The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1897-08-12
THE ARKsA.NSAS OF I()DAY
Wonderful Increase Of Incorporated
Companies il the State.
Farmers Arc Paying More Attention to
Crops Than Politics and There ls
General Revival Of Interest and st!
An increase Of Business.

The first halt Of the year 1897, ended
June 80, leaves memories Of an awaken
ed business and an increased hope for
q lasting revival of new conditions in
every line of industry. The bank clear
ings OF Little Rock, the state capitol,
for the last week Of June, exhibit gain
of almost $4,000 over the corresponding
week of last year, while the records Of
the office Of secretary of state show
that more railroad companies have
been incorporated and manufacturing
associations formed since the opening
of the year than in any year in the
history of the state. It is generally
thought by people outside of Arkansas
that -four mills and lumber plants, in
Guiding barrel stave factories and
single mills, constitute the bulk of
manufacturing industries, but a glance
at the records of secretary of state will
convince any one that this is a mis-
take. The large list of new manufac-
turing associations formed includes a
large and varied line of industries
Studying Their Interests.
Ever since the worlds fair at Chicago
in 1898. the people in Arkansas have
been studying the problem of how to
increase and diversity the industries of
the state, and they have kept an eye
on northern cities for suggestion as
well as capital. The old idea of seggre-
cation and practical independence is
uprooted and in it's place is planted a
determined notion to develop home
resources and enlarge every industry
with view of increasing local activity
and broadening interstate traffic. One
OF the first advance steps taken by the
state to bring itself into close social
and trade relations with the industrial
center of the union is to increase it's
railroad mileage, in order that this
section OF country may be seen and
known as it is, not as it has been repre-
sented, nor as it exists in the magma
ton of large number of people living
outside of the state. While it is fact
that there is much ignorance in the
south concerning the north, it is also
fact that there is more misconception in
the north respecting the south, with
large element of prejudice in both Sec
lions toward the other. It is natural
that illconceived notions should exist.
The main cause of it is found in the
logic of trade and travel. Traffic and
travel flow from east to west and from
west to east. The tide is turning from
north to south. At present the west is
in fact, broadly speaking, a child of the
east, in other words, the western popu-
lation but recently migrated from
the eastern states, and family inter-
course as well as a commercial, is main
tanned between the two sections, form
ing business and social tie not easily
severed. True it is, the eastern para
grapher has his fun at the expense of
the western cowboy, while the western
writer gets even by a gentle fling at the
dude of the effete east; but these inter-
changes are not ebullitions of prejudice,
for eastern and western folks are not
ignorant each of the others condition,
nor are they moved by prejudice or
swayed by malicious thoughts Trade
relations are broadening between the
north and the south and the same social
ties which bind the east to the west are
steadily developing. The column of
visitors from nor hern cities to southern
resorts is charging with recurring
winters; while the volume of home
seekers and spectators, the one search
ing for cheap home, the other for
profitable Investment, is constantly
growing. The law of trade is inexorable.
Getting Better Acquainted.
Trade relations develop new social
conditions. Already the adopted citi-
zens of Arkansas count their northern
kinsmen by thousands, and while there
is a perceptible change of the tide of
immigration to the south, there is a
pr omise, moreover, of reversal of the
old order which sent it westward ho,"
or at least of a fair REIMBURSEMENT which
will bring the north and the south into
as close relation as the east and the
west have ever been, in both social and
commercial lines. The railroad is
potent neutralizer which will in a short
time as effectually expunge the Sec
tional division of interests on lines of
Latitude as it has on lines of longitude.
Changes in the whirligig of commerce
md politics have wrought a sentiment
which declares sectional lines shall be
hanished from the map of the union.
Crops Are Better Than Oratory.
The sentiment does not exist in spots
OR localities, it isgeneral throughout the
state. The new Arkansas, like the new
south, has come to stay. Perhaps no
better idea of the prevailing spirit of
reform can be gained than by reading
the following editorial exnression