The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1898-03-10
Farmers and Manufacturers.

The more the question Of industrial
advancementand that Of stimulating the
manufacturing industry is looked into,
the more it becomes apparent that such
advancement is followed by agricultur.
al prosperity. OF necessity it must be
so, for the more factories and manufac-
turing towns which are built, the more
extended becomes the market for the
farmer in the vicinity of those factories
and towns; and naturally itfOllows that
the more extended the market, the
greater the demand for agricultural
products and hence the increased prices
which these products will bring. In
connection with this subject and that of
manufacturing generally we quote
some remarks Of State School Commits
sioner G. R. Glenn, of Georgia:
''The resources in raw material in
Georgia are absolutely boundless. The
raw material ought to be worked up
into product that the world wants by
our own people. We make yearly
about 100000 bales Of cotton. We
ought to spin Up every bale Of it, and
we can do it if we will train our own
people to do it.
Instead of shipping our hardwsods
and our iron and products of cur mines
somewhere else to have the stamp of
somebody else's intelligence upon it,
Georgia intelligence ought to be stamp
ed upon every bit of this raw material.
| think this proposition is true-that
no state, no nation, no people will ever
become prosperous people and do
nothing else than produce raw material.
Here in Georgia we have got water
power enough, if converted into cleo
tricity, to not only spin up all the cot
tor. but would work up all the other
raw material we haYe right here at
home. When we become manufacture
ing people, our farmers will prosper.
The products of these farms will be
wanted by the people who labor in the
manufactures, and we will have not
only home demand for everything we
can raise ON the farms, but home de-
mand for everything We can make in
our manufactures. If we can make our
people intelligent enough to use all the
raw material at home, we will cease to
import everything and will have every
thing to export"
Tennessee has much better right to
be great manufacturing state than
Georgia, or, in fact, any of the other
southern states. 1t has cheap raw ma
terials and a great variety of them,
among these being coal, iron, cotton,
tobacco, phosphates, hardwood, marble
and agricultural products; it has cheap
fuel in great abundance; it is we'll wa
tered, three great navigable streams
the Mississippi, the Tennessee and the
Cumberland-traversing it for many
miles, innumerable small streams use
full for manufacturing as well as agri-
cultural purposes; it is the centre for
one of the finest markets in America;
eight states, with their multitude of in
habitants, border upon it, ready to be-
come consumers of our goods, and by
virtue of its splendid agricultural fa-
cilities good living is probably cheaper
in Tennessee than in any of the south
ern states. What does Tennessee lack,
then, to become great manufacturing
state and hence greater agricultural
state? The voters Of Tennessee are not
going to cast their ballots against their
own interests; let them appreciate what
their real interests are and let them
take geOd care to send only those mer
to the legislature who are thoroughly il
sympathy with this sentiment of indus
trial advancement and progress. Nash
vile American.