The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-10-17
GOVERNOR JELKS WELCOMES
 HOME COMING ALABAMIANS

responsive. Besides >being fruitful of
 the more solid comorts of life. the , flowers rioted in the warm earth and | covered hill and vale with wilder | ness of color which no artists brush
 has or may copy; it's fruit hung temptingly from the orchard of every
 old farm when We grew to manhood l in the other time.
 While you may not have known it | then our hills held mineral riches | unequallets and nature had been SO kind as to plant together in most l loving association all the minerals necessary to make perfect steel and in quantities to armor all the ships of commerce for all the seas. link all the States together in a hundred steel bands and build thousand cities. I Perhaps you did not kEow they were here in the olden time and they may. . therefore. speak to you today with new tongue. These r.ches of the hills. new children of the State, so | to speak. join the voices of the pro- ducts you knew and bid you welcome to Alabama. If men, wanderers from sterile and | stubborn soil. from land where the icicles chill not only the unfruitful earth, but the blood of ,ne people can f look back upon it in after years and ] from a distance and people 1t with the beauty of fruit and flowers. of plenty and of warmth. what riot of imagina- | tion must have visited you in the years gone by when you recalled the prodi- gality of the unstinting earth of your | old home. the warmth and geniality of | climate and people. uneQualled. Present Your Prodigal.
 1 The present year has not been as prodigal as the one that went before. | and yet we are prosperous In Ala | bama, and counting several years to- gether we have not known the equal of this period since the war. Our cotton | farmers have not received for their | toll a wage equal to that which those
 receive who live and labor in the corn and wheat sections, or equal to that | those receive who live and work in iron and steel These cotton farmers | of the South bear an unfair share of the governmental burdens. Last year they contributed, with twenty per cent of the population. thirty-two per cent
 of all of the imports from our sea ports but every dollars worth of such imports was earned by working two
 hours where the wheat man and the | corn man and the iron man worked | only one hour.
 When the world learns and the cot
 ton producer learns that fifteen cents
 is not a high price for cotton, and that even twenty cents is hardly above dol l ldF wHcdt, LISH VIII tHC Sotloli IbCis | come around to it's own. Add to this the privilege of free trade, saving to | us the millions which now go to pen i sion hundreds of thousands of persons, many of whom never heard the explo- | sion of a cartridge, and we will at once l undisputedly, be the richest section Of
 the whole country.
 l But with our principal product. | cotton, at the low figure, Alabama has | tVomanSo1v In the last few years. The assessment of property in | this State, real and personal. possibly l thirty per cent of its real value. has grown in five years from $276.00O.000
 to nearly $4.00. 900, 900. The deposits in our banks show even a larger in- 1 crease.
 | Progress of Schools.
 | Progress along school lines is more | marked than on any other line. The | constant drift and insistence of public | sentiment among our people Is to- | wards better paid teachers, to the end that we may have better equipped l teachers; and better physical school surroundings for the scholars. No State fin this Union has made greater pro- l gross along these lines than has Ala bama. The school sentiment is abroad l and growing in every community in the State. More and more every year our people are learning that the most thorough English primary education { is a demand of the State, and the i'm { terests of its own progress and even | stability, besides 1t is only fair to the l child. The State is cutting down it's | iliterates. and providing and demand l ing a much better and much more thorough grounding for all those who | are to read at all.
 Our people know they never
 knew before that minerals. however
 profuse and prodigal they may lie | make no State. That industries. though
 the skies be black from many furnaces,
 make no state: That lands though they may be as rich as those upon which Joseph farmed in the olden times make no state; That after all it Is men and | women who constitute the State; it Is their virtue, their intelligence, their worth their high mindedness which
 constitute a state. To this end we are | building system of public schools | which we have determined shall be no mere copy, but which will furnish an example for other aspiring govern ments.
 About one half of the direct tax levy
 goes to the schools. besides this, the
 poll tax, and in forty counties an ad-
 ditional one mill; ana Tn addition to these sums, large amounts from the
 common purse of towns and cities. The l eN~'-'
 too. that another Legislature will
 make even additional provision for the
 up-rearing of children, hungry to
 know the truth as 1t is to be found in
 books and nature. They need not fear
 to come among us now, who have
 children to bring up
 1 Many changes have been wrought since you went away. Vast forests of pines which you. knew have become l forests of corn; or waving seas, white for the harvest. The Jumper men gath cred fortunes. from a planting before their time. and have gone away leaving behind the husbandman. prosperous
 and happy. gathering yearly a crop of his own planting.
 Problem of Labor.
 The most serious problem that con
 fronts the State Is the one or labor In this district five thousand men could find an immediate and remuneratIvo
 return for every hour they will work
 Industries are languishing and idle
 from the lack of men. The establish
 ment of great works, that would add
 to the States and Nations income, and the worlds prosperity and comfort l of n ite