The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-09
|SOUTH'S PROGRESS
SOME OF THE RECORDS OF OUR
 STEADY DEVELOPMENT.
Mr. D. 4. TompI<fns States Some The
 ferestfng Facfs Tn . Striking

t William E. Curtis in The Chicago Rec ord Herald.
 A few days before sailing met al Washington, Mir. D. A Tompkins o Charlotte. N. C., who was calling at thu White House with committee of ths American Manufacturers Association to solicit the aid of the President ir securing the passage of the bill thai has been so long before Congress tc build up a merchant marine Tho President told MT. Tompkins and his associates that he was all right. The trouble was at the other end of the avenue, and advised them to bring all the pressure they could command upon the Speaker of the House of Represen- tatives, the Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa delegations and other Republi- cans who are opposed to the bill.
 MT. Tompkins Is one of the most progressive and influential business men in the South; the president of a big manufacturing concern that makes all kinds of machinery. and Is associa- ted with MT. Caldwell. another of the same sort in publishing The Charlotte Observer. No city of similar size has better newspaper. It Is one of those anomalies that you find frequently in the South. advocating Republican doc trines and supporting the Democratic
 
 tency, however Everybody under stands the reason for it. It Is color blindness.
 MT. Tompkins is enthusiastic about the progress and prospects of the South, and that is one of the reasons why he is so earnest in advocating s steamship subsidy. He grows par tfcularly eloquent when he discribes fhA Eah Ind, rta and the promising opportunities of his own state.
 asked him where they got the capi- tal to do such a big business down there.
 You ask where the money comes from" he replied. T don't believe anybody could tell you. It is little Everybody has always protested that the white man wanted to save and civflize the Indian, and I have no doubt that has always been his motive but, nevertheless, the Indian gradually fad ed until he disappeared from our part of the country. Nobody brought mon- ey to North Carolina. Nobody there had any twenty-five years ago, and nobody has had much in the interim. The facts seem to be that immense values have been lying dormant there for more than half a century under the shadow of slavery. The three de- cades succeeding the civil war consti- tuted the period of thirty-years war for Christian civilization in the South. The civil war itself was but a small calamity as compared with the recon- struction period As soon as decent government was re-established In the South, the blighting influence of slavery being gone. the sunshine of free institutions put values into all property inst as yeast puts value into dough to make bread.
 Tn answer to the question where the money came from may suggest value. Now that product brings to the South $100.000000 every year. For merly we shipped our cotton away at six cents a pound or at $S0 a bale. Now 1000. 900 bales of 1t is shipped away in the shape of cloth to China and other foreign markets. The val ue of cotton in cloth and yarn is more to work in the presence of slavery have now gone to work. and are bringing to North Carolina and other parts of the South the difference be- tween the price of cotton and the price of cloth. Formerly only the negroes worked; nobody else did, Natural forces and resources remained unde- NGtOpcu DcCduSC tuG WnlIS men WOulQ not work and the negro did not have sense enough to develop those natural forces and resources. Now that slav- cry has gone. everybody and every thing in the South works. The former rich white man has gone to work; the former poor white man has gone to work. and the negro Is a very conven- lent helper to both.
 The hard wood trees of the State fnrrnar1y stood useless in the forests. But now furniture makers are putting them in- to shape which brings from $l0O to S200 cord for those trees. High Point, the central city for furniture, has thirty factories. and 1t competes with Grand Rapids in that business The growth of furniture factories is more rapid in North Carolina than in Michigan at the present time.
 ''The rivers which flowed uselessly to the sea from an elevation of $500 feet have now in many cases been har- messed and are delivering power along their banks worth s20 and $30 per horse power per year. Vast quantities of machinery have been brought into the State and put to work. The coal mines which were dormant for centu- ries have suddenly been developed The soil has become more productive byl the intelligent use of frtilizers The manufacture of fertilizers is a giant industry of recent growth. and the cot ton States have the best regulated fer tilizing system in the country. All these developments have brought val ues to the railroads; have brought values to the land; have brought val ues to the forests: have brought values to the waters flowing down from the mountains. These increments all came without money. The industrial devel- opment In North Carolina has been &C., eomplished with very little money The New England manufacturers have been very liberal in letting us have machinery on credit; the commission men of New York have given us long credits, and they have always got doi- lar for dollar with interest.
 Formerly one of the great f1andI. caps in the South was the lack of and skill in mechanical pur- suits This has been overcome with the assistance of skilled mechanics | from New England and the Middle States. Many of our best superlnten- l tents and managers of manufacturinr