The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1900-05-16
Your Own Town.
Greenrille Daily News.

Dahy News.
We are not booming anything
specially-iust talking on general
principles Did you ever think any
thing about your own town-the
town you live and do business in!
Do you have any pride in it or hope
for it? What is your idea about it,
anyhows Have you any sentiment
about ite
Do YOU care a snap of your finger
whether people outside Of it speak of
it as q live town, a good town, q
growing and dourishipg town, or
whether they laugh derisively and
say it is dead aud played out and no
place for live people to livee
So long as your own premises r
in fairly good repair, does it make
any difference to you whether the
rest Of your town is a mass of tumb.
ling, shabby, ramsLackle desolstion
and observation-disclosures rusty and
coming to pieces, fences leaning six
ways for Sunday, stores dusty and
grimy and empty, streets mud holes
and ruts, sidewalks mere paths
through the weeds in summer and
sticky, slippery and treacherous in
winter?
Have you any ambition for your
town-whoever and wherever you.sre
any sentiment about ii?
Ga the other hand, have you any
ambition or purpose for yourself or
your children? If you have, does it
strike you that you can do much for
yourself or those who are to come
after you in q dead town? Did you
ever know any bushes, big or little,
no matter what it was, that could
flourish in q dead town?
Supposing you TO have the ordinary
kindly instincts of humanity and that
your sel6>huess-which you have in
common with all humanity-is en-
lightened, what is your idea about
your own town! Do you calculate
on letting somebody else do all the
work and spending pushing
while you siSs"a drone in the hive,
and siHply look Oh? Do you figure
on ~siways reapiug where you have
not sown, gathering indefinitely
where you have not labored? Don't
you suppose other people will get
tired of pulling you and a lot OF
other dead weight and quitin disgust,
or go away to where they can find
somebody more congeDial and where
their Efforts will meet response?
Want them to 60 away, eb? Don't
Ike to be stirred ur, eh? You look
at your town if it is prospecting and
see who has made it prosper, or if it
seems dead, and see who has made it
so and just how much your sloth
and uuipteliigent sel6shness and
penny wise pound foolish, saving-at-
the-spigot-and- wastipg-a t b e buDg,
waiting for somebody else to act and
then diseouraging them all you could
policy has done to make it dead.
We are talking to you Mr.. Poor
Man as we'll az MI. Rich Man and
Man Half Way Between. We mean
you especially, MI. Business Man,
always growing about what should
be done and what somebody else
ought to do and consistently refus-
ing to give a dollar for anything IN
less you are directly interested, Oh to
pull a pound-not even to give an
hour Of time you know you could
spare if you wanted to.
Does it strike you that if you have
ambition and attachment for your
own town and intelligent regard for
your own interests, it is up to you to
do your part in promoting the towns
growth and prosperity and develop
ment?
The thing for you, Mr.. Citizen of
every class and kind, if you want