The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-09-10
everything went on the bargain
counter.

everything went on the bargain
| counter.
That was true all over the country
and everywhere. And yet, strange
to say, some people here in Hatties.
burg seem to think that the panic
was all in Hattiesburg; that Hatties
burg had no business to take a slump
and tumble; that Hattiesburg had
somehow sorter disgraced itself by
not growing right along at the rate o
five thousnd year, as it had been
doing for several years previous.
The lumber market went to the
bad, and therefore they still lool
with askance upon the lumber market.
Just as if the country could get along
without lumber. Just as if the pro-
duct of this pine belt was not as i'm.
! portant to the world, as the world is
4 to the pine belt. Just as if we did
not have a necessity that the world
was compelled to buy. Just as if
the pine forests would melt and fade
away if somebody did not come at
once and take them in out of the
weather. Strange inst people get so
thoughtless, unreasonable and impa-
tient at times; but they do.
, Up in Tennessee, phosphate rock
is one of the great industries of that
gorgeously beautiful and wonderful
endowed region In the spring and
summer of 1907, the railroads could
not supply the demand for cars to
ship the phosphate rock in. The
roads we're threatened with law suits
! for not meeting the demand of bus
mess Diggers and shippers of phos-
phate rock actually fought for cars.
Price for high grade rock went as
high as So per ton; the cost of pro-
duction, (getting it out of the ground
and loading it on the cars) was about
SO. There was clear profit of
about s. per ton. Common day Ia
borers, negroes, were making any
where from five to ten d. liars a day,
dependent upon the number of hours
they worked, digging phosphate.
Everybody was making and every
body was spending money. Business
was brisk, times were flush, all was
beautiful and serene, when all of a
sudden, like clap of thunder out
of clear sky, in the stiffness of the
the phosphate industry collapsed like
balloon. Rock that had been dug
and hauled to the railroad ready for
shipment is there yet. Phosphate
sheds have the same rock in them
now they had then. 1t was just the
same with phosphate as it was with
lumber, except little worse. Phos;
| phate went little deader than luni-
Der and it is not reviving quite as
fast. But is good just the same;
and the owners of it have all conf
dence in it. They know that the
world needs and must have and in
time will be compelled to buy their
phosphate rock to use for fertilizer
purposes, and they even flatter them
selves that by waiting they may get
better prices; and so they are in no
hurry.
/ And so it was everywhere and with
almost everything; and Hattiesburg
was no exception to the rule.
But now prosperity is returning.
Lumber is picking up. Business gen.
orally is improving. Men who were
called in off the road are being put
back on the road Manufacturing
plants that were closed down are
! opening up. Men who were thrown
out of employment are finding work
! again. The election is over. The
republicans are in for four more years
of clover. There is nothing, abso-
lutely nothing upon which to predi-
cate any continuance of dull, hard or
panic times. There is every reason
to believe that the near future will
open up hurry orders for all kinds
of raw material and manufactured
stuffs. Business barometers all read
of good omens. Another tidal wave
of prosperity will soon sweep over
this country, and its full force and
effect will be found nowhere as it
will be in the South, and nowhere in
the South more than in Southern Mis-
sissippi.