The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1895-01-17
INDUSTRIAL EXPOSITIONS AS COM.
MERCIAL FACTORS.
How The Tennessee Centennial Exa
position VIII
Help Develop the Resources Of the
State.
BY COL. ALBERT ROBERTS.

The proposition to commemorate
the centennial anniversary of the state
hood OF the commonwealth of Tennes-
see by an industrial exposition of her
resources and products-her agricultural
development and her progress in utilita-
rian arts, was a most felicitous concep-
ton. For industrial expositions are
something more than passing show for
the idle recreation Of a season they are
significant object-lessons, illustrating the
advancement of a people from a lower
plane of civilization and primitive stage
OF development to higher; pointing
the way and inspiring the endeavor to
still more ambitious and yet more bene-
fetal achievement. They add, not only
to the wealth and commercial potency
of communities, but to their moral ele-
walton and physical comforts first, by
pOpuarizing a love of the beautiful in
art; second, by encouraging the exercise
of the inventive faculties to discover
still greater improvements in the handi-
crafts which contribute to mans physical
wants. All industrial exhibitions in the
past have had this effect.
OF course the primary object and pur-
pose of
AN EXPOSITION is TO ADVERTISE,
and give widest publicity to, the pro-
ducts OF the community in which It is
set up. In country so vast in area a.
ours, such publicity is not practicable.
If possible, through the ordinary agency
of printed circular letters, newspapers.
pamphlets or books at least, not in so
impressive way nor of such enduring
nature as by practical illustration OF
products of field, forest and mine and
workshop-in themselves "the occular
demonstration and the proof" in mute
eloquence proclaiming at once the rich
ness of the soils resources and the en-
terprise of intelligent inhabitants in the
development thereof Take for example
State Ike Tennessee whose mineral
wealth embraces coal, iron, marble, zinc.
copper, lead and colored marble; whose
agricultural products embrace the great
staples, cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat and
WOOL which yields every crop in the
United States except sugar cane and
troplc fruits; in whose forests are SO
varieties of marketable hardwood tim
| Der; in whose gardens are q kinds Of
vegetables; and in whose orchards are
20 different fruits. The enumeration Of
| these products does not impress the hear
er so much as the sight of them in sub.
stance impresses the beholder The first
| essential is to secure the behoders from
other States and sections and from other
lands This is best accomplished by such
presentation of them, in such attrac.
| tive array as to prove a magnet, drawing
curious and interested spectators from
| all parts of the Union and from
ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD
To make such attractive display REQUIRES
a bold and liberal expenditure of money
and this the people of the counties IN
their organized capacity must SUNNY in
subscriptions. Widespread Invitations
TO Visit the exhibition must be supple
mented BY such inducements as reduced
rates OF transportation, which the great
transportation companies directly inter
ested therein will assuredly give
| Once secure large and constant in
lux OF visitors through cheapened ex-
| curslon rates 10 an exhibition worthy NJ
the time, trouble and moderate expendi-
ture to visit 1t, and the benefits to resnt
to the community are not only immediate
but lasting and permanent. Every con-
ceivable local industry and enterprise
secures its share of the local expendi.
lures by such stream Of foreign Wis.
itors. Long after the Exposition closes
those OF its visitors who have been inn.
pressed with it, will be likely to swell
the incoming tide of well-to-do new set
tiers bringing with them capital energy
and skilled capacity. This creates AZ.
mand for new territory and this results
u the expansion Of towns and cities. the
development Of idle acres, the extension
OF transportation lines and the con-