The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-11-12

| professions and to politics, her sons are
| learning to erect, to equip and to operate
| the mill, and that they are converting
| their eight-cent cotton into product
worth more than two hundred cents to
| the pound. 1t means that instead of cut
| ting the trees from her forests and sell
| ing them for wood at $500 per cord
| she is converting them into useful shapes
| that bring the cord value up TO more
! than half a hundred dollars. 1t means
| that the South has learned that waste
full living, and dependence on unSkIlIed
labor will keep her people always as
mere "hewers of wood and drawers OF
| water" 1t means that not only III the
| mills, but in technical schools every
where, she is training the hands OF her
boys, and at the same time storing their
minds with useful knowledge. 1t means
that the South is but upon the threshold
of her development, and that this first
decade of the twentieth century will wit
ness a progress more marked than the
most optimistic have ever dreamed Of
| a progress unparalleled in the history of
any country. But what is there to sub
stantiate these claims? Let me tell
you. In tobacco, the South is supply
ing the world with a quantity and a
quality that are not equalled elsewhere
She produces IS per cent of all the to-
bacco raised in the United States. The
annual product of her cotton fields is
more than 10000 900 bales, against
about half that much twenty years ago.
With $22, 900 invested at that period
she manufactured less than 900 bales
l,f H., IT "a
| 100000 invested capital she is manu-
| featuring more than 100000 bales In
cotton oil mills in 1880 she had $780,,
| goo invested, now, moro than $50 000,
coo. She is producing 100000 more
| bushels of grain, and her agricultural
| products exceed in value those of 1880
| by more than 5000, 900 0O0.
In this beautiful section where we
are gathered today, l learn that the rice
industry, in its infancy twenty years ago,
now employs a vast multitude of men,
| and more than so, GOO of capital The
South is producing 81 100000 tons OF coal,
| more than eight times the entire output
of the country in 1860. Her pig-iron pro-
| duct exceeds that Of 1860 by nearly 2,000,-
| 600 tone. Twenty years ago, she had but
| little more than 10000 miles Of railroad
while today $4,000 miles of well built and
we'll managed railways bind together all
| her sections and tie them, as with ropes
of steel, to her sister States throughout
| the. Union, Many sections are manu-
| featuring furniture on a large scale. My
| own State of North Carolina is selling
| furniture to Grand Rapids itself many
| sections are knitting and weaving; great
| engines are being built. and great ships
| from Southern shipyards are blowing the
waters of the seas and carrying the COM
| merce of the nations. In many lines the
increase in the South has been proper
tionately much larger than in other sec
tions. This is especially true in cotton
milling Within twenty years the South
has added 100000 spindles to her mills.
while the addition In all other sections
has been only 100000 spindles
Since 1890, the number Of persons cr-
gagged in agriculture in the South has
| increased sc per cent, and the wage
| earners in manufacturing have increase
in number 157 per cent--both percentages
being greater than in the country al
| large.
The capital invested in manufacturing
! has increased in the South 34S per cent
against an increase of only 252 per cent
in the United States-whle in the value
of products the increase in tthe South
has been 220 per cent, against 142 pei
cent in the nation. The increase of value
in farm property has been in the
South 90 per cent, in the United States
only s? per cent.
Within these ten years the banking
resources of the South have been in
creased by about $500, 900 COO, aggre-
eating now more than $500 100000 This
with the large amounts of foreign CAPT
tai now seeking investment in our midst
has made possible the rapid growth
No where is this growth more percep-
tible than in this quaint old city, whose
hospitality We are enjoying.
Although retaining much of the flavor
of her early days, she Is yet beautifully
| typical of the new South in her CONNER
| cial activity, in the splendor of her
! buildings, in the beauty of her paved
streets, AMI in the enterprise of her peo-
| pie. With vast beds of phosphate rock
for fertilizers, with boundless acres of
| land that produce cotton almost spon-
| taneously, and with our own mills man
| ufacturing our product. and with cheap
| labor, may we not safely claim to con-
| tlol the cotton situation of the world
| With our hills and mountains stored
/ with coal and iron, with boundless for
| ests everywhere, and with hundreds of
natural oil wells gushing forth continu-
| Ously the cheapest of all fuel. what Sec
| ton can successfully compete with us in
| iron and steel industries? Zinc and cop
! per, gold and silver and rarest gems
| abound in many sections. Our granite
| and marble are unsurpassed in beauty
and durability. Our soil responds read
| lily to cultivation, and our trucking dis
| trcts are supplying the populous sec
| lions of the North with fruit and vege-
| tables. Ours Is a good land, a land of
brooks Of water, OF fountains and depths
| that spring out of valleys and hills; a
| land of wheat and barley, and vines and
| fig trees and pomegranates; a land of
| oil. olive and honey; a land wherein
( thou shall eat bread without scarceness.
| thou shalt not lack anything in it; land
whose stones are iron and out of whose
| hills thou mayest die BRASS We have
| a climate that strengthens and jnvigor-
| ates 1t was within our borders that
| the old Spaniard discovered the fountain
| Of perpetual youth. Nature has indeed
| bpeu lavish i'm her gifts and our ncoDip