The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1901-05-30

development, and already one can see
the effect of this freedom upon the
material prosperity Of the State. We
have in large measure gone out of
politics and taken up business. We
are meeting the changed conditions.
North Carolina is no longer asleep.
She is wide awake. In 1900 we grew,
according to Mr.. d. A. Tompkins,
who is an authority upon this subject,
500, 900 bales of cotton of which we
spun over 100000. We shipped to
you in the same year from little
strip Of land less than ten miles wide
and extending from Mount Olive to
Chadbourne, distance of less than
one hundred miles on the Atlantic
Coast Line, more than $1,O00,0O0
worth Of Strawberries and those who
grew the strawberries made all the
ordinary products Of the farm, in
cluding beans, peas, corn and cotton.
The little town Of High Point, on the
Southern Railway, with a population
OF less than 5000, is strenuously as
serting her claim to be the second
largest manufacturer of furniture in
the United States. This claim is
probably not true, but at any rate it
shows that she is doing great busi-
ness. She is selling furniture in
Tacoma, San Francisco, Cuba and
South America. My own little town
of Goldsboro, with less than 5000 in
habitants, annually exhibits in Grand
Rapids the products Of her furniture
factory and sells in competition with
the factories of that city her goods in
all the States of the Northwest. We
are growing more cotton, more corn,
more wheat, more oats. more vege-
tables than we ever grew before and
are selling to the people of the world
our manufactured products. Our
lumber business has probably quad
rupied i'll the past ten years and
covers the entire State. We have not
yet learned to make wooden nutmegs,
| but our cotton oil is sold under tho
name of olive oil throughout the
land. We in large measure manufac
ture our own fertilizers, and the other
day in the Agricultural and Mechani-
cal College when the boys wanted ad
ditional lathes for wood turning they
made them themselves at a cost of
less than twenty-five per cent. of what
they could buy them at. We have
learned lesson from the North; we
have ceased to set Drawn against
brain; we have learned the power of
skill end are training our young men
in the ways OF thrift and economy.
We have seen other people grow rich
at our expense until we have resolved
to appropriate the fruit of our own
labor and thought to ourselves. To
do this we have found it necessary to
provide for universal education. We
are going to educate the entire popu
lation. Our amendment to the Con-
stitution renders necessary the educa-
tion of the people. Children who
come Of age after 1908 cannot vote
without reading or writing, and we
are endeavoring to give to every child
an opportunity to secure right to
participate in the government of this
State. We spend on education this
year more than half of the entire
revenue of the State. OF course | do
not include in this the county and
town expenses. We conduct our pen
itentiary, our orphanages, our institu-
tions for the deaf and dumb and
blind, our military, our insane asy-
lums, our higher institutions of learn
ing, our executive, judicial and legis-
lative departments of government at
less cost than we pay for the educa-
tion of the children of the State. If l
were to give you the figures they
would appear to you to be small be-
cause of your great wealth, but rela-
lively we are doing much more for
education than the great State of
New York. We are going to do more
still. l want to declare to you that
no mem Der of this Society in 1910
shall hang his head in shame when
the census reports of that year in
reference to illiteracy shall be pub
lished. 1t will be of interest to you
to know that in educating all our peo-
pile we shall not depart from the
memories of the past or forget the
teachings of our ancestors. We be-
lieve in agriculture and in commerce;
we want to see all the people grow in
wealth, but above all we wish to
maintain that sturdy fidelity to prin-
ciple and that apparently reckless dis
regard of life which has ever dis
tinguished North Carolinians in every
contest where heroism counted. We
have Jagged behind in the contest in
those matters which attract the at
tention of the world. In every thing
in which our people have been trained
they have gone to the front. When
, it comes to war they have been good
riders and make the finest calvary.
They had been trained in riding.
, They make great infantry. They bad
been taught to shoot with accuracy,
and had learned from their mothers
, that it wa. cowardly to turn your
) back to an enemy, and when these
, people shall be trained in the arts OF
t peace they will learn to do things and
, create values. l warn you now that
} they will take their place in the front
ranks with the captains of industry
: All that we want for the future is to
, be let alone. We are doing no injus
, tice to any one. We have peace
throughout the length and breadth o.
, the State; the humblest negro, slave
: though he may have been and unlet
: tered as he is, can enter our courts o.
: Justice with absolute certainty of Z
| fair trial. He can turn to the Legis'
lature and his appeal for legislative
aid in the education of his children
| will not be unheeded, and l declare tt
: you that his prayer for clemency vii
: not be unheard in the executive office
! We are one people, the white mar
e cannot lift himself without at th'
' same time raising the negro. If thu
t whites are educated the negroes vii
D be also. We do not wish to be mis-
Q understood; We have q problem OF Gu
: own; we have difficulties which yol
/ cannot understand When the China
T man hacan me menacP to the w es