The Van Buren press., 1895-12-14
SAW THE WILD WEST.
Arp Takes in the Free Parade and
He MoraIizes.
He Gets 20 Talking Money-in tho Olden
Timas Gold aud Silver We're Pien-
uiul, But Gold Is Scarce
These Days.


| could help it; but now prefer to see
things that provoke thought instead of
smiles. The wonders of tho exhibits
in the exposition, the progress of man
kind in the arts and sciences fill the
mind with pleasant contemplation.
When the telegraph wires first reached
our town we felt sure that there was
nothing else to invent or discover; that
nothing more WAS needed. But SO many
wonderful and useful things have piled
up on us since, that now we live in a
state of expectancy. What will come
next?
When l was a boy we studied a
philosophy which said that the load
must be near the power, and there was
a picture of horse trying to pull bag
OF sand by rope that was 100 yards
long-and he couldn't move it. Now
we read that the power from the cleo
trio plant at Niagara is soon to pull all
the boats on the great Erie canal, and
the thousands of horses and mules are
to be discharged from their monotonous
service. More than this-we read that
this same power is soon to supercede all
other powers in loading and unloading
the vessels in New York harbor. If
this power can reach New York from
Niagara, why not reach across the con-
tinent? How long before all our rail-
way trains will be moved by it? There
is sufficient water power right here near
Gainesville to operate a plant that
would move all the wheels in Georgia.
The children now at school will live to
laugh at the simplicity and stupidity of
their fathers and grandfathers just as
| now smile at the recollection of the
time when my father kept a flint and
steel and piece of punk in little tin
box and would strike a spark and light
a candle when he wanted light in the
night 1t is funny to think of the time
when there was no matches. What
would these cigarette boys do without
matches?
Every decade brings cheaper methods
and more comforts. The old rule that
Adam Smith taught us in his "Wealth
of Nations" was that Providence had
gisely ordained that the labor of one
man would easily support eight persons,
meaning himself and wife and six chill
dren. But he wasn't counting on Sc
shoes for the boys and $40 hats and
balloon sleeves for the girls and a college
education for both. The labor of the
average man will not support eight per-
sons now, for not withstanding the
cheapness of things our wants are in
creased ten-fold. Stephen Girard said
that the way to get rich was to buy
nothing you were not obliged to have,
but we reverse the maxim and buy too
many things we ere not obliged to have.
While in the exposition | did want to
buy lot of those beautiful aluminium
wares for my wife, for she does love
pretty things and fine things, but
didn't have the money. l let her look
at them and only bought her pepper
box. Now, that reminds me of our
trouble in the South. That aluminium
clay is all about in our hills and is
being mined and shipped every day to
Pittsburg and there it is reduced and
manufactured and the products come
back to US with two freights and big
profits added. Just so with our man
ganese and ochre and lumber and
hides and most of our cotton and
wool. We have got to manufacture
our own materials or we will never
catch up. But we are making
good progress in iron and cotton and
maybe the other plants will come along
in time. / learn that 80 per cent of
that aluminium clay is wasted and
thrown away in the process of reduction,
just think what a saving OF freight
there would be if we could reduce the
metal at the mines. We would soon be
the richest people on the earth if we
could manufacture our own materials.
The labor is here, but it is idle. Our
boys are willing but they can't find en-
ployment.
1t is astounding how rapidly wealth
increases when labor is rewarded. Look
at a ruined State like Georgia was in
1865 and now see what thirty years have
done. Look at the exposition that has
been planted with the money from one
city and is now the wonder of the ma
tion. Whore does all this money come
from? Verify, it looks like Aladdin's
lamp has come down to us-and yet
almost everybody is complaining of
hard times. Tve been reading Josephus
again and l don't understand how
Solomon got all his money, for David
was at war with somebody most all his
life. Josephus says that silver was as
plentiful in Jerusalem as the stones in
the street. The temple was overlaid
with gold and cost millions of dollars.
Herod sent little present of ten mil
lions of drachmae to Caesar. Hyreanus
sent ten thousand talents of gold. The
Pharaohs built the pyramids for their
own tombs and one of these took 100000
men thirty-seven years to complete it
and IL cost five hundred millions of dol
| lars and is not worth a cent to any body.
| The Aztecs Of Mexico built some just as
large. The ruins Of chem are still there
and historians say they had idols on
their tops that we're thirty feet high
and made Of solid gold. There is a
cathedral now in the City of Mexico
that cost sixty millions Of dollars
What vast amount Of money has
been made from the beginning down to
the present time. Mankind began early