Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-11-20
AND NOW WHATe


AND NOW WHAT9
We published few days since list of
one hundred and twenty-eight houses
erected ill Staunton in the past year, and
there were probably a dozen more that
escaped the notice of our reporter. This
is creditable to our life and energy and
confidence in ourselves, and is good provo
cation for self-complacency; but we must
not mistake numerous buildings for The
height of success. 1t gives all our people,
who can afford. it elbow room, and that is
all. We have seen a town-and more than
one-not two-thirds the size of Staunton,
which did tWo-thirds more work. where
the people were crowded three or four fami-
lies in a house, and where the money made
was put into the business to make more,
and not put into houses. to give easy room.
Some of these new buildings will be nccu-
pied by the mechanics who built them,
Others will be for rent, and houses will be-
vacated by those who move into the new
ones. We must do something to fill UP
the chinks. We must bring people in to
stop the cracks. We must make tae thing
solid. We can't do it by trading, for we
will soon get down to point where we
will be swapping knives with each other.
We must make something. That is the
way they make inland cities at the North
they make something to sell, and that is
the way they make all the money centre
hot halter
,nanufacture something and bring money
here, than to work and trade for little
money here and send it there, won't your
Well, if that is better. what will we make?
What will make large or small don't run
wild over large) factories, that will give
employment to our surplus population, and
bring money here to pay them, so that you
cen fill the houses with rent-paying ten
ants and build some more? Let US COM
mence manufacturing something that lies
right at our doors. Y gu can make wagons,
for instance. You have the wood and the
iron right here. You buy your wagons
from the West. made out of the very wood
we ship over the g. u O. road there. and
4he iron that is sent from our very doors
TO them. Doesn't it stand to reason that
they can be made cheaper here? Every
BODY knows it. Down at Woodstock, only
G5 miles down the Valley, d spoke, felloe
and hub factory is about being started
That is the business for Staunton. Here
are the trees right on our farms. You
don't need to start au immense spoke and
ieloe factory. Start small one first.
The machinery is not so costly as to frIghten
YOU. Get up stock company with small
capital, start, and you will soon have q
large one. In the same town they have d
barrel and stave factory, turning out seven
thousand pieces day. At Port Republic,
a town Just on the edge Of Angus a, Il
company has been formed to start a sash
and blind mandatory. Are the villages
10 get ahead of the Invest city in the Val
lev? Staunton wants factories like these
because there is money in them-money
from elsewhere. Don't let us stay penned
lid trading corner lots with each other and
swapping farms with each other, bringing
nothing into the county. Start a stove
factOry-there' money in that: of paper
1nltl-GtlSIG III SiAftuf o'o9 GUM " A.
for fifty idle girls. Start them small, if
YOU like. and il is better to start them ON
&. small scale; there is It greater sense of
safety about it, and a greater surety that
nobody will be badly hurt. staunton may
as well understand that she must com
enence manufacturing something. Those
of her citizens who are rich and large pro-
performers, had RS well understand that
for the value of their own property they
had better lend a helping hand to all rea-
sonable experiments in industry that are
made. 1t is pardonable for a thriving,
growing city to initiate, but she must hurry
up and make good the inflations OF there VIII
be a smash. ltmusI be in factories OF some
kind that our population must find work
and our capitalists find profit. We cannot
stand still. The laws of business life don t
allow it. We must do something
now what? Let every man with capital.
and without it, commence thinkjngapout II.