Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-03-28
CENTURY SOUTH.
Facts Prophetic of the Commercial
Rise of Dixie.


Rise of Dixie.
"The half of the continent lying
south of the Ohio and of the Platte is
looming up as an unconquerable trade
magnate, with probably unshakable
determination to do business on the
nearest salt water. The Southern
states, in their remarkable industrial
achievements of the, last eight years
are more than reinforcing the terri
tory of the Mississippi and of the Red
River of the north. Between the
iron, coal and timber of the south
and the agriculture of the southwest
there has arisen spontaneous inter-
change that seems to grow by its own
force. The cotton mills below the
Mason and Dixon line, contrary to
former custom, send their output
straight to the dry goods and denim
merchants of the Mississippi and
the Missouri, instead of the regions
dispatching their orders to Boston
and New York. Wagons from Georgia
are making their way into the farms
of Oklahoma and Arkansas, while
Kansas City flour and st. Louis corn,
Kansas City hides and st. Louis shoes
go as far as North Carolina and East
ern Tennessee. Coal and iron from
the vicinity of Birmingham and Knox
vile are taking the contracts for the
building of the steel freight cars to
ply on the southern roads. st. Louis
has long since made use of the hard
woods of the South to fortify its posi-
ton as the principal manufacture in
the United States of car furniture, of
street cars, and the like.
"Since the Spanish war has brought
the trade with the West Indies into
prominence, the heavily capitalized
and determined Illinois Central has
been seconding the efforts of the
people of New Orleans to make that
point the principal port of entry for
trade with not only the adjacent
islands but with South America To
some extent the pressure of this
movement has been felt among the
South American firms whose head
quarters are at New York. Mobile, as
the terminus of the Southern railway
and as the nearest seaport for the
iron industries of Alabama, is growing
in the volume and variety of its
articles of commerce. Pensacola is
strengthening as one of the principal
ports for the tramp steamship traffic
in the soutn-a traffic which went to
New York and Boston, Philadelphia
and Baltimore before the awakening
of the South and the perfecting of its
railroad lines.
again, along the Atlantic coast
north from Florida to the Chesapeake
bay, Brunswick, in Georgia, is be-
coming the largest shipper of hard
wood lumber, Charleston and Savan-
nah are carrying cotton manufactures,
furniture, etc, to Europe, South
America and south Africa. At Nor
folk is harbor naturally the strate-
gic point for the trade of the whole
South Atlantic slope. Five or six rail.
road systems concentrate in the city.
and it has recently been fixed upon
by number of cooperating railroads
as live stock shipping center. With
Newport News, it drains the coal and
iron fields of West Virginia, south
western Pennsylvania and eastern
Ohio. The commerce of Newport
News itself advanced from $3.50 900
in 1885 to 2S,i00,O0O in 1899.
over on the western boundary of
the southern states, Memphis moves
along swiftly with it's lumber mills
and its interstate traffic, justifying it's
assumed name, the gate city, and
practically completing a Gordon of
active, advancing cities around the
area in which was waged the civil
rtrife of the sixties. All these cities
are competitors of the north and east.
They are carrying business toward
the south and west. Where the states
in the vicinity of ST. Louis and Kan
sas City lack manufacturing establish
ments to support their position as
lobbers, these communities supply the
lack. and join forces in the outward
tendency and in the tendency toward
the south Atlantic. Where the states
in the vicinity of Atlanta or Jackson
may lack in the staples of the soil. the
west supplies them. The geography
of it all is against New York.-Arthur
|. Street in Ainslee's.