The age-herald., 1898-04-26
THE PROGRESS
 OF ALABAMA

Looking back oyer the progress of the 1 last twenty years in Alabama believe that 1 the most noteworthy change of all is to be | found, not in what we have done, but in what we are thinking about. It is pro-
 phetic of immense results that our people gre giving patient thought to mines, and factories, and railroads, and quarries, and farm improvement, live stock raising and varied crops; that nine readers out of ten pursue industrial items and announcements with absorbing interest: that dry details of these things are studied even by tho i boys; that the building of g. factory is a popular drawing room theme, and that out fair women ara urging us on to build and develop, to develop and build Our thoughts being bent in these directions, action will follow as effect the cause. In some parts of the state this development in the ambitions and aspirations of the peo- pie amounts to a mental revolution, and gives emphatic promise that Alabama is to become a great industrial state.
 The captains of industry in this country. however. have not yet realized the import of the statement that in 1897 the furnaces of Alabama sent more than 220,0O0 tons of iron to Europe And the still vaster im- pOrl OI the Idct Inat tnlS Iron IS DenS turned into steel of such cheapness as will place it side by side with the pig across the seas.
 Foreign capital has never actively sought investment in Alabama. What we have here we have gotten with hat in one hand and mortgages on our property in the oth- CT. Our development has therefore been J.a
 dustries are operated with the handicap of interest going away in steady streams It will not always be so. Capital will soon come because it has been shown that it will pay to come. But few years more of ac- cumulated experience, of success in their small endeavors and our own people will themselves carry forward the great indus- trial movement on a scale worthy the re- sources which munifcent nature has stored in their mountains and streams and fields
 When we think how recently we were powerless as a people to carry on any in- dustry requiring more capital than d mule and blow, without money, without friends with disagreement and political disorder lying like monster across our ambitions our hopes and our labors; when all our thoughts were of present evils and the threat of worse to come-when we con- trast the past with the present, we are inspired to believe that 1897 is merely a faint foreshadowing of what the future holds for us.
 But Alabama's development is not con- fined to her iron and coal. Even in her fields the spirit to accomplish more and more each year pervades the workers. Our farm population and production are in- creasing and there is steady drift toward varied crops. Dairying is assuming larger proportions and stock raising makes head way. Market gardening grows with cities and shipments to distant markets increase. Gold mining is getting beyond a mere ad- venture into a solid business. Alabamas agricultural display has just taken the gold medal at the Tennessee Centennial.
 But while the general industrial spirit has heretofore favored mostly the coal and iron fields, still there is a growing tenden- cy toward the spindle and loom, and it Is not improbable that we may see an Ala bama Manchester larger and richer than the Alabama Birmingham.
 Alabama has always been essentially an agricultural state. If industry has develop ed of recent years faster in other direc- tions, I not so certain but that agri- culture has entered another of growth and is again in competition for the palm that goes to the swift We have for many years sought in every way that our crip- pied means would allow to attract a part of the vast tide of immigration pouring into the west. While our efforts seemed of little avail we have persevered. Some of us, at least, have come to believe that our real field of effort lies in the crowded eastern and Middle states, whose sober and industrious citizens have really more need for the advantages offered by our cheap land than we have for buyers. Our peo- pie desire to get into communication with those people, and, what is more natural than that, in their desire for an influx of new and intelligent neighbors, their thoughts should turn first to Pennsylvania? Alabama being the great iron producing state of the south, as Pennsylvania is of the north, has caused the citizens of the two states to hear much of each other. and. on our part, at least, hearing has led to liking We already have great many Pennsylvanfans among us engaged In min ing and manufacturing. We find them es- pecially enterprising and helpful, and we would be glad to have our vacant farm- ing lands peopled by men of the same spirit and training. On our part, we have suoh belief in the soil and climate and general conditions of life in our state that we can and do in all candor and sincerity invite all men whose situation at home needs bettering to come and share our inheri- tance with us. We are dwelling here Tn peace and harmony. Our taxes are light
 Our government IS cohoucteu wllh ocoio- my the whole state revenue raised from a million and half people being about s2 900 0O0 Our laws are vigorously and just ly executed. The races are working peace fully together. The race problem Is no longer a stalking horse to alright even tho timid. Politically no stale, north or south' Is enjoying greater freedom from bitter ness and strife. .slow and almost im- perceptible immigration has left scarce a neighborhood without its complement or northern-bVn citizens. Within very lew years the scream has begun to increase. The long and short of it Is, if the home needy and home-hungry people of Penn sylvania will come and buy farms In Ala bama 1t will be to their advantage ana ours. Why not come?
 I cannot better close this invitation to the people of the north to come and live with us than by a statement of what Ala bama is doing in the matter of practical Aori Mechanic