The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-02-09
OUR UNDEvELOPED RESOURCES.

| All our poverty and helplessness, as
compared with the North East to-day,
has arisen from the blindness o. our
own people to their wonderous adyan>
tages and opportunities, and from their
puerile dependence upon outsiders for
everything requiring the least energy.
ingenuity or skill to produce it. With
all our mighty resources, how could we
ever-hoW can IRE ever crpect to be any
thing but wretched dependencies, so
long as we have to send abroad for every
plow that burrows our fields, every
scythe and reaper and wagon that gath
ers our harvest; every bedstead We
sleep on, AMI every yard of ticking,
and linen, and blanket that covers it;
every table we eat from, and every cloth,
napkin, dish, fork, knife, and spoon,
upon it; for the cradles our babies are
rocked IN, and for the collins our fathers
are buried in; for every yard of calico
and muslin that clothes our lovely
women; and every needle, thimble and
spool of thread to makeit up?
With boundless forests of cedsrs, oaks,
walnuts, naples, and pines, waving on
our high lands and low lands, our hill
tops, and valleys, nearly every bucket
table, and churn we use, is imported.
With vast stores of coal underlying our
mountains, and crossing out along our
streams, three fourths of the CRATES and
stoves throughout our State, are filled
with the Goals of other, States. With
numerous cattle dotting our hills, our
! every horn button and piece of calf
skin, comes fir I'M Massachusetts,. With
mountains of solid iron within orr
borders, ou- every axe, head and gimlet
and nearly the whole catalogue of iron
goods aud farming implements, are
brought from abroad. With marble of
every hue swelling our hill sides and
jutting forth in priceless crags, our
every mantle and tomb stone halls from
Italy and Vermont.
Our mines are unopened, our quarries
unworked, and rarely is thunder of the
great mill wheels heard along our
streams. Our leather is shipped clear
ACROSS the continent to Lynn, Massa-
chusetts, to be manufactured into shoes,
and then after all the freight and stor-
ages and commission and Yankee man.
ufacturers' and merchants profits are
added on, our people are compelled to
buy it back, and wear the same identical
leather. Our iron is sent to Pittsburgh
or Cincinnati, and bought back in plows,
spades, shove1s, picks, reapers, mowers,
stoves, engines, skillets, and hoes, &c
Our cotton is shipped fifteen hundred
miles scross the country, to Massachu-
sets or Rhode Island; all the freightagei
by steam boat, railroad, and canal ware.
house dues, drayage charges, for hands
ling, and manufacturers enormous diyi.
dends, are paid, and then in the shape
of calico and domestic, our merchants
have to buy back the very same cotton,
pay the rascally profits of the Boston
jobbers, and all the expenses of trans
porting it again across the whole CONT.
nent to the region that raised it. How
long is this pocket pumping misman'
agement, this lunatic, self robbing, Il
continue? How long?
We can bpt think il our people can bt
made fully to understand the situation
and especially the great farming interes
Of our whole State, made to comprehend
that to assist In the development O
their resources, would so materially ado
to their gains; and that it is but carrying
out the grand design of Him from WHOM
all blessings flow; the path in which thu
whole voias ~ nature speaks in thunder
tones, urges US on to prosperity and hsr
piness-they will act unitediy together
for common end,
Columbia cap become great ani
wealthy manufacturing city, if she will
but secure the completion OF the DUCK
River Valley Railroad, and its branches