Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1911-02-17
PRACTICAL BOOSTING
Continued from page /


measure.
Don't you see, Mr.. Fessler, there IS
possibility that we might be fooled
in quality and in measure? | am not
saying that every retail merchant IS
honest, for know they are not, but
there might be some things that the
patrons of catalog houses do not know.
Now, let us go further. You know
as well as do that if all goods were
bought by mail, every bit of it, that
you would .have no town near your
farm at all, and you know what it
would do to the price of land if there
were no places of business in Aiexan-
dria, and Inotice this is your town.
There would be no high schools there;
there would be no churches there;
there would be no place of amusement,
and your land and everyone else's land
around there would deteriorate in price.
You and l and all of us "holler' our
heads off because the East, in finan-
cial way, has its hands on our throat
all the time. Why is it? Just simply
because we send our money there. We
send it for life insurance; we send it
there Cor fire insurance; we send it
there for goods of all kinds, instead of
keeping our money at home.
Ii you and would patfonize the fire
and life insurance companies of our
own state, we would take millions of
dollars away from the East every
year. If we would buy goods at home,
both the farmers and merchants, alt we
could of them, we would build up our
own states so rapidly that we would
astonish ourselves.
You know that the nearer you are to
large market center the more your
land is worth, because the more you
can get for what you raise. Suppose
that Sioux Falls, Mitchell and other
cities of your own state were Chi
cago. 1t would be worth hundreds of
dollars to you every year. What made
Chicago what it is? What made Pitts
burg what it is? What made any
manufacturing center what it is?
Well, one thing that did so was people
sending their money there. If the
people of South Dakota both, farmers
and merchants, would buy in their own
state and every other state did the
same thing, we would move the mar
ket center from the East and bring it
west, because people of the middle Sec
ton of the country have the money to
buy with. This would also move the
money center.
Mr.. Fessler, do you know that the
land in Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and
a large part of Pennsylvania and New
York and the Virginias, is practically
worthless? For instance, Massachu-
sets, which is covered with factories,
has in it thousands upon thousands of
acres that would not raise a stalk of
grain in thousand years. 1t won't
raise anything. And yet you and |, by
sending our money east, have made
Massachusetts what it is.
Why not turn around and make our
own states and cities instead of build
ing up the East? Why not look out
for our interests at home instead of
looking out for someone else's? You
can bet your boots that the people in
the East, catalog houses, manufac
turers, and all, don't care boot for
you and me. They are looking out for
themselves and we ought to do the
same thing.
We will suppose that you own half |
section of land, and if you and all the
farmers of South Dakota, and all the
merchants of South Dakota, and all
the doctors, lawyers and everyone else
would turn their patronage into South
Dakota and keep it there, you could
add, say one dollar an acre every year
to the value of your land. See what it
would mean. And let me say to you,
Mr.. Fessler, that have investigated
conditions in the East, and if South |
Dakota would do the thing have sug-
gested, it would add several dollars to
the one dollar an acre to the price of
the land.
1t looks to US as though you and
and the rest of US ought to either quit |
'hollering" about the East getting our
money, and the East controlling prices, |
and the East doing this and that, or
else turn around and try to build up
our own communities.
The big stores, the catalog houses
and the manufacturers of the East sit |
back in their luxury and their extrava-
gance and laugh at us people because
they have fooled us into sending money |
to them, and they continue fooling us
into sending them money on which to
do business. You see, Mr.. Fessler,
it is an easy matter for us to be penny
wise and pound foolish.
The time will come when you and |
will see thinps differently than we do |