The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1909-10-07
North Carolina the Best.
Raleigh News and Observer.

4Nc"o anu 'DoCi vel.
The text from which this paper has
preached O sermon almost every day
for nearly half a century has been:
"Stay in North Carolina" 1t has
shown that while few OF the dis
persed abroad have won great sue
cess, most of those who have gone
would have done better at home.
Twenty years ago there was a
great fever to eco West" in North
Carolina and this State lost many of
it's best young men. That fever was
raging also before the war. There
are now more than 100000 native
born North Carolinians living in
other States. The tide has been
checked. Our boys are staying at
home and making the old State bios
som and whir with moving machin-
cry. Those who went years ago have
q mind to return. Some have re-
turned. The Rutherfor1ton Sun this
week gives good reasons and an OBJ
iect lesson that clinche4 all the SER
mons to North Carolinians to give
their lives to the development of
their own State. We quote:
"Some weeks since Mr.. j. Edgar
Elliott left US to make trip through
the West and Southwest. He was
not a stranger to that section, as he
lived there for three years up to
about twelve months ago, and to be
truthful, liked that country and
wanted to see it again possibly, with
a view to investing. He went out by
way OF Memphis, Tenn, Pine Bluff,
Ark. and Texarkana-going four
hundred miles into Texas.
"Mr. Elliott is an observant, keen
eyed business man, and not one
given to exaggerated statements.
The description he gives OF the north
eastern and central part of Texas is
almost a distressing one.
'Going into that State from Tex
arkana, he says everything is burned
up. Even the timber in many places
is dead. In some parts OF the State
there has been, as he was infOg:4ed,
no rain since last January. Imagine
what that means, in a country where
the sun blazed, and the wind half the
time is sufficient to raise the dust.
The writer spent a year in Texas in
1894. There was not drop oil
rain in the black belt from June Goth
to October of that year. How we
sweltered travelling that summer all
over the State is not q pleasant
recollection.
"Mr. Elliott says he was told by
business men Of Tyler, Jacksonville
and Nacogdoches, Texas, that there
would be thousands of people in cen
trail and west Texas that would have
to be furnished food for the next
year.
docs anybody ever recall a time
unless possibly during the Civil War
when any section of Old North Caro-
lima ever was in that condition?
''Mr. Elliott has come home, anC
back to stay. 1t is full time that oul
people had learned to appreciate the
advantages of North Carolina-espe
cially our young people. The writer
has seen much of the West anC
Southwest. Every section has, O
course, its own advantages and dis
advantages. But for the hundredtl
time he writes it down, that take1
all in all, the Piedmont belt in tn,
Old North State is the most favored
region OF which he has knowledge"
Mr.. Elliott, too. has Travelled al
over the South and West. He thinks
our people should cut up their larg
plantations into small farms-mak
these small farms models of intelli
gent cultivation-make known b,
advertising the advantages OF GU
State, and thus invite population
and investment-say our righteou
prayers in thankfulness night an
mOrning-got to church with wife an
children every Sunday, and join i
all the doxologies.