The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-03
ASHEVILLE NEW AND OLD.
Needs, Among Other Things, a Com
pcting Railroad to Encourage
Industries

Eo the Editor: Seventy odd years
ago, boy of humble but honorable
parentage first saw the light in old
Asheville, village of three or
four inhabitants. nesting among the
handicapped mountains of Western
North Carolina. This boy drew the
first breath of life near the present
magnificent Battery Park Hotel. The
town, tho small, was then as now, the
largest in the western part of the
State. There was then no railroad
nearer than two or three hundred
miles. Merchandise was hauled all
this distance on wagons.
Old Asheville had citizens of wealth
and influence; such as the Pattons,
Smiths, Rankins, Woodfins and others.
In those days Asheville was, religious
ly, almost entirely a Pedobaptist town.
The Methodists and Presbyterans
were numerically and financially
strong. There was not perhaps a doz-
en- Baptists in the town, and these
were very poor. They had no house
of worship in the town. They held
their meeting in a little log house, then
mile out of town, in the woods, on
the hill overlooking Smiths bridge
across the French Broad River. When
the railroad reached Ashevlle and the
town began to grow, the Baptists built
by outside help. Soon this house be-
came too small for the growing church
and congregation. They sold out and
moved to more central location,
where they erected their present large
and elegant church building. In old
Asheville the Baptists were the small
est and poorest of all the denomna-
tons. In New Asheville they are neae
to, if not in the lead of all other de-
nominations.
The Methodists have long had 4
good house of worship but they are
now erecting a new and magnificent
church house.
New AsheviTle must be numbered
among the prettiest cities of the world.
With her eighteen or twenty thousand
inhabitants; with her excellent street
car service: with her splendid electric
lights; with her bountiful supply of
cool sparkling mountain water; with
her paved streets; with her beautiful
homes nesting on hilltops and noun
tain sides; with her lovely green lawns
and her beautiful shrubbery and her
charming flowers she stands forth in
the bright sunlight as thing of
beauty.
The Vanderbilt MANSION, with It's
extensive surroundings. is perhaps not
equalled for costliness, magnificent"
and beauty by anything of the kind
in the United States, or possibly in
the world.
But New Asheville, with all of her
enchanting beauty, and material pro-
gress, is greatly hindered and blighted
by three things: First. she needs a
competing railroad line to cheaper
freights. Business firms have broken
up and left the city because of exhor-
bitant freight rates. The same cause
has kept other business enterprises
from being located there. Secondly,
the city is blighted married, cursed
and injured by the degrading and ruin
Gus whiskey traffic. In walking some
of the beautiful streets of the city a
moral person is shocked and nauseat-
ed by the numerous whiskey adver-
tsements emblaZened on so many
doors. To one who has lived for years
in a town where no barrOom or Whls-
key advertisement is seen, such a con-
trast is disgusting and awakens feel
ings of regret and shame for a town
so dead to the moral and financial
welfare Of her inhabitants. Thirdly,
another great need of New Asheville
is good daily newspaper that will
not advertise barroOmS, or in any way
encourage the liquor business; but will,
like the noble News and Observer of
Raleigh, fight the liquor traffic at
every point and all the time. Coca
men in the city and the county are
longing for the establishment of such
a paper A clean daily paper in Ashe-
Vile would command liberal patron
age Any periodical that advertises or
encourages the liquor traffic is impure
literature. and no head of family
has a moral right to allow such litera-
ture to come into his home. A father
takes a periodical that advertises whis-
key. His boys constantly see whiskey
commended as good They see where 1t
can be had. 1t is natural for boy 10
reason thus: "Whiskey is good
thing, papa takes a paper that COM
mends it, 1t will be no harm for me
to learn to drink it, And thus mill
lions of boys are started in the road
to drunkenness and ruin.
Heads of families, let me press upon
YOU the solemn consideration not 70
sin against your children and society
by patronizing periodicals that en-
courage the whisl1ey traffic.
J. A. STRADLEY.
oxford, n. c.
CHOW good digestion waits on APP