Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-06-08

Il
double the value of the crude material
: Let US estimate the value of the crop o
| Tennessee in round money. Say 200,
GOO bales at 20 cents per pound is wortl
| 10000, 600. Now with one tenth Of tn,
males and one sixth of the females be-
tween the ages of 10 and 20 years, VIZ
can double the value Of the cotton croI
/ of Tennessee, or bring its value up tC
| 81 100000. The average cost of raw
material for each cotton spindle in the
| United States for the year 1860, was
| $40 "a, and for labor 81 81, while the
value of the manufactured product was
| So %, again showing that the crude
product may thus be doubled. Why is
| it, then, with these facts staring US in the
face, our people do not take the balance
| of the stock in the proposed cotton fac
tory? 1t is question beyond compre~
hension, unless it proceeds from igno>
rance of the facts. DIR. Adam Smith in
his treatise on the division of labor,
says that the most Opulent nations gen.
orally excel their neighbors in agricul-
| ture and manufactures, but that they are
eminently more distinguished by their
superiority in the latter than in the
former. This declaration Of the great
political economist is illustrated by
the vast wealth existing in dis
tricts where agriculture IS the ex~
ception and not the rule, and where
the people depend entirely on their
manufactures for support. Our people
seem to regard manufacturing in pay
ing point of view as mere specializing
dream. Tins idea is erroneous and is
disproyed by the statistics Of every such
establishment in the South. Let us ex>.
anime the history of such establishments
in the Eastern States. About eighty
years ago in the State Of Massachusetts
the first cotton mill was put in operation
by John Cabot and others, on the COS
operative plan. After three years they
We're about TO fail, and the State believ-
ing that it was a concern Of great public
utility, loaned them $1,000. Thus from
the town of Beverly was laid the foundas
ton ofthe future prosperity of Massa-
chasetts. To Rhode Island the palm Of
beginning the manufacturing Of cotton in
this country belongs. The first con-
Germ of this kind was commenced by
Almy Brown and Slater at Pawtucket
in that State, which now boasts
Sprague and hundreds Of other wealthy
gentlemen, any of whom could buy out
all Of our agricultural capitalists in this
city and never know they had been trad
Ing. The history OGthe manufacturing ess
Establishments throughout the country
shows that every one Of them had to be
assisted by the Legislature OF the re~
spectiVe States so to get the assistance
of capitalists. You might just as we'll
talk of turning river up stream as to
think Of manufacturing without capital
1t can not be done. 1t is all bosh to talk
about purifying stream when the foun-
tain itself is corrupted, and unless our
capitalists cometo the rescue ike men,
our city is doomed. Archimedes, the eel
ebrated philosopher of = antiquity, said:
Give me place to stand upon and | will
move the earth. IGiVethe manufacturers
here the capital, the great lever Of pros
perity, and they will cause yourroek GRIT
city to blossom like rose. Well do l
remember the faccount of the death of
that mechanical genius.N What an inn
preston it made on my youthful mind.
According to Cicero, when Syracuse as
taken by storm, Mareeles ordered that
the person and property OF Archimedes
should be spared and while this great
man was so much engaged in his pursuits
as not to know the city had been taken
and while he was drawing in the sand
Roman soldier basely stabbed and
killed him. Often have / thought
of this story as have seen some sturdy
manufacturer or mechanic whose brow
was marked with the wrinkles of broken
slumbers, and whose life had been de~
voted to the prosperity of his city and
people, and whose only care was the
ameIioration of mankind, shot down by
the financial bullet of some remorseless
ShylOc or shaver. Y our manufacturers,
from these causes, are becoming discour-
aged! You must assist them with means
or their Individual enterprises are fail
uresl Even the bee provides comb to
take care of its honey, and the man of
wealth should throw the mantle of pros
lection around his rrichea, Iassert to-
day, without the fear Of contradiction
that if the people Of the South hYis
been manufacturing people, if they,
| could have manufactured their munitions
| Of war and have been able to clad their
| soldiers at the outset of the war, they
| would have been able to achieve their
independence. Does it ever occur to cur
capitalists that we are still passing
through a civil revolution which may
break out in violence and shatter this re-
| public into states or principalities. If that
contingency should occur, and remote as
it seems, it is possible, how long would
it be until orr magnificent pike companies
should have to succumb to the makers
of Minnie and Enfield rifles. No longer
than 1t took the Yankees to conquer US
before. We, in Tennessee, were whipped
almost before the fight commenced, bea
cause we had nothing to fight with, and
no shops to make arms in. Let us not
be caught in that box again, after so
much has been done for us by nature,
and the scientific men Of the country.
Let us have no more tagging. Only
eighty years ago every thread used in the
manufacture of cotton in the world wa 8
spun with that classical instrument the
spinning-wheel. Then IIargreaves came
along with his Acknowledgements,
the Jenny, which, with its still increas-
ing powers made its way into common
use in spite of all opposition. Two
years later the more wonderful invention
of Wyatt (Which claims much earlier
origin, but which had disappeared like a
river that sinks into n subterraneous
channeD now rose again under the
fortunate star of Arkwright. Five
years later CrOmpton combined the
two in one ingenious whole, and thus
from twenty spindles this machine was
brought by more finished mechanism to
admit OF an hundred or more, and to
exercise Briarean power. Kelly re-
linquished the toilsome mode of turning
the machine by band, aud yoked to it the
strength OF q mighty river. Wyatt, with
the subtler and more potent agency OF
steam, furnishes an iron-arm which never
siackens OF tires; and finally, Roberts
dismisses the spinners and leaves the