on cotton,
cotton, cotton. In this first year
of the new decade, the Monarch
Cotton has again played false
with its friends and King Cottpn,
many times dethroned in print,
and on whose sway the Leader
has \waged unceasing war for ten
long years, has at last been de
throned in fact. The revolution
that the Leader and other far see
g exponents of Gre_ater Squtl
Georgia has been urging .against
King Cotton has come into final
success. Diversification, a sort
of Republican form of agricultur
al rulership, if our readers will
pardon the rather spread eagle
effect of the metaphor, has been‘
established. ; |
“The 1920 census report shows
‘that the Leader and those wnthl
whom it has stood have won the
battle for a greater Fitzgerald and
‘Ben Hill county in the last ten
years. The census feport for 1930
must and will show even greater
success during the next ten years.
~ People we’ve got a REAL
country down here in South Geor
gia. We have got a country that
should support a city of three
times the size of Fitzgerald.
We've got room in this county
for as many farmers as we've got
now three times. Farmers here
could produce and sell twice as
much ak they do now if they had
a full measure of co-operation and
aid from the people of Fitzgerald.
LET CO-OPERATION LEAD TO
WORTHWHILE SUCCESS
Let’s set our mark high for the
next ten years of work, you peo
ple whose property depends on
the prosperity of your home town
and county. Ben Hill county had,
when the census was taken, a
population of 14,599, Let’s make
it 30,000 by 1930. IIt,CAN be
done. Our neighbor, Colquitt
county had 19,789 in 1910; it had
29,332 in 1920. Has not Fitzger
ald and has not Ben Hill county
as much BRAINS as Colquitt?
There is no difference in soil or
climate. There is no difference
in natural advantage except in
favor of Ben Hill county. Col
quitt made its remarkable record
through co-operation of city and
county. We can do/ the same
thing in Ben Hill.
Let us have a standing com
mittee of ACTIVE BOOSTERS
from the Chamber of Commerce,
a cimilar one from the Ben Hill
County Farm Bureau, and a sim
ilar one from the Fitzgerald Wo
man’s Club to form a joint com
mittee to work toward better co
operation and better' development
of our city and county.
'The start has been made. The
three organizations, united, have
established the most successful
curb market in all Georgin g
success of the curb market « o 11
not have been achieved with nt
this co-operation. NOTHING
ELSE CAN BE. On these com
mittees should be men of vision,
men and wdme#d’ whose interests
are interwoveg ’MP%{OGRESS.
men and wonieh WHS'REALIZE
that their interests are interwoven
with progress. Let the naming of
that joint committee be uninflu-l
enced by factionalism__THEßE
Is NO FACTIONALISM IN
FITZGERALD. Say that over.
to yourself every morning when
you first get up and every night
before you go to bed. Say it,
THERE IS NO FACTIONAL
ISM IN FITZGERALD, until
you believe it. What is good for
one bank is good for the other.
What is good for one depart
ment store. or wholesale house,
or furniture store, or anything else
is good for the others. The petty
factionalism that keeps a couple
of puppies fighting over a well
gnawed bone instead of going out
together to forage for new bones
is copied rather accurately in
many small towns and cities.
Fitzgerald . IS free from that
sort of thing; MUST be free
from it.
With all business interests
working together in harmony
through a joint committee of bus
iness men, *farmers, 'and repre
sentative women, this little town
}and this half-grown county can
‘make itself independent of strikes,
or labor troubles, or anything else
in this world as far as prosperity
is concerned.
Ben Hill county in the last ten
years has been the second fastest
growing county in rural popula
tion in Georgia. Let it be FIRST
during the next ten years. Let’s
\go. Fitzgerald; and let's go Ben
Hill County.
GET THE BIG ONES, TOO
SAM.... The Leader yesterday
carried a news story, or rather
two news stories, about the activi
ties of Uncle Sam in “going after”
the little fellows who have been
stealing from him. In Macon
this week something over sixty
men. who divided two or three
million dollars worth of the “deer
peepul’s” goods and chattels
among them are facing long
terms in the Federal penitentiary.
A couple of youngsters in a nerth
ern city have been indicted for
robbing the mails, getting in all
$17,000. Good enough. This pet
ty thievery must be stopped. The
thieves must be prosecuted and
sent to the penitentiary. That is
just, it is right, no one has a kick
coming except the thieves them
selves, N
BUT...
Walking the streets, or rather
riding them in limousines, are
other thieves, other pilferers of
the pulic’s pelf, men who wear
silk hats bought with your money
‘and mine; men who' sport dia
‘monds, bought with your money
and mine; whose very paunches
are extended with foods and fine
wines BOUGHT WITH YOUR
MONEY AND MINE. ; fit A
How about these. big grafters,
Uncle Sam? Hb%“m%’fm
THE FITZGERALD LEADER THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1921.
scoundrels who got rich quick
out of the Hog Island proposi
tion, and who stole millions in
war contracts? Yes, and made
millions squeezed from a freez
ing public, a shivering “deer pee
pul,” and starving coal miners
and their wives and children dur
ing the late world war? How
about them Uncle Sam?
Sure, the trick was done in war
time s, done when we common
folks were thinking thoughts of
high ideals and making the world
safe for Democracy, done when
we who pay the taxes and shoul
der the rifles and knit sox for the
soldiers, we innocent, honest peo
ple, could not believe that others
would take advantage of the haste
and the hurry of the time to swin
dle us and our soldier boys. Sure
it was done during times like that.
But does that constitute an exen
uating circumstance as some of
the blind upholders of the recent
administration and all its scala
wags hangers on seem to think, or
at least seem to contend, whether
they think it or not?
Jjail the little fellows, Sam.
Good enough, but we see nothing
in it to especially commend you
for. That is what you are paid
to do. But what about the billion
‘dol]ar grafters, Sam? We pay
you to protect us from them, too.
What about it, you federal judges
who are so careful to protect the
constitutional rights of profiteers
by declaring the Lever Act un
constitutional while Debs is in jail
for speaking his conscience, for
doing what the pilgrim fathers
crossed four thousand miles of bri
ny in a leaky tub to do? What!
about it, you new Republican Cab
inet members? Here is your
~hance to get “in right” with the
“deer peepul.” Look up your pre
decessor’s records. Get an all
wool and a yard wide Republican
committee on the trail of some of
these “Democrats for profit only”
hound dogs. The Democratic
party will rise up and call you
blessed for putting its traitors in
jail, and the Republicans? Oh,
man, they will stay G. O. P. for
two generations. And if you do it
we much abused and frequently
betrayed Democrats will not hold
it against you.
They poisoned Socrates several
thousand years ago; more recent
ly they broke Wilson’s heart.
Who did it? False f{riends;
friends for profit only. When
Wilson has been dead as long as
Socrates has bden dead today, he
will be held in as much esteem.
But the human ghouls who used
the sick man’s name to strip the
statue of liberty of as much of
her rainment as they could hy
pothecate will rank fifty degrees
centigrade below Benedict Arnold
and Judas Iscariot, the betrayer
of the Great Jewish Teacher, com
bined. :
Labor Action Can
Prevent Future Wars
Noted English Novelist Says, “Labor
Will Rule Nations of World.”
By EARL C. REEVES,
International News Service Staff
Correspondent,
LONDON, March, 16— Maurice
Helett, noted novelist, who is ‘to visit
America this Spring, has declared the
League of Nations “worth nothing,”
and comes out boldly and declares
only “labor inaction” can prevent wars
in the future,
The next war, he declares, will be
still more terrible than the last, for
it is now a widely accepted “axiom that
war can legitimately be waged against
non-combatants. !
“Hate now occupies men’s interests
all over the world in relations or na
tior.\ality and class larerest,” Hewlett
declares.
“What have you to set up against
that? Only the League of Nations. 1
have no desire to cavil atthe League
and I dare say that the establishment
is a great talking house where at least
‘war can be held up while they talk, is
of certain value. But if it is not go
ing to succeed the League is dangerous,
‘because it would impede other things
‘which might be successful.
. “The failure of the league was made
‘plain when Lord Robert Ceecil said that
‘direct inaction’ can prevent war.
‘between Russia and Poland if the
bunch had not taken sides with Po
land. :
“We must go to labor, the class
that, sooner or later, will rule the na
tions of the world; the class which al
ways suffers most in wars. We must
g 0 to them not only in England, but
abroad, asking labor to prove its
capacity, its humanity. Labor has the]
power to paralyze militarism, and by
‘direct’ inastion’ can prevent - war:’
Once labor had done so no gOverß
ment would dare to fisk war agajn.""
The Daily Leader
---has been published for the last
ten days to best serve the public
interest of Fitzgerald.
, The Daily Leader was not ex
pected by its publishers to be a
money maker but they do not con
~sider themselves obligated to con
tinue to lose money with it for any
length of time. |
/ The circulation of the Daily
Leader has grown rapidly, but the
“subscription lists have been so ar
ranged that the paper can be dis
continued at any time on one
week’s notice. |
If the business people of Fitz
gerald want to give their custom
ers a local daily newspaper, they
should concentrate their advertising
lin the local daily newspaper in
order to enable it to live.
Every dollar that is spent with
the Leader Publishing Company, in
~arvertising or Job Printing, helps
“to insure the permanence of the
Fitzgerald daily paper. *
Daily Leader advertising is
read by all classes of people
in Fitzgerald. It is good advertis
ing. And the advertising receipts
~are what make the paper possible.
Subscription receipts pay approxi- -
mately only one-fourth of its cost.
If you have anything to sell,
Advertise in The Daily Leader.
If you want to buy anything;,
Buy it tfrom Leader advertisers;
The Advertisers are the ones
who are giving you the paper