The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-07

1t has become common of late for magazine and newspaper writers to criticize and disparage the New Eng land states. Some of these critics have pictured, in sombre coIors, the supposed ''decadence' of New Eng- land, morally, Intellectually, industrial- ly and commercially.
 The picture presented to the mind of the average citizen of the middle and abandoned homesteads, deserted farms, ruined churches, dwindllng in- dustries and rotting wharves. Over all has stalked the gaunf specter of ir- religion, atheism and social discontent. The entire Yankee stock has been pre- sented as committing race suicide, or as being rapidly lost in lowLgrade population swarning in by way of New York, Boston or Canada Her great statesmen, authors, hnanciers and in- ventors, who erstwhile gave New Eng land prestige the world oveer, have been said to be dead and buried or to have taken their flight to New York or the west.
  ed wide attention and much comment. At first they concerned only .rernote towns and villages of small population and less influence but popular thought has now included the entire region and it's population.
 Is it not time to draw a brighter and truer picture of the present day New England to assert her continued pro- pressiveness, and to show that Yankee genius, culture and resourcefuiness are still active and potential in every de- partment of American life and achievement?
 It is indisputable that there has been falling off in population, accompa- nied by other evidences of decline in certain New England country dis tricts; but the same is true of many towns in the middle and western states. Such places have contributed to the upbuilding of new commercial centers and of the new west. New England is ever contributing to other sections of the country her best; not only her sons and daughters, but her inventions, her capital, the fruits of her marvellous enterprise and indonni- table energy. Herein one large couroe of her peculiar strength and influence.
 New England, as 8 mere geographi cal unit, is surely losing many of her former traits. She is less sfRstfe..--=.-ss-. ing in the wilderness, and more aYfS eyery-day worker with the rest of the world. In common with that world, she is passing throug the changes that the strange conditions of modern life produce, but she has shown her ability to meet, gracefully, changed conditions.
 Plymouth, a place sacred to the memories and monuments of the Pil- grim Fathers, has identified herself with the active life of the day through modern sanitary and civic improve ments great cordage and otaer manu- factories. On her surrounding oran- berry bogs, where Miles Standiah fought the Indians. hundreds of Ital- ians reap the annual summer harvesta and return to Italy for the winter.
 New Bedford, whence, not so many years ago, stanch whaling vessels put forth, threatened for a while to be- come obsolete; but presently the town with admirable foresight, entered so energetically upon the manufacture of a finer grade of cotton goods that to- day it is the most prosperous Of New England textile centers. NewburyDort. which many years ago, attained wealth and fame in the East India trade, has more than regained her former pros perity in the manufacture of electracaI appliances, cars and machinery.
 The making of a low grade of cotton goods may be doomed industry in New England. It has ceased tt be profitable anywhere except in the south: and Lowell, for many years the leading manufacturing center of cheap cottons, is rapidly changing her pro- duct. What is happening in Lowell may happen in Pawtucket, Fall River, Lawrence Manchester, Lewiston and in other towns which have entered upon or are entering upon the manu- fracture of new and finer grades of goods said to rival the delicate and ar tistic fabrics of France. MaSsachu- setts' product of fancy million square yards in 1S908, to one hundred and thirty-sever million square yards in 1900--a gain of one hundred and thirty two per cent. Her product of inc worsted goods increased eighty-tive per cent. in the same decade. The total value of cotton goods manufactured in eNw England in 1900 was more than l s181, ,500,000-an increase of nearly two Hundred and fifty per cent. since 18860, of thirty-three per cent. from 1880 to | 1900; in Massachusetts the gain from 1900 to 1904 was nearly twenty per cents The manufactures of carpets, knit goods, silks, manufactured brass hardware, cutlery and scientific instru- ments, each of large proportions show a. substantial growth.
 In the shoe trade New England still leads the world. The American shoe is the standard of production in every country, and is in demand wherever shoes are worn. Five million cases were shipped from Boston in 1903, an increase of over thirty per cent. in the l last ten years. Her product of rubber boots and shoes-7about fifty million pairs, valued at nearly forty million dollars-showed a growth of one hun- dred and twenty per cent. in the last census decades She supplemented her boot and shoe output by the manufac-