The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1884-03-29
THIS is IT!
A CAPITAL SPECIMEN OF OUR
INDUSTRIAL l. AND SOCIAL LIFE
That the Prosperity and Energy Of Our
People are FashiOning into Crafty
ing and Hopeful Shape.

Special Correspondence OF The Chronicle.
WINsToN-SALEM March 22-Salem has
for hundred years been the most uni
formly thrifty town in North Carolina
and Winston is one of the most rapidly
built towns in the South, whose prosperity
Is on an enduring basis. These plain facts
everybody knows, and they have for ten
years been part Of current conversation
everywhere in the South. Everybody
knows, too, that the foundation of Salems
thrift, and the causes of its perpetuatiOn
was the excellent practical doctrine and
sturdy habits Of the Moravians 4; and the
cause Of Winston's rapid and permanent
building was the tobacco trade
But there are other things than these
happy facts to be observed, and to be said
of these delightful towns At any rate
have never found subject of more fruit
full study in our industrial and social de-
velOpment than weeks ramble and talk
here
Suppose | consider the subject seriously
and preach a sermon for once? | should
say then, first of all, that the Moravians,
wise as they were, and frugal-though
their more daring neXt-dOOr neighbOrs
laugh at some of their ancient ways
have for hundred years taught by their
practice what the most of the rest of US
have been a hundred years learning-the
value of thrift. There" said friend,
as we were driving through the European
like old town, ''there is the shop of a lock
smith who has made fortune. When he
says he will have saw filed or gun re-
paired you may 60 to his shop and find it
ready-eVery time, and there is no man
living who could do it better. You or l."
he continued, would hardly have saved
much money from his earnings in his
younger days. But he has saved, and
now, when he is comparatively rich, he
keeps to his bench, doing just such work
as he did years ago"
That is the whole story of Salem in a
nutshell. If a majority of our people had
this simple virtue, we should now be one
of the richest peoples the sun ever shone
on. The Messrs. Fries great cotton and
woolen mills, Mr.. Hege's large manufac
tory Of saw-mills, the celebrated Salem
Academy, and all Salem's other note
worthy enterprises, are monuments of this
slaveless thrift.
True, such a career as the lOcksmith' s is
easily criticised. Anybody could say that
he is foolish to work at small jobs now,
and silly not to have built large estab-
liShment. But when you hear such a crit
icism, consider whether the critic himself
is either as rich or as happy as the lock
smith. Most likely not The worst that
can be said of such a town and of such a
people is that they are not likely to have
in conspicuous degree the modern vir-
tue We call public spirit.
When Winston by the perseverance and
pluck and foresight of a few individuals
suddenly found itself one of our great to-
bacco markets, everybody made rush
for wealth. And good many have got
The town rp
| rich (for North Carolina) in proportion to
its population as any other town in the
South, and as few idle men as any other.
But Winston is a post slavery product.
The era of large plantations never produc-
ed such a town. 1t was made possible
| only by the work of such men as did not
| do great deal of work in the days of
| slavery.
Here, then, side by side we have tri-
umph Of the New South and perhaps the
most firmly built monument of the old
! time.
1t is all North Carolinian The Moravians
have traits of their Dutch ancestors but
they long ago become thoroughly at home
here, and while there are not dozen men
in Winston who were born here, the most
of them are North Carolinians. This,
take it, is the happiest augury for the flu
| ture. 1t is proof enough to the man who
| can see that we have in our own borders
and in our own blood, along with the great
! est conservatism all the energy and thrift
that have made the New Englanders ia
nous and rich The chief difference is
! the New Englanders had an earlier neccs
sity to develop these traits.
Our people need a more general culture
We have yet to grow to a popular delicate
appreciation of literature for instance
I'D .h.,,,
tie jealousies will not vex us, and whel
ly the prime purpose as the best using o
it. But every economist must cOnfes
that the safest basis for building up to al
these heights has been laid here as success
fully and as enduringly as anywhere il
the South
l recently wrote that no land had eve
been held 50 long by Anglo-Saxons AM
developed so little as the South. To tina
l may add that not even Anglo-Saxon
ever before in all their prosperous histor
developed any other country so rapidly a
the North Carolinians disfranchised frOI
the Negro are developing North Carolina
and point to Winston as proof.
Those people who have these twent
years been wondering what in the nam
Of Mercy is going to become of us a
now, and those who have any douI
about the future prosperity Cor the pres
ent for that matter) and about the col
tinual development of our resources an
our people-in short, anybody who ha
any doubt about North Carolina, simpl
does not know what there is in North Ca
olina.
Are you pestered with such doubts
Then come to Winston. You ought t
travel more. You ought to use our raj
roads and your eyes. Talk with such me
as Mr.. George Hinshaw and Mr. P +
Hanes, Mr.. Hege and Mr.. Buxton-I coul
call the whole roll of Winston's and S;
LENS foremost men and every one of the
is sufficient refutation of your doubt
Not the least important facts, eithe
are that they all get good beef cheap an
: live in sight of Pilot Mountain.
w n D