The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1889-04-25
BILL ARP.
How the Churches Have Built up Waste
Places.
atlanta Consultation.


It looks very much like Cartersville has
a slight touch of a boom. We have been
trying to keep from catching it, but ]
believe il is coming. Our preachers used
to say that it will demoralize the people
and they will set up Mammon as a God,
and that all sorts of worldly minded folks
will flock hither to speculate and get
something for nothing, and [ thought so
too, but now that the preachers !ha7e ia.
ken up the trade I reckon its all right,
They don't call it booming now-they
call it promoting. DR.. Hawthorne and
DR.. Eaton and four older Baptist preach
ers promoted Florence from little ham,
let up to great manufacturing town with
over three millions dollars already
invested, and they did in it a short time
and in very creditable manner. And
now we see that some Methodist preachers
in Alabama propose to do the same thing
at another town over there. All this
looks nights curious to man up tree,
but if building up the waste places is a
good thing I don't see Why preacher
shouldn't take hand in it, ifthey can do
it without discounting their calling. The
Methodists and Baptists have been the
pioneers for century, and carried their
religion into the wilderness and establish.
ed civilization. They rode mules and
drove OK wagons and cleared the land
and built log churches, and when every
thing was sorter comfortable the Presby.
terians came riding up in their buggies
and rockawsys and settled among them,
and planted out shade trees and rose
bushes and built church with steeple,
and set up the Shorter catechism and
predestination and moved around as
though they were the elect. By and by
when two or three railroads we're built,
and the shade trees had all grown up, and
the green grass was growing all around
and around, and the streets were macada.
mized, and. an opera house buils, the
Episcopalians came along in apostolic
succession, with stately steps snd prayer
books and Lent and Mardi Gras all mixed
up together, and they bobbed up serenely
into fine church with stained glass
windows and assumed to be the saints for
whom the world was made in the space of
six days, and all very good. And so it is
all right all round, for folks are different
and can't help it, and what suits some
don't suit others, and the rule is to be
liberal and tolerant to all.
DR.. Hawthorne and his brother
preachers have done great work at
Florence and done nobody any harm that
we know, and now they ere going to
build great Baptist university and have
it endowed, and all the money comes
from those who are able to give it. I was
thinking about this new departure of the
preachers and made personal inquiry in.
to it, for it did look like the whole thing
vas done by Aladdin's lamp. A friend
who knew all about the facts told me
that when DR.. Hawthorne happened
there and saw the beautiful river and the
rich highlands all around, and the iron
and coal mines not far away, he told the
hills people that it was better place for
q large industrial town than either She;-
field or Decatur or Tuscumbia, and that
if they would set apart for his purpose
six hundred acres of their land, he would
undertake to bring half a million dollars
investments there within twelve months.
But how did he do it? Why, he enlisted
three brother preachers and they parceled
out the territory, and travelled, and got
capital from Virginia 10 Texas, and they
had pamphlets and maps, and advertised
a great sale, and the venture was q grand
SUCCESS. Their Baptist brethren had con.
fidence in them wherever they went, for
DR.. Hawthorne is brainy man with an
an impressive manner and will power.
DR.. Eaton was very lnuch like him, and
the whole thing was close communion
among the Baptists, and when the great
sale came on they sold over a quarter OF
a million of lots in one day, and stopped
the sale to rest and put up The price,
NV information is that not an original
purchaser at that sale was hurt-not one
who could not get back double his money
and in some cases can now sell for ten
times the price they paid. Manufacturers
of many kinds have been planted there,
from hundred thousand dollar cotton fac
tories and furnaces and wooden mills to
smaller veaturers of various kinds. The
population has been threbled in twelve
months ard everybody is happy. Now
there is nothing wrong about this method
of building up 8 thriving industrial city
that gives employment to labor. The
south wants hundred such and be.
lieve will have them before long. The
north has had them for halfa century and
is rich. 1t is amazing to think how rich
she is. A. man who knows told me thai
there was over thirty millions lying idle
in the banks of Cleveland, Ohio. MOI
the money of the banks, but of the depos
itors who left it for safe keeping unit!
they could 6ud safe Investments. It is the
same way all over the north. Thai
money is looking south and is coming
south.
In the 10 ng ago it used to take about
twenty FIVE years to build a southern towr
and finish it. There was the courthouse
in the public square, the same old.timt
honored courthouse with two big eyes in
each gable, and the clerks Office and jury
rooms upstairs. Then there were two OF
three churches and school house and
half dozen wooden stores and half
dozen law Offices and doctor shops ano
a., ,,o doooor;os uhora cnrn liuuo]