Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1910-04-29

Chamber of Commerce was an entnu-
sIastic one and the court house was
well filed with men and a few women
were present. President j. Thompson
Baker, Secretary Aaron W. Hand aud
Treasurer Charles p. Vanaman were
present. Mr.. Baker called the meeting
to order and made a ringing opening
speech dwelling on the many natural
advantages Of Cape May County and
deploring the fact that such an organ.
ization was not started years ago.
Concluding he said 1--WE are here to-
day to establish this organization for
the purpose of showing the world what
we are, who we are and what we have
to offer to visitors seeking rest, recrea-
ton or profitable employment
Mr.. Baker then read the following
paper which he had prepared before
hand
Reorganization is the keynote OF the
age. Battles are not won nor States
established by mobs. The processes
of nature are organic. Slip-shod bust
ness methods are the door to disaster.
No community car realize its best pos
sibilities where a large part of the peo-
pie are Indifferent or work at cross-pur-
poses. If the independent Colonies
had not united, America would present
the spectacle of weak and warning States
without happiness or influence, instead
Of being as she is today the most I'M
pressive and potential power in the
world. The thirty-six petty monar-
chies of Germany in the Eighteenth
Century were futile and de%risive, but
when united Germany speaks all men
listen. All people in a given territory
have mutual interests, although they
may be engaged In many lines of ac-
tivity. Cape May County has an in
dividuality that %indentifes her, even
to the most superficial observer. Pro-
jected into the ocean she is embraced
on three sides by saline waters; SO that
of her eighty miles of exterior lines
fffty-fiye are wave-washed and surf
beaten, and she has many hundreds of
miles ofinlets, sounds, creeks and thorc-
fares, alive with human ~sustenance.
Her climate is equabIe, her atmos-
phere pure and invigorating and her
soil fertile. She possesses unequaled
zaAsarea- foF the promotion Of human
health and happiness; and when to
these virtues is added her location h
becomes the stage of a theatre in which
is housed the greatest nation known to
recorded history-a nation that does
more, earns more and spends more for
its diversions than all Others combined.
Other regions of this imperial country
have their coal and iron, wheat and
corn, cotton and rice, gold and silver,
general agriculture, and universal
manufacture and trade, interests so ex-
tensive and tremendous that they fill
the eye of a witnessing world, but TO
the peninsula of Cape May County was
reserved, by divine purpose, a speciality
for which no other liked area of this
Continent of Wonders is equally fitted.
II is recorded In Genesis:
"And Abraham said unto Lot, is not
the whole land before thee Separate
thyself, l pray thee, from me; If thou
wilt take the left hand, then | will go
to the right; or If thou depart to thy
right hand, then L will go to the left.
And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld
all the Plain of Jordan, that 1t was well
watered everywhere. 4 \ \ Then
Lot chose him all the Plain of Jordan"
Cape May County is to the countless
population of the United States all and
more than the Plain of Jordan was to
the seed of Abraham. There is I'M
e%quivoeal proof of the b%eneficence and
power of this specially. The State of
New Jersey is the BENEFICIARY of untold
advantages in her location between two
great metropolitan cities and their in
fiuenee on the county cannot be esti-
mated. But marked as is the progress
of every part of the State the records
show that Cape May County which
has been looked upon with indifference
or with a diminishing eye until this
specially of the bounty and gladness
contained in the fountains of health,
rest and pleasure of her ocean beaches
was recognized, has ontstripped all the
other counties, great and small in the
nine years of the Twentieth Century.
The average gain of all the counties
fiom 1900 to 1909, per annum was 9.42
per cent. while the County of Cape May
gained 28S.27 per cent. in the period,
or 26 AZ per cent. per annum; and At
lantic county gained 2ll per ceut. in
the period, or 1914 per cent per annum,
a degree of prosperity not attained by
any other county I'm the state i'm that