Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-01-28
rbs putIss of ths Hour.

hence no owes 10, ana u IN uuty pounu 10 tiso,
her all his energies aud power, and especially
so when dark clouds gather around her.
Mr.. EDITOR: / have been pleased to
see in your universally read paper
several communications on tho subject
OF manufacturing in Memphis. Now,
sir, / am not one of those Responding
souls that can find nothing but gloom
and poverty for our city and grass grow
ing on Main street, but look behind the
cloud and see the bright sunshine and q
glorious future for Memphis, and find in
the very darkness of the hour the first
stepping.stone to greatness and power
How and wherefore ?
First. All axioms are without proof,
because they are incontrovertible facts !;
and upon those facts put my argument
for our city as I great manufacturing
mart First, then, we occupy that lati-
tude in which the greatest amount OF
muscle can be extracted at the least
possible expense of food and clothing to
the operative, which is the base Of all
successful manufacturing, other things
being equal.
Second. We are on the great jugular vein
of the nation-ever flowing, ever rolling,
and at our city nerer closed by want Of
water nor ice. Above epidemics, with our
mild winters, surrounded on every side
by soil that will grow all that man needs
in OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES, corn, pota-
toes, grapes and fruits of every kind.
All we want is white population TO farm,
so as to make our living as cheap, II not
cheaper than any other locality in Amer
ica. Cheap food brings in its trail cheap
labor; cheap labor, cheap rents, and
cheap capital. We have already native
forest timber, unequaled for all manu-
featuring purposes in wood-oak, ash,
walnut, cypress, hard pine, red. gum,
poplar and sycamore timber that can be
put on the wharf at Memphis to-day in
any quantity, at paying rates to log and
mill at an average of twelve dollars per
one thousand feet; and with cheapened
labor il can be put here at eight dollars
per one thousand feet, or at one-half its
cost in Cincinnati, which city to-day is
supplying not only us in the South,
but also the great West. There is no
good reason why we should not only
make our own furniture, plows and
implements for domestic trade, but we
should compete for all the trade west OF
st. Louis in those new States of prairie.
We are less than one-half the distance
from St. Louis, with up-river boats al
most in ballast, and hence freights to
St. Louis or Omaha would be at least
twenty five per cent less than from Gin
cinnati. Then, with our virgin forest,
our open rivers, our milder climate, our
greater number of hours in the year,
which labor can be used to advantage,
our ever open navigation to the sea, and
all streams south and west of US with no
possible competitor, why don't we mans'
facture, and that largely ? That is the
important question and | am as compe-
tent to answer it as any other living
man. 1t is simply because your capi-
talsts or moneyed men have ever refused
to the infant manufacturer an equal
aid that has been given to mercantile
pursuits ia every town or city in Amer
lea. Where manufacturers have and do
flourish, they have been sustained by
the capital of theTplace. And now, Mr.
Editor, just let your moneyed men dis
count your mechanics and manufactu-
rers bills on as liberal terms as they do
the merchants paper, and let this be-
come rule Of action, and, my word for
it, in less than another twelve months,
you will not have half the number Of
" for rents" on your horses as you have
to-day; but the loom and shuttle, the
furnace and forge, and the music of busy
machinery, directed by practical hands
all glowing with cheerful future, will
have supplanted the gloom that to-day
broods over us. More amor.
WM. FARRIs.