Newspaper Page Text
VOL. <»—>.<>. 22
NEWS OF OUR NEIGHBORS.
Gleanings from All Sections of
South Georgia.
The farmers of Camden county
are harvesting rice, picking cotton
and grinding sugar cane. This is
rather early to grind cane.
Mrs. Hattie J. Lott has sold the
old Southern Hotel block in Way
cross to Hereford brothers, of Val
dosta and Waycross, for the sum
of * 125,000.
L. C. Walker, county agent of
Ware county, has resigned to en
gage in other business. During his
incumbency in office Ware county
industry was greatly promoted.
Berrien county will have a Fair
this year, a 2 day event, held un
der the auspices of the Chamber
of Commerce, on Wednesday and
Thursday, October 20th and 21st.
The Herald says that the aver
age price paid for tobacco in that
market this year was 30c. a pound
and predicts a larger area will be
planted to tobacco in Berrien coun
ty next year.
Mr. E. J. Berry, formerly clerk
of the superior court of Ware
county, is now station auditor for
the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlan
tic railroad. He will probably
make his headquarters in Way
c ross, his old home.
The Eleventh congressional dis
triet convention was held in Way
cross, in the county court house,
last Saturday, Judge W. C. Lank
ford was formally nominated for
congress. The new district exec
utive committee was named but
not published.
Four recreant boys of DuPont
were arrested a few days since and
lodged in the Waycross jail under
warrants charging them with bur
glarizing freight cars at DuPout. It
is stated the boys have made coin
plete confession. They have been
released under bond.
At the commitment trial at
Douglas of I yew is Flanders for the
homicide of Ira J. Bicketson, held
last Friday, ihe Defendant was
held without bail. It is probable
the trial will be at the October
Term of Coffee superior court, the
third week of <>ctober.
In the late primary Hardwick
beat Walker four votes in Ware
county. Hardwick's followers will
have the fight of their lives to keep
their man ahead in W are county
at the runover, notwithstanding
it is stated the Smith faction will
follow their chief in his support.
The leading citizens of Lanier
county-lobe met in Milltown a
few evenings since and, with en
thusiasm. organized the Lanier
County Chamber of Commerce.
There is nothing like doing things
in the right way. and they have
started doing things in the right
way in Lanier county.
Mashburn and Marsh, president
and cashier respectively of the
Bank of Pulaski, Hawkinsville,
have been convicted of receiving
deposits knowing that the Bank
was insolvent. They were fined
each $250 and SI,OOO for costs, by
agreement of court and counsel, it
appearing that they had reimburs
ed the depositors. The juries try
ing the cases gave the Defendants
penitentiary sentences of from one
to four years.
The Douglas municipal election
occurs on the third Saturday in
December. There are already three
announced candidates for Mayor —
Arthur Brooks, William R. Frier
and Carl R. Tanner. Poor boys,
how the Tribune sympathizes with
them! They will run themselves
tired before the real race takes
place. The women, not having
qualified themselves under the city
charter, will not participate in the
election this year.
In Those Bays.
Editor B. T. Allen, writing in
The Gazette of February 12. 1892,
said: “These are political times
when Democrats cannot afford to
compromise their faith in the
slightest degree. 'Those who are
not for Democracy arc enemies and
should be treated as such." What
Editor Allen wrote in the days of
the third party boom may be ap
plied equally as well in the trying
days through which Georgia Demo
eracy is now passing.—Tifton Gaz
ette.
Georgia was then getting her
first taste of Bolshevism. Tw ent y
eight years ago! How the memory
of B. T. Allen, then editor of the
Tifton Gazette and now editor of
the Pearson Tribune, is refreshed
anen t the doings of t hose days, flow
well he remembers the stubborn
fight he made for pure democracy
against the Farmers' Alliance that
had been misled into the Third
Party. It was Tom Watson and
his satellites who misled the Al
liance to its death through the
channels of politics. Tom Wat
son's burden then, twenty -six years
ago, was the destruction of the
democratic party; lie has never
“let up” and it is his task today.
The Gazette editor, of twenty
six years ago, fought Tom Watson,
candidate for president; John Sib
ley, of Tifton. candidate for con
gress from the oid second district,
and Wm. Bussey who wanted to
represent Berrien county in the
State legislature, with all tlie
energy he possessed. Not content
with the fight in his newspaper he
took the stump against them and
assisted in defeating all three.
During the campaign it, became
the duty of the Gazette editor to
expose the Bolshevistic conduct of
Win. Bussey in his lnaiiagtancnt
of the Alliance Store in Nashville.
Whereupon the editor was notified
that Win. Bussey was going I" lick
him on sight. The editor went
over to Nashville to see Wm. about
it, but when the editor went in at
the front door of the Alliance
store Wm. went out the back door
as if he had been sent for to go in
a hurry. The editor was satisfied
he didn't mean what he said, and
let it go at that. A short time
after this, to cover up his fraud
and crime in the conduct of the
store, he set fire to and burned Un
building and the contents and fled
from the scene of his Bolshevistic
crime. Wrong doings makes us
all cowards.
The lesson of those days bid
Democrats to be on the alert, not
to grow careless or indifferent;
democracy is still the safeguard of
the American people and must be
preserved. Our very liberties de
pend upon it. Democracy and
truth have received a severe shock
in Georgia, but life is no! e.\lined.
This year there seems to be an
“armistice with truth," as it lays
crushed at, our feet, but
“Truth crushed to earth will ris acMtin:
TIT eternal years of < Jod no h< .
Hut error, wounded, writhes in pain.
And dies amid his woi'.snipper.s."
Fiddler’s Convention.
Nichoi.i.s, Ga., Seiit. 25, 1920. —
The Fiddlers Convention will be
held in the auditorium at Nicliolls
on the Saturday before the second
Sunday in October at three o’clock
in the afternoon.
And on the second Sunday The
Wire-grass Singing Convention will
be held at the same place. All
the singers and their classes ary
urged to be with us and help make
the occasion a success.
S. L. Vinson. President.
The original Smyrna Missionary
Baptist Association meets with the
Harrell Grove church, five miles
southeast of Douglas on Friday be
fore the fourth Sunday instant?
The other Smyrna Association will
meet with Nicbolls church at the
same time.
Official Newspaper of the County of Atkinson.
PEAIiSON, (JEOIUiIA, FRIDAY, Of TOILER 1, 1920
EDITOR J. KELLY SIMMONS,
Of Mcßae, Writes Second Letter
Relative to California.
To the Newspapers of Georgia:
Sa<iia m kxto, Cal., Sept. 2 1920.
—ln a previous letter I told you of
having come nearly 3,000 miles to
Galifornia to study her manner
and method of development and
tell it to the people of Georgia
through the Georgia newspapers,
in order that Georgia might lie
come as well known as Galifornia.
You will remember I told you in
the opening paragraph that the
story could be told in one word —
A DY EMTISING.
1 have now been in t,lie State
about three weeks, and I am more
firmly convinced than ever that my
first estimate is correct. 1 have
been pretty well over the State,
and I can’t help but think what a
wonder stale Georgia would be if
she were to put forth the same
effort that, these California people
put forth. For, you must remem
ber, California is a sand desert un
til artificial moisture is secured.
Irrigation is the only way t hey can
raise anything out here.
Georgia farmers have no such
.obstacles to overcome. All they
have to do is to put a fence around
tlu-ir acres, do a little preliminary
clearing up and go to work. No
bother about water. Nature pro
vides that. The Californian will
tell you, “with water everything
is possible in California. Without
iI. not h ing is possible.”
It was my first intention to draw
a comparison of Georgia and Cal
ifornia, but I here is no comi&rison.
Georgia is too far ahead in her
natural resources. There is only
one thing that Galifornia has that
we haven't and that is her climate.
And conic to think of it, I was
talking with a young man a few
days ago who is not a native of
this State. When asked what lie
thought of California, he replied
very promptly that “it was all
right, except the blooming climate
is too monotonous.”
I have been unable to gather
any intelligent statistics on the
temperature of the state, because
it varies so widely in different
parts of the state. But 1 take
some data gathered in Los Angeles,
the most favored part of the state
from a climatic standpoint. I
learn that it occasionally freezes
that far south, and that the liter
moineter sometimes goes over JOO,
so, it will be seen that they DO
have hot and cold weather out
here sometimes.
But, as I have already said, we
are not going to try to compete
with California. What Georgia
must do is to wake up and take
advantage of the wonderful natur
al opportunities that confront us.
WE HAVE El BST GOT TO SELL
GEORGIA TO GEORGIA PEO
PLE, and then the selling to out,
skiers will be the easiest thing in
the world, just as it is for the Cal
ifornia people to sell California to
outsiders.
1 have been much encouraged by
talks with some of the large farm
ers and truck growers out here. So
long as I talked with chamber of
commerce representatives and land
development agencies, 1 got only
the most glowing accounts of suc
cess, but when I finally decided to
seek out the “sons of toil” I then
began to get down to rock bottom
and get the unromantic side of
| California life. And I found these
farmers to be about as interested
in Georgia as we have been inter
ested in California. They, all,
without exception, tell me that a
! Georgia farmer on his Georgia acre
can make as much or more, on his
peaches, watermelons, cantaloupes,
cane, potatoes, peanuts and live
stock, as the California man docs
•on his acre. True, we can’t raise
j oranges and lemons and other such
like crops, but we don’t have to.
The California people themselves
admit that a California peach will
not compare with a Georgia peach,
and when 1 mentioned Georgia
watermelons to a man here a few
days age, his face lighted up and
lie fold of having once been in
Georgia and how he enjoyed those
delicious Georgia watermelons.
I’hc largest I have seen out here
would not weigh over ten or twelve
pounds and ( hey taste Hal. I hap
petted to be talking one day with
a prominent produce man and
mentioned something about tlie
delicious Georgia cant-syrup. That
man said lie had tried every year
to get a supply of Georgia cane
syrup, saying that he had never in
all his life eaten any syrup to com
pare with it. I have his order for
a supply in my pocket right now.
I was talking with a party of
California busiuess men one day
and someone said something about
potatoes. 1 suggested that what
he meant by potatoes was Irish
potatoes, lie replied, “Oh, no, I
meant sweet potatoes, but I am
frank to fell you that wo cannot
raise anything ns delicious as your
famous Georgia yam. The only
ones we get out here are those that
come canned and while they art
better than ours, 1 happen to know
they are not as good as tlicj art
before they are canned.”
That’s the way those who know
Georgia out here look upon our
products. 1 have hail California
fruit men tell me that there is no
peach as good as the Georgia
peach. They all frankly admit
that Georgia, is THE pecan section
and that this one crop alone would
make Georgia world-famous if we
would only go after if like they
are going after development out
here. 1 was talking with one of
the Galifornia live wires a day or
so ago, and when 1 told him that
Georgia apples bail taken five in
ternational premiums he couldn't
believe it. He frankly said he did
not know we could grow apples in
our section of the country. Truth
is, the great majority of people out
here, those who have only a goner
al knowledge of the South, think
that Georgia is a corn and cotton
state and that we raise nothing
else. One man 1 met who is a
stock man, said he was in Georgia
about twenty years ago and he re
meinbered Georgia as a state that
made cotton almost exclusively
and bought her meat and bread in
the middle west. I n fact, he start
ed out to give me some advice and
advised that I go back to Georgia
and tell the Georgia people to go
to making their own meat and
bread. You should have seen how
surprised lie was when 1 told him
we were already doing that.
They have told me of the won
derful Sacramento valley out here
and what it will produce. One of
the crops they boast of in the Sac
ramento valley is tobacco. They
were very much surprised when 1
told them that in Georgia we had
the largest tobacco plantation in
the country, 25,000 acres with 3,-
500, employees. They have been
boasting to me ever since 1 came
out here that California’s rice crop
last season amounted to $72,000,
000. It may interest you Georgia
people to know that the by-pro
ducts alone from one Georgia cot
ton crop brought more than $72,-
000,000. Remember, by-products
only.
They tell you only of their suc
cesses out here. That is why their
descriptions are so glowing. I
have gotten some of the less ro
mantic side of California however.
I have talked with hard-headed
bankers —men who are not accus
tomed to romancing—and their
information has always been that
there is a “seamy” side —that there
are failures as well as successes.
One real estate man boasting to
ATKINSON COUNTY.
Items of News Gathered from
Various Sources.
A negro man and a white boy
were arrested Sunday afternoon
under warrants charging them
with burglarizing the railroad
depot at Kirkland. The white
boy is ready to plead guilty. The
Negro denies the gentle imputa
tion.
Miss Edna Fed rick, the teacher,
requests the Tribune to announce
that, the public school at Mt. Zion
will open its 1920 21 session next
Monday, October 4th. Patrons
and pupils will govern themselves
in accordance wit h this announce
ment. The compulsory attendance
law requires all children between
8 and 14 years to attend unless
excused.
Sheriff Leggett capt ured a Dodge
roadster ladened with whisky, and
two young white men in charge,
Sunday afternoon. While he was
chasing the young men in charge
some one removed the whisky
from the car and it couldn’t be
found again. The car appears to
have been the property of Sheriff
Tanner, which had been purchas
ed by the young men under a con
ditional contract of retention of
title until paid for by the purchas
er. But Sheriff Leggett has re
fused to lurti the property over to
Sheriff Tanner.
me of how- a friend of iiis had sold
his crop of grapes this year for
$301) an acre, and the buyer is to
do the picking. That sounds fine,
but that land is worth SI,OOO an
acre. Considering the investment,
ihe cost of the produce—and don’t
forget, it cerlainly costs something
to look after a grape vineyard —to
gefher with now and then a fail
ure, do you (hink that is such a
large yield? 1 told him of one
Ilabn n county farmer who sold
$1,400 worth of celery from one
acre in 1913. He was surprised of
course, because they didn’t think
we could raise celery in Georgia.
Most Georgia people don't know it,
either, but you can if you prepare
for it like they do out here and in
Florida. One Dougherty county
farmer has produced as high as
756 bushels of sweet potatoes to
the acre, and you know what they
are now worth. A Lowndes conn
ty man produced a watermelon
that weighed 147 pounds. I have
been told that one Georgia farmer
made around $4,000 on one inten
sively cultivated acre. I don’t
propose to vouch for that, but 1
just give you this to show that wt
make some claims as well as Gali
fornia. Ido know this, that from
S3OO to SSOO an acre profit are
common in Georgia, according to
agricultural reports in my hands.
They arc very proud of the fact
out here that California is only
sixth from an agricultural and
horticultural standpoint, but did
you know that Georgia is only
FOURTH ? Georgia is first in
peaches. She is second only to
Texas in cotton, and if it were not
for the area of Texas she would be
first. Georgia is third in meat
production. While Georgia is
largely an agricultural state, her
mining opportunities are wonder
ful. 1 paid a visit to the Califor
nia State Fair this week and had a
rather interesting talk with the
man in charge of the mining exhi
bits. He took a great deal of pride
in showing me an exhibit of asbes
tos. Georgia laid claim for a long
while to the only asbestos mine in
the world, with the exception of
Wyoming. Georgia has the largest
deposit of kaolin. She has 142
square miles of coal; 175 square
miles of iron; besides her deposits
of gold and other minerals.
The thing that impresses you
most out here is the bigness of the
undertakings. These people out
*1.50 A YEA It
here are accustomed to thinking
in big figures. They think in mil
lions when they undertake a pro
ject of any kind. They have to
do this to get anywhere, because ’
they have to spend millions and
millions of dollars getting their
land so it will produce. They
have faith in themselves and their
state. That is very clearly shown
by the irrigation projects and other
reclamation schemes. I have been
shown one tract of 65,000 acres
that were formerly overflowed
lands. It, is now one of the finest
farming sections in California.
There is a project on here in
California just now that I want to
bring to the attention of Georgia
people later, and that is a land
settlement project. California
now has a law making it possible
for the tenant fanner to become a
land-owner easily. It is too big a
story to go into this here. But 1
want to call to your attention this
one thing. In 1910 two thirds of
Georgia’s farm lands were cultivat
ed by tenant farmers! Think of
that! Ilow much more valuable
Ihcse 190,000 farmers would be to
Georgia if they were land-owners.
The California bureau of land set
tlement is in position to give their
new settler every kind of assistance
and information that he may need.
That is very important. One of
the chief sources of failure on the
part of people going into a new
section oi country is the fact that
they do not know the soil and
understand farming conditions.
Georgia must provide a means
that her two-thirds farming popu
lation can own their own homes
and have a bureau to advise and
co-operate with the new-comer.
We have a land area sufficient to
take care of 40,000,000 people and
we must get them.
Georgia has a wonderful oppor
tunity to develop and grow in
prosperity in the next ten years.
The possibilities of our agricultur
al and mineral resources are be
yond calculation. In South Geor
gia we have oil lands and vast
areas of farming lands to develop,
our ports to build up, and in
North Georgia they have the
minerals and water powers, fruits
and a hundred industries to foster.
We all know about world-famous
American Spirit. We know of the
California Spirit. We want a
Georgia Spirit. We want every
man, woman and child a Georgia
booster. We want to SELL Geor
gia to Georgians so that when a
visitor comes to our state he will
become a Georgia booster just as
they become a Galifornia booster
when they come to Galifornia.
The casual tourist in California
gets caught. He comes for a few
days or weeks and they show him
the glories. They tell him the
romantic side and he is SOLD. I
was very much impressed with the
beauty of Southern California, be
cause it is indeed pretty. 1 mar
velled at the transformation of
that desert country into a beauti
ful, blooming flower garden and
orchard and my first impression
was how wonderful is California.
Mrs. Simmons brought me to my
senses when she casually remark
ed that we too might have things
as pretty if we took as much care
and spent as much money trying
to have these beautiful gardens.
That is the secret of the whole
thing. They TRY. And they
keep on trying. They are not con
tent with anything less than .suc
cess. How this trip has inspired
me. lam more a Georgia booster
now than ever. Since corning here
I have come to realize more than
ever Georgia’s greatness and her
wonderful opportunities.
There is only one thing for
Georgia to do —SELL Georgia to
Georgians. We must advertise
just as California does. She spends
millions and millious at it. We
spend nothing, or haven’t so far.
