The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-21
Healthiest Section of the
 Country.
Mr. sheehan %yrltes of Attitude Scenery ana Products of the Great Grain
 Belt of the State.

Belt of the state.
 By win Y. sheehnn.
 Huntsville, Dec. 20.-tSpecial sCor- is six hundred feet higher than the ohfos river valley,
 Ohio and indiana do not inow that. Neither does Alabama for that matter. There are many things about Alabama that Alabama herself doesn't know . Albama has been such a poor adver tiser.
 The Ohio or the Indiana man would probably laugh at you if you sugges- ted that the elevation of North Ala bama was much higher than that lpf the Ohio Valley. If you should point out that the Tennessee river curves upward and to the north to empty into the Ohio, he would, after looking at the map, grudgingly admit that thnt was so, and wonder how it4.happenei that way There would be more trou, ble to make him admit that the Ten- nessee valley--and 1t is the granary of Alabama--was soc feet higher than she Ohio river valley.
 A Cincinnati man once pooh-poeh d this statement. when # was advanced by Charles P Lane, editor of The Huntsville Tribune.
 'HThe Tennessee river flows ten miles soath of Huntsville replied the Hunts vile editor, makes an elbow and flows in northern direction for sever ai hundred miles to it's mouth at Pad uoah, Ky Either the Tennessee Val ley is higher than the Ohio Or the Ten nessee flows up hill which would nak' it Q more remarkable river than we think 1t is."
 The aecentuation. the emphasizing Of this patent fact ean not fail to eon- tribute to the states good. For in tkt North. the belief is that Alabama abounds in swamps malaria and snakes, particularly in malaria. The chief products of Alabama according to the haxy idea of the/ayerage Northern man has of the State, are malaria and negroes, the latter spelt with a eapir tai N, and every syllable clearly pro- nounced
 A modern business man, intelligent and aggressive, who is now engaged 'a immigration work in Alabama, told me oncs that the two wars, the great War between the States and the Spanish American War, had done inealculable harm to Alabama's good name.
 Damages OF War.
 'sThe Union soldiers brought back highly exaggerated accounts of ths unhealthfulness of the South" this immigration man said. They told some awful stories of the chills, the feyers and the malaria, that lay in wait to fall upon the unwang man who had veptured to come from the health- fui hills and valleys of Ohio and Illi- nois Some forty years later g second generation went out in the brief trou bic with Spain. They, too, rame back with distressing stories of the terrible unhealthfulness of Southern camps"
 Now these men were thoughtless but not entirely unjust. The Union soldiers had been marching, fighting camping and sleeping under the most unsanitary conditions. They did nos have a pleasant stay in the south The Confederate soldier saw to it that the l blue coated visitors should be contiR- ualiy stepping lively. What rest time the Union soldiers had was ipent in sleeping and eating in hastily selected and hastily constructed camps, It was not remarkable that great many of these soldiers, lilly fed and lily kept felt sick It would have been remark able if none of them suffered from. .fe- yer and from disease.
 Later there came the Spanish Amer lean war and other young men came from the North to live for a while in Southern camps. Now the unhealthiest tupAN OA tieAHE III tiiS NOEtQ lb lAkG allNT ing of several hundred or several thou sand men in an open camp in the care of inexperienced officers, Sickness was inevitable. The Northern boy went back home and told his parents and his kin people how unhealthy the Southern camps were and what a bad climate the South had,
 Northern Camps siekly,
 There were Northern camps, too nd cfn1y pronounced and quite as general as that ! in the Southern camps. Camp Algel was a national scandal In the North they laid the camp sickness on em, balmed beef. In the South 1t was laiG on the climate" The stories of the returned soldier, of their camp experience contributed In no small degree to the reputation of Alabama and other Southern State. for malaria and unheatthfulness. Ina reputation is maintained. perhaps un, conseiously, but nevertheless effective ly by the well to do Alabamian wht sends his family North every summer These Southern visitors 10 Northern cities and resorts, with tine AmerieaI failing, which always wants to mak, a "spludge." explains To their Northern acquaintance that they always com, North in the summer Its so unhealth, | III Alaudtildt you ku0WI III tnG sum mer. So much malaria there I jus know l couldn't stand an entire sum mer down there"
 The listener does not know that 1t il pride and not fear of disease tha prompts that remark.
 The greatest obstacles to the indus trial development of Alabama, outsid, of it's large negro population. is it unpleasant and unjust reputation fo unhealthfulness, When that reputation
 is destroyed when the truth Is mad known, the best the most valuable ser vice that may be rendered Alabaml will have been paid her. That reputa tion fs "a lion in the way" to North ern investment, who InaKes the worlt understand that the lion is not the req thing, but a hand made, hand me dowi Iaffair, afraid of it's own shadow wil have rendered signal service to tn State which ought to be rewarded a least by a medal
 beginning to that much desire' contamination will have been mad when an adequate presentation of tn natural beauty, the natural feftility and the natural healthfulness of tn Tennessee Valley has been affectei and given wide distribution. It is on of the great assets Of AIabama-thi Tennessee Valley. The State is prOul of 1t and well may 1t be. In all Ala bama, is scenery is of the most beau tiful, it's climate of the most delight l A ha rpnrt fArtI1a mn,