Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1905-10-20
Southern Growth.

The report OF tne COulHein A'"i""!
Company is an interesting document.
Tape readers, OF course, will iasten eager
" upon the statement that its net in-
come and surplus over charges each in
creased about million dollars. Truly
this is an encouraging statement, but
interest in it is narrow compared with
facts affecting the territory which the
railway serves. Thus we learn that
"along the lines of the Southern Rail
way Company during the year ended
June 80, 1905, there were completed
and put in operation 46 textile mills
"a furniture factories, 3S iron Industries,
6 tanneries, II stone quarries and coal
mines, l3 cottonseed OIL plants, 8 fertl-
lizer works, and more than 500 smaller
industries. Over $50 previously exist
ing plants we're enlarged during the
wear and 81 new industries were un-
der construction at the close OF the
year" ooo
All this along the lines of only 1000
miles of railway What must have been
the growth along the aggregated 200, OOO
miles and more in the United States ]!
And what do these dull figures mean In
men and money? Every mill required
capital and operatives.
Captains of industry translate such
facts into terms OF immigration and IN
vestment whic spell wealth not for the
raumay primarily, but for the community.
Nor is this the top ofthe boom in the opln-
ion of the men on the spot. The report
continues: "Underlying conditions are
favorable TO further increase IN indus
trial development along and adjacent to
the company's lines" This is what
the cotton crop is doing for the south
aud its railways in a yellow fever year.
The permanence of growth of this sort is
its most important characteristic. All
wealth comes from the soil, but it does
not come equally in all years. In business,
too. there are fluctuations, but with a
difference. When a mill is built, when
an immigrant settles, it is something
like insurance of permanent addition to
the resources of the district, as well as
the railway. Thereafter their interests
are indissoluble. The mill may make
more or less money; but, like the rail-
wav. it cannot be removed. Nor DO
settlers upon the soil move easily. Their
roots are set deeper than the forest
kings. They can only prosper by find
ing a market for their products, and for
that they are dependent upon railways
But they must get a dollar before the
railways can get a share OF it.
1t is a maxim of railway admlnistra-
ton that no railway can prosper in the
adversity of its customers, and that their
prosperity must precede the railways.
No money is made upon passenger and
freight which are not carried, and no
railway traffic moves unless there is
profit in it for the shippers as well as
for the carrier. Yet there are those IN
influential places who seek to antagonize
these hand-in-hand interests. 1t is por'
tentous to think of damage tc railway
inventors through damage to railways
1t is calamitous to think Ofthe results tC
communities if railway enterprise is par
al, zed by confscatory or benumblDG
legislation. The Southern Railways anc
its tributary region are doing so well to-
gether that it is prudence to leave vel
alone, lest it be worsened by departure
from tried and proved policies. l New
York Times, Oct. l6.