The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1890-03-27
THE SOUTH.
COL. PAT. DOMAIN, ENTHUSIASTIC
OVER THE SOUTH'S PROGRESS.
He Describes its Growth in Glowing
Terms and Predicts for it a
Splendid Future.
Washington Correspondence of Baltimore
Manufacturers Record

Washington Correspondence of Baltimore
Manufacturers RecOrd.I
I met here yesterday Col. Pat. Do
nan, for years the great boomer-in
chief of Dakota and the New North
west. For more than a decade his
speeches, editorials, letters and inter
views have furnished the staple adver-
tising material Of the Northern Pacific
the Manitoba, the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul, the Chicago & Northwest
ern, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
the Rock Island, Wisconsin Central
Michigan Central, Chicago & Alton
and all the other great railways whose
enterprise and energy have built a
half-dozen populous and prosperous
States in what was an almost unknown
wilderness, less than half generation
ago. Many of his halfjocular, half
serious, but always wholly-earnest
booming screeds in regard to his chosen
region have been published throughout
the world ; newspapers have re-pub-
llshed them as curiosities in literature
and oratory; European steamship
companies have issued them in pam
phlets, circulars and hand bills, and
scattered them broadcast over the
the world as immigration documents
and some of them have found their
way into the school readers and reci-
tatlon books as eye-openers for the
young spouters of the future. Donan
has seen nearly every part of the
world. He is a keenly observant man
and his scent of a coming boom is al
most infallible. He has just returned
from a flying trip South, and is boiling
over with enthusiasm in regard to that
region and its prospects. l had an
hours talk with him at his hotel, and
l wish, for tine sake of our Southern
friends, | could give it to the Manu-
facfurers' Record in full but l shall
have to content myself with a brief
epitome of his rhapsodies. In reply
to question as to how he had been
impressed by his trip, he exclaimed +:
"Delighted, my dear fellow! There
is no describing the magnificent prog
ress the South is making. In spite OF
all the jackasseries and criminalities
of our politics, in spite of our so-called
statesmen and their alleged states
manshlp, the whole country is grow
ing and prospering as no other land
under heaven ever did before but the
most wonderful part of that growth
and prosperity is south of the Potomac
and Ohio to-day. l have seen all the
famous booms of the American Great
West from Manitoba to Mexico, and
think | may without egotism say l
have had as much to do with most oi
them as any other living man-or
dead one either, for that matter. l
have had hand in the Dakota boom,
which has turned the wild buffalo pas
lures and Indian hunting grounds ol
ten or fifteen years ago into two SOW
ereign States Of the Union with nearly
million people to-day. l have wit
messed the mighty booms in Minneso-
ia and Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska,
Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico:
and had some slight share in all OF
them. | have seen the Crazy boom in
Southern California when cactus patch
es ten miles from nowhere sold at
Broadway and Fifth avenue prices by
the foot, to fools from everywhere
and in Oklahoma when madmen poured
i'll by tens of thousands to seize quar-
ter sections of arid desolation on
which a prairie dog would starve to
death. | have seen them all, and
been little part Of them all. or near
ly all, from Winnipeg and Fargo and
Deadwood, Duluth, Minneapolis, St.
Paul and Kansas City to Los Angeles,
San Diego, Cheyenne and Guthrie,
but L have never seen anything that
if it equaled, the gigantic
boom that has now set in all over the
South. 1t is a glorious cyclone Of
progress that is sweeping everything
old fogyish and and stupid out of its
path. 1t beats all the wonder of the
Arabian Nights, with a whole tin shop
stock of Aladdin's lamps thrown in.
1t is magical, marvellous. glorious -
"To what do you attribute this sud
den change for the better in the South?'
l ventured to ask.
"To the fact that the world is at
last beginning to gets it eyes open to
the infinite riches of Southern resources.
Nowhere on all Gods beautiful earth
is there a region blessed with so many
and such natural advantages. Mil
lions on millions of acres of land as
fertile as ever the sun shone on, to be
had for the mere asking and taking,
lands that yield almost spontaneously
every grain, grass, fruit and vegetable
of the temperate and sub-tropical
zones. Mountains ribbed with mex
haustible stores of coal and iron, gold,
silver, copper, lead, zinc and every
other metal and mineral known to
commerce. Quarries of marble OF
every hue enough to furnish palaces
and tombstones for all creation.
Building stone of every variety in
quantities sufficient to supply the world
till the last man has gone to sman-
sions not made by human hand.
Mighty forests of all the most valuable
timbers, waving their long arms from
ten thousand hills and mountain sides.
Grand rivers offering free transporta'
tion to all the wares of the artiflcer.
Crystal streams tumbling and foamlng
everywhere, babbling of water-power
enough, long wasted, to turn all the