The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1910-07-14
PUBLIC SPIRIT AN ASSET.
Advancement Of Community,s Inter-
ests Will Advance Your Own.

~
Public spirit is private asset to-
every man in 1.-THE Community. BY
public spirit we mean disposition to
advance the interests of the commun-
ity as whole. The laborer or clerk
without property is benefited in such
a community because that spirit pro-
vides more comfort and pleasures
available. If it is man of property
or business things that makes city
attractive to live in, brings people,
energy or capital to it, and this in
creases the volume of business and
the value of property. There are men
in Memphis who have been conduct
ing business enterprises while at the
same time owners Of property, and
the increase in the value of property,
whose care gave them no work, was
greater than the net profits of their
business, that gave them all their
work. This increase in the value Of
property came from increase in popu-
lation. The more rapid the growth
of community, the more rapid the
increase in the value of property. II
a man has 100000 invested in a
manufacturing plant and the cost
of living in the community and the
pleasure CT living in it make a
difference of fifty cents per day for
or against him in the cost of labor,
and he employs hundred workers,
this is $50 a day, or SIS, 900 in the
year, aor seven and one-half per cent.
on his capital of 100000.
Public spirit is not charity or CIV
ing, but investing.
Public spirit is that larger spirit
of faith that is willing to invest in
the community through faith in the
community as whole or organized
segments of community, just as
private spirit is willing to increase
investment in ones own business,
where the faith is confined to oneself.
Public spirit inspires man to take
a larger interest in the management
of his community or it's component
parts to help get things done right,
and on the other hand the habit of
interesting himself in public matters
begets public spirit because he has
more faith in the administration of
affairs in which he has been exercis-
ing some voice.
Every virtue helps every other vir-
tue. Every reform helps every other
reform that is worth while. Invest
ment through public spirit may pay
larger material returns than invest
ment through private enterprise, and
the man of larger vision is the one
who sees it. He can see beyond his
own business and his own bank ac-
count, and understands his part de-
pendence on the business and bank
account of every other man in the
community and certainty of the COM
munity as a whole.
Building a, community by private,
as compared to public spirit, is doing
what the world has been trying to get
away from-the habit of pulling a
load with four mules pulling one way
to the front and three mules pulling
the other way to the rear. Speaking
figuratively, the business of life has
been through all the centuries, in the
broadcast application, and touching
the most vital and largest questions
of humanity, to get all the mules to
pulling one way, and we are as much
improved over former times as we
have added mules to the front and
taken them from the rear. The same
thing stated differently is that the
business of life has been from the
origin of man to reduce and stop fric-
ton. The search for frictionless ma
chinery has gone on in the physical,
moral and intellectual world.--Mem.
phis News-Scimitar.