The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1882-02-25
THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION.
It's Lessons to Our Planters and BUSINESS Men.
A Thoughtful Lsttsr frcm G. R. Brscklu-
ridge Setting Forth tbs Advantages that
Should Accrue to Our People.

cnoule accrue 70 Vur re0ple.
PINE BLrFF, ARK, Dec. 2G, 1881.
Editor Pine Bluff Commercial:
In compliance with your request
| write you some of the results of
my visit to the Atlanta exposition.
The exposition is a success, and in
some essential particulars is differ.
ent from any other occasion of
like sort that / have known. These
great occasions are generally for
the chief purpose of setting forth
the glory and progress of a nation,
such ones being subsidized by gov
ernment, or of fostering some SEN
timent, such partaking of the
nature of great state entertain
ments, and trade with them is
incidental. But at Atlanta the
order was reversed. No govern
ment or state aid was rendered,
peace and good will of course pre-
vailed, as usual, and people from
all sections mingled to advantage;
but the main object and basis of
the occasion was business. AS for
IFS of the South, we saw what we
have to exhibit, but we are to profit
not so much by a knowledge of
what we have, as by a knowledge
of what we need to have. The ex,
position laid bare wants, and indi-
Gated remedies. We exhibited
mainly raw materials that our
northern visitors need to come to
with their money and skill. The
North exhibited machinery and ad-
vanced knowledge of a varied
character that we need to appro-
pirate. The vast crowds that as
sembled upon the grounds from
day to day, some $4,000 in number,
were the most intelligent gather
ings of large size that | have ever
seen. Never was there greater
need of a great industrial exposi-
ton, and never did an occasion
more fully accomplish its spurposes.
AS for us, we see more clearly
the need of national, state and
community diversity of industries.
A very able address was delivered
to the national cotton planters as.
sociation, principally upon this
subject, by Mr.. Loring, our COM
missioner of agriculture. Mr.. Lor-
ing takes an able and patriotic
view of the agricultural and gen
eral industrial wants of the South,
which is the hindmost of the sec
tions in wealth and material pro-
gress. We are at present mainly
agricultural. We have reason to
expect must assistance from the
investigations of our accomplished
commissioner, the dignity ofwhose
Office we should exalt to a cabinet
position, and whose hands we
must uphold with adequate appro-
priations. We cannot subsidize
manufacturing establishments nor
any other ventures of capital but
when we see how vastly depend
ent we are, upon having capital
both home and foreign, venture
upon these, to us, new fields, we
are constrained to pursue aliberal
policy towardit. People and mon
ey only move under inducement.
The Atlanta exposition has much
to show the benefits, nay the ne
cessity, of diversity at least as
applied to communities. To keep
population and money we know
we must be just. But we do not
appreciate the need or know well
the means of persuading people or
money to come to the country, or
inducing money to venture into
new industries. We are accus-
toned in our conservatism, to say
"Well, they will come when they
need tor This is true. But will
they come in time for our need !
We should not be progressive in
the way of state aid, but in the
way of exemptions and an enlight-
ened, liberal policy generally, such
as will keep at home what we have
that we need and bring to us what
we want. We need confer no aid,
we only withdraw obstacles. At
lanta then teaches the benefits of
diversity and the Importance of
dealing very literally with those
elements which we need, and
which can easily leave us or re-
frain from coming to us.
But diversity is not the greatest
want of our large planters, though
it is almost the sole want of small
farmers. 1t is very well to save
freights, etc, by selling to facto-
ries near home, which Mr.. Atkin-
son says we can never do; and it
is something undoubtedly for us to
improve our samples of cotton,