The true Democrat. [volume] (Bayou Sara [La.]) 1892-1928, 1901-12-28
Good-mornIng. have you paid
your poll tax.
SOUTH'S INDUSTRIAL TASK.
Plea for the Technical Train
ing Of Poor White Boys.
BY RICHARD H. EDMONDs. Ed.
Manufacturers Record.

Manufacturers Record.
Were I asked to name tn
'Sou4h's greatest industrial task,
should without hesitation reply
'"The utilization of the South's mos
valuable raw material"
l fancy / hear the questioning
comments: "What !! Has not thu
South uncovered about all the sour
ces of its raw material it possesses
Has it not during the past century
furnished hundreds of millions Of
bales of cotton, the bulk of the
worlds Supply,to the people of three
or four continents? Gas it not in
the past twenty or twenty-five years
uncovered vast beds of iron ore, in.
( oxbaustible guarries of the fuxing
limestone, mighty seams of coal, in.
y calculable stretches of phosphate
rock, great deposits of pyrites, lead,
zinc, mica, corundrum, copper and
gold3 Have not its forests of long
leaf pine, cypress and hardwoOds be-
come the main reliance of the builder
and the manufacturer of naval
stores? Has it not, after showing
to the wondering nations of earth
its marvellous surface wealth or that
which lies close to the surface, gone
far into its bowels with drill and
piping to bring forth, first, increas-
ing streams of oil for illumination
and fabrication, and second, even
greater streams for liquid fuel, fix
ing Enthusiastically, under normal con-
ditlons, the situs of the worlds flu
ture center of industry?
'Nay more, has it not made i'm
mense strides, measured by the ex-
Panding figures of two or three de-
cades, in manipulating its own raw
material at first hand? Are not the
shipyards Of Virginia, the furniture
factories of North Carolina, the
furnace stacks of Alabama, Mary.
land, West Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee, the tobacco factories of
the seaboard and the cotton mills of
more than dozen States, stretching
from the Susquehanna to the Rio
Grande, evidence of the South's
wise use of its natural resources as
wealth producers? Are not the roar ,
OF the FORCES, the clatter of the
Spindles, the hum of the saw, the
singing of the lathe heard Oh all !
hands as coal, wood, oil and cleo t
trlcity, generated from the mountain i
flows, furnish variety of power? Il
elias not the South, indeed, been +
something of a leader, with its cot I,
ton oil,its cottonseed cake and meal, Il
It's commercial cement made from 81
the Stag Of its furnaces, and it's ten
tative use of sawdust as a basis n
OF distilled liquors of unique impor- k
tance in the arts, in the teaching of "
The lesson that formerwaste products o.
may become most valuable by-pro- IL
lucts?" ~,
Very true, no sane man can es- st
cape the logic of Southern industrial fo
acts of the past quarter-century. az
Yet the accomplishments of the ff
'Outh' tremendous as they have tn
'een, and wrought out through kr
.reat tribulations, are in fact but in. in,
ications of what the South could vi
70 if it only would. Ia,
While uncovering its possessions ioI
Or the admiration and delectation m,
mankind, if not for the envy of ms
copies less fortunately situated, for
lille teaching men not to waste, it tbo
as In one particular ignored its own al,
Ssons and has practically neglected apc
greatest store of raw material, .ro
9 most potent factor, perhaps, of pro
wealth creation if property used. me,
The South has almost forgotten md
poor white boys. duc
Is the statement disputable? Let
D modify it, SO as to bring out its
/ meaning. {
The South has almost forgotten