The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1890-05-01
HENDERSON, c., THURSDAY, MAY l, 1890.

construction of more railroad mileage
and industrial enterprises than any
other State-and this, too, without the
aid of foreign capital to any consider
able extent. A new era has dawned
upon the South, and North Carolina is
receiving the benefit of the genial and
inspiring rays of the dawn. Hereto
fore the tide of immigration and in
vestment of idle capital of the money
centres of the East and North, has
flown to the Northwest, but tired of
cyclones and Billiards, and dreading
anarchisln, nihilism, socialism and
strikes, with which the North west is
threatened, our rich friends of New
England and the North are turning
their eyes to the South whose genial
sun makes every day, except Sunday,
work day and where no isms and
strikes make investments unsafe or
proftless. l went not long ago over
into Tennessee and when l saw stir
and enterprise everywhere, long trains
laden with coal, and coke and pig
iron rattling in every direction and
the heavens fairly glowing at night
with the glare of coke ovens and blast
furnaces, | felt like exclaiming, " Poor
North Carolina gave the best part of
herself away when she dismemhered
herself and gave Tennessee to the
Union" But when l recalled to my
self our people and their growing
towns and industries and how, without
foreign help, we are digging life out of
the ribs of what was thought to be
death, and what we have in our noun
tains and plains to work upon, l felt
constrained to say "My land, my
native land, of every land the pride !"
You do we'll to celebrate the COM
pletion of SO important road as the
one now brought to your doors, link
ing together the Atlantic coast and
the great West and fulfilling the pro-
phetic visions and the ardent longings
Of your forefathers. 1t bisects the
State, having five outlets to the North,
no entangling alliances, independent
of all others, and like Aleck Stephens
" toting its own skillet The inside
history of the building of the road will
never be told. l have sometimes
thought l would write it as lesson to
my children and the children of the
State of what North Carolinians can
do.
After many tossings by tempests,
storms and unfavoring winds, we have
come to your hospitable shores, O
beautiful Queen City by the Sea, like
Aeneas and his followers came to the
kindly shores of the gentle Carthage
nian Queen! 1t is haven of rest we
are in, and sitting at your banquet
board, l will not vex your ears, o
beautiful Qaeen, by renewing our un-
speakable grief and telling how the
feet in which we have come has been
threatened with wreck and tossed by
the tempest!
When the State of North Carolina,
tired of the wants and expenditure of
money on her railroads, determined to
spend no more and sold to company
of North Carolinians the thirty-seven
miles of a non-paying road, and those
North Carolinians said they would
build the road to Greensboro and then
to Wilmington and then to a connec-
ton with Cincinnati, carping critics
laughed at the crowd of "corn-field
hands, as the new railroad builders
were called in derision. But, as step
by step the railroad was built to South
Carolina, then to Greensboro, then to
Mt. Airy and then to Wilmington, the
laugh of the scornor relaxed into
sardonic grin at the unexpected success
of the syndicate. But there were times
when the lowering clouds, big with de-
struction, hung low above the heads Of
the builders, and have seen times when
they met around the council board with
blanched faces and with great beads of
cold sweat upon their brows, when, if
one had flinched or each had failed to
feel the sympathetic and reassuring
touch of his neighbor's elbow, the
individual fortunes of dozen North
Carolinians would have been destroyed
and the pledge they had given to the
State would have been broken. But
amid the turmoil and tempest and
threatening shoals and Scyllas and
Charybdises, we had an Aeneas in
Mr.. Julius A. Gray whose watchful
eye and calm head, cool nerve and
unfaltering hands were at the helm
guiding us into safe harbor-and we
are here safe and sound, O Regiaa,-
beautiful Queen City by the Sea l
mention these things not to praise the
men among whom l held small place
but to show what North Carolina
grit can do, and how North Carroll
mans can stay and stay and stay to
the end.
The toast proposed omits one treas
ure that North Carolina has, which
with your consent | will add, and that
is " Wilmington" An enthusiastic
Frenchman sitting at the banquet
board of Napoleon, once proposed
this sentiment: "In the world
there is no country like France,
in France no city like Paris, in Paris,
no man like Napoleon. Parahrasing
l would say that in the world there is
no country like America, in America,
no State like North Carolina, in North
Carolina, no city and no people supe-
rior if even equal to the city and the
people of Wilmington.
| The cotton factory begins to look
official and inspiring. All the scat