The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-02-05
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We vcntured to state last spring that n
great city, with valuable corner lots, en-
terprising manufacturers and developed
business could not be built up in ninety
days from corn field ora cotton planta-
ton. We vcntured to assert that some
thing more than flaming prospectus, a
veStibule train, a speculators promise,
was necessary to convert n lO-dOllar bill
invested in March into l00-dOllar bill to
be harvested in December. We ventured
to state that in the North or East or Mid
die States 1t required years of labor and
millions of capital, and vast eXpendi
tWe of brain and energy, to build a city.
We yentured to state that such city rs
was painted in the newspaper advertise
mCnts of lust spring, aud in the elegant
books published by enterpring specula-
tors, concerning their respective towns
and villages, could not be erected in a
few short months, aud that all who based
their calculations upon such mushroom
growth must meet disappointment and
loss.
We did not think at that time, how
ever, that the promoters of these
schemes would allow the wind to escape
from their balloons in few short
months. We thought they would at
least spend part OF their profits in main
tanning the Integrity of their promises at
least one year. We thought the slide
down hill of the innocent investors of
the North would be made easy by the oil
, of promise and the lubricant Of fulfil
ment We did not think that the first
dividend of one OF the most promising of
the companies would be a request to fur
nish So per share, or lose the whole in
vestment in bankruptcy at the receivers
hands. We did not think the crash
would be so sudden, SO severe or so
harsh. The harmonious music of the
reed band Of last spring has dcgenerated
into the unpleasant jargon of Chinese
gungs. The pleasant dreams of wealth
and prosperity and development pic
tured in the happy investors mind last
spring becomes scene of desOlation, of
bankruptcy and disappointment in the
early winter, just Mt the season when the
Southern enterprise should take on its
greatest glory after the early frosts have
killed the malaria. A most sudden and
violent smashing of the idol has oc-
CURED.
We would not fUl 4 moment disparage
the pre-emincnt resources of the great
South. We do not believe the specula-
tors have carried away much of the iron
or coal or cypress OF marble, neither do
we believe they ever intended to do much
hard work in that vicinity. We regret
that so valuable section, blessed with
such natural resources, should run into
the hands of sheer spectators, who rest
satisfied with a paper city, without that
development which the investing public
of the North had right to expect. That
the South will emerge from this scene of
bankruptcy and disappointment in its
unnatually inflated development com
Dauics we have no reason to doubt, but
the same principles which build a city in
the North, or the East, or the West, must
he adopted in the South and Southwest,
A vacant field cannot be converted into
a city of 100000 population in the life
time Of a generation, and he who expects
to do in 60 or 80 days that which took
I wiser and better men 60 and 90 years to
do, must either have the conceit which
will end in his ruin, or the Ignorance
which will lead to his bankruptcy
american CWtirdtOr,