The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-01-02
THE LESSON OF ONE INDUSTRY

rHE LESSON or ONE INDUSTRY
oroa ,,ron a time. in one of the fair
est counties of Southern calltorhid' :,
capitalist built a great factory. AM
tbe great factory built a town. II ""1
,onnced with a great flourish OF
4-,,r,nets that the new town was TO "e
the town of the county. 10 De SUI .
there was already a county Town. On
tbe sea coast, but that was TO De ieA'
So IN the rear by the growth OF the
modern progressive factory Town. -
= matter of fact, for time 1t seeiiieo
a. If the prophecies of the new to" L
an were TO be fulfilled. EVERYBODY
who was anybody. all that tnere "a@
,f orogress in the county, rusheu O.
once TO the factory town Two "eeA-
- awsnapery were started, merchall's
.s,,e from far and near. even apah-
aoping business in the old county 70" :
n on TO the new center of the county
.-,,,,ercial life. Houses were refnoF-
a BODILY TO the new place, SO great
x.,s.. tbe rush for accommodation from
other parti, of the county, ana oiie
small town close to the factory was
a,o,,atalv and altogether bereft OF It's
inhabitants.
It was said that the new town wouia
he the county seat. The Southern "a
..ea ,.a,,uilt its main line so that the
x,.torv town was on the map ana
the whole countryside was filed with
a crowd of blatant boomers who laugh
al to scorn the notion that anytiiihs
c,,,ld sion the rush of their favorlte
community. They had the factory.
That was the whole thing Ana loi q
time the town that was built by the
FACTORY grew like mushroom
Then. all at once. a strange and IN
1oa,xed for condition made itself ap-
parent. There were more groeers ana
hardware dealers and cloth merchants
and boarding houses in the new town
t,,an the people who worked in the
foctorv. large as it was. could keep up.
rents went down, and business houses
were closed. The town was stll
famboyant in it's pretensions, and It's
banners were as blatant as ever, but
the town had come to a standstin II
was confronted by a condition. and not
a theory.
! A little later. and there came fall
- - +bo+. cfa,nJa x4oar11-
featured in the town. Things in the
factory town went from bad to worse. !.
There were no actual business failures,
many men went out of bust
ness There was, in fact, no business
to do. The failure of the crop was an
incident, merely. The new town, as
matter of fact. had felt its limitation
before that.
And, in the. meantime, the old county /
town mad gone serenely on in its own
way. It had Orgy the bean crop, and
the barley crop, and the fruit crop,
and the production of oil to depend
upon-yet, strangely, the sum of all
these things amounted, in the long run,
to the creation of a more stable pros
perity than was given to the factory
town by it's one industry-and when
the bean crop or the barley crop or ,
the fruit crop failed, or when there was
a slack time in the oil fields, the other
things that kept the town alive did
not also come to a standstill.
It resulted. that while this old town
had its seasons of depression, it was
never altogether depressed, as the new
town was-and there was never any .
thing more than talk to the talk
OF the boomers who had boasted
that they would take the county
seat. and everything else. of any
value that the old town had.
The old town is still there, and the
new town--but the old town has lost
the fear that it may have had once
that its days were numbered. 1t still
thrives and prospers on the trade in
the bean crop and the barley crop anu
the fruit crop and the production of Pc
troleum, and occasionally it lends
brotherly hand to its neighbor, the new
town. more humble now than when it
was first built. For both towns have
learned the lesson that some other
&C mmunities may learn. perhaps, to
their profit. A great prosperity may
be built on one industry. When that
one industry meets with a setback, as
every industry does at one time or an
other. there must come distress to the
prosperity that is built upon it.
The citizen labor clause might be