Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-09-01
VINO ARE INTERESTED ~ MAEUFAcTo-
RIES.

to point out any very serious errors
made by the CHRONICLE, though its
efforts in that direction have been
strenuous indeed. In its issue of the
18th ult., when it came once more to
the breach with such a furious on
slaught after having apparently aban-
doned the field, it seemed to have
studied our files with microscope in
search of some blunder which would
count at least one Roland for the
divers we have given it. Our neigh
Dor, no doubt, felt fully repaid for all
of its pains when it came upon the
following which appeared in the
CHRONICLE more than a month ago
According to the last census there
are twenty millions people in the
United States who are directly depeR-
dent on such industries, (meaning
manufacturing and mechanically for a
living" -....
On this discovery, the Democrat
went Immediately into violent case
of Mysteries and grew most awful
jolly over this jewel OF mistake that
its patient search had brought to
light
We have before had occasion to re-
mark that our unfortunate neighbor
seems fated to blunder. The cause of
its frequent errors is no concern of
ours, or the public's, and We should
feel a delicacy in mentioning the
same if the whole world was anxious
to have it revealed. We only assert
the melancholy fact that its errors are
frequent and that it fell into one of its
accustomed blunders in the cOnstruc-
ton it put upon the paragraph quoted
above. The Democrat takes us as
having referred to the total number
of persons employed in the pursuits
mentioned, whereas we SAID those who
are directly dependent on those pur-
suits for a living. The intelligent
reader can readily understand the
difference, but to make a clear illus
tration of that difference, we state the
following example. There are only
7,670,493 people set down in the cen
sus as being employed in agricultural
pursuits, yet every one knows that
those who are directly dependent on
such pursuits for living" are greatly
in excess of those figures.
There are only II, 392,O98 people set
down in the census as being engaged
in all occupations, only little more
than 338 per cent of the total popula-
ton. The remainder are dead heads,
and directly dependent on this one
third tor livelihood.
We will not plead that the word
t,renty in the above paragraph was a
misprint for twelve but say that the
correctness of our argument was not
materially effected by such mistake.
There were, on the 1st of May, 1880, in
the United States, S,637,112 people
employed in manufactures, including
mining and mechanical industries
This is more than half the number
employed in farming, and nearly
twenty-five per cent of all occupations,
and it is rational to suppose that the
number directly dependent on such
industries for living" is proportion
ately as large. Since 1880 these indus
tries have greatly increased in the
South and West, especially in the
latter section. Since that time Birm-
ingham and Aniston have almost come
into being, and other manufacturing
towns have grown in an astonishing
degree. Small factories have sprung
up in every hamlet and mills OF yari-
Gus kinds have been built off in the
country where there is no town at all
Our argument in the article from
was that free trade would drive all
these people now employed in the
pursuits mentioned, into agriculture,
and whether they are twenty or twelve
millions strong, such an event would
he truly alarming, since it would con-
vert all of those consumers who now
make the home market into COM
petitive producers, and destroy the
home market.
Now those who incidentally derive
their daily bread from such source
are the merchants who sell these peo-
pie their goods, the farmers who sup
ply them with food and the profession
al men who give them their services.
How many people of other vocations
than manufacturing could live in
Pittsburg if the manufactures OF that
city were removed? How many in
Lowell2 How many in Chattanooga?
Nashville's rapid growth is due to her
manufactures, though only small
portion of the people who have gone
there of late years are engaged in
manufacturing. II factories were
built in GAINESVILLE it would not only
bring the necessary factory hands here
bat "a vast number of people would
incidentally derive their daily bread
from such source" and the country
around would build up with flourish
ing farmers whose support would
come through the same channel.
Every soul in this American Union
is benefited by the manufactures and
is interested in maintaining them. In
all the States where factories have
been built land is more valuable in
proportion to the number OF people
employed in them. In fifteen
States with 10y per cent of their work
ers engaged in agriculture, farm lands
are worth $5O9l per acre, and the
product per capita is 1859. The valne
of land and product per capita decreas-
cs in proportion with the increase in
the per cent. of workers engaged in
agriculture, until in the six states
where such workers are 20 per cent,
the value of land is only 1923 per
acre, and produces only Sl61 per