Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1903-08-26

NNAAA nv ~ law - AAN y %
TO this question written in large let
ters, and hung across Main street, so
they could read it every day and know
just where they are going. The hu-
man mind has sought in all ages to
unravel the mysteries OF the future,
and the man who could foreten com
ing events, was considered a wise
man indeed, but it don't take a very
wise mai to tell the future Of Okolona
When you boil the answer down, and
SUN it up in all it's bearings, it reads
just this way; okolona's future ls Just
what tie citizens want 70 to be. The
problem lie In their own hands. Ask
the business men what they want it to
be, and they win tell you with n &C
cord, we want 3 live progressive
town with cotton factories, oil mills,
buggy anG wagon factories and all the
little odds and ends it takes to make a
good town.
That's a fine answer so far as talk
goes, but it takes some thing besides
wind to bring about this much desired
result, Are you willing to invest
your money in good paying enter
prises, and give some of your time
and business capacity to attain this
end Are you willing to lay aside
your little personal prejudices against
John Thompson and Bill jones' be-
cause they have done and said some
things in the past that you didn't like,
and meet them on a business basis
and talk business like business men.
If you can't do tins for the good of
your town, you ought to move out on
the new railroad and help build up
some little town where you can be
boss.
It dou't take q very wise mar to Q
that the time has fully come for
Okolona to do something for herself.
Win you look this question square in
the face, and meet it and solve it,
like men, who can see and appreciate
something outside of their own pri-
vste affairs ?
Think of over 5000 900 deposited in
these banks not bringing one cent of
income. Don't you know these
depositors would be glad to put that
money into some legitimate enter
prise when 1t would pay q good inter-
est, and at the same time enhance the
value of every dollars worth of proper
~ 10 the town? They look to the bus
men to lay some plan for invest
ment that they r willing to put their
own money into. The responsibility
is a great one, to stand in the way of
idle capital and the upbuiIding of your
town, but that's the plain English of
the situation and you cannot escape
it.
It looks like a suicidal policy to
divide your business and while you
might make a Temporary gain In build
ing up some other town, you r sus-
tanning a permanent loss at home.
The same money spent In new en-.
terprises in your own town viii bring
you the customers that you are look
ing for.
The Tupelo cotton factory declared
a dividend of IA per cent, and is build
ing larger to accommodate its trade.
Okolona is the only suitable place for
a cotton factory between Tupelo and
West Point. OkolouR has the capital
to build it, al we need is cooperation.
Let the business men set to work at it
in earnest and all the little obstacles
will soon be overcome.
1t is estimated by experts that 1OO,-
600 carloads of fine timber win be
hauled out on the new railway. Why
not stop it here and manufacture it
iuto buggies wagons and plows.
Get that old fogy notion out of your
head that the new railraod is goAg to
injure your town, 1t isn't respectable
nonsense. 1t remains with You, as
to whether it blesses or curses the
town. All we need is a strong pull all
together. Suppose we have made
some blunders in the past, we can
avoid them nezt time. This is no
time to talk to the croaker who was
born on the wrong time of the moon,
and looks at everything through blue
s~pectacles. We have q fine town
located in a fine country with health
unsurpassed, fine water works and
electric lights, the best people to live
with on earth.
We are not cursed with any hi-fa-
lutin nabob Goldfish a~ristocracy, but
one man is as good as another in
Okolona as long as be behaves him
self.
Crops are extra fine. Prosperity IL
in the wind, and every salt laden
breeze that sweeps from the Gulf Of
Mexico, through the great pine for
rest of south Mississippi, into the