Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1911-12-07
AOTe Business; Less Politics.
Manufacturers Record.


C., has been studying Southern condi-
lions ard epitomizes the results of some
Of his Investigations in a letter to the
/ Manufacturers Record. in which he
makes an earnest plea that more atten-
ton be paid to the Influences that make
for substantial progress of the South
and less to the immaterialities of poll
ties that hamper material growth. he
writes:
After reading the Manufacturers
Record more than ten years have come
to the conclusion that it would be ten
times better for the South if our news
papers would constantly mix with so
much politics more of such information
as given by the Manufacturers Record.
eve as a people do not know who we
are, what we are nor how strong we
are, nor what our capabilities. And
there is little hope of our becoming &C
quainted with ourselves any time soon
so long as our reading is limited to what
IS served to Us by our average news
papers.
mo man is fit to be Governor of q
Southern state, its Senator, Congress-
man or Legislator who does not read
regularly the Manufacturers Record.
If our statesmen" possessed the
knowledge that years of reading this
psper gives, we would know how to deal
with, 20 as to turn to best account, the
economic problems that confront US,
instead of the present method in vogue,
which is nothing less than laundering
about and striking violently il the dark.
the result of which necessarily is hat
friends are hit and crippled ~ often as
foes, which serves to retard that devel-
opmert which ultimately shall place the
South equal to if not ahead Of any other
| section f cur country"
For many years the Manufacturers
Record has urged the South to cease to
make politics its business, and. instead.
to make business its politics. Its ad-
vice has been backed up by persistent
action calculated TO fasten the attention
Of the South and the rest of the country
upon the development of the material
resources of the South and to hold as
the best politics the movements that
will turn that development to the best
| account for all that makes for Southern
welfare. In the heat of this propagan-
do we have had time to observe the
gradual effects, and among them is the
avidity with which the best newspapers
of the South are Selling every opportu-
nifty to do just what DR., Street advises
to make party politics subsidiary to
industrial enterprises of all kinds.
Politics deals with folks; business with
facts. The average man or woman is
interested in folks than to facts. That
is human nature. And the average
newspaper feels obliged to appeal to hu-
man nature. Hence the tendency to
publish much about politics, which for
many years was accumulated in the
South for the reason that life or death
for that section turned upon political
events. That exigency has passed, for
tunately, for the South and for the
country. In its passing doomed the
large fact that absorption in politics
saved the Southern newspaper press to !
a large degree from the excuses of
journalism in other parts of the country
which has brought the color, yellow,
into such disrepute. In the passing,
many Southern newspapers recognized
the really dramatic situation in the re-
markable work done by energy and pro-
gressiveness in making the most of the |
wonderful natural resources of the |
South and opened their columns liberal |
ly to information about this work and |
to further encouragement Of it. Today |
there is no section of like area in the |
country in which more attention is given |
by the newspapers to the events that |
are working out for material betterment |
than by those of the South Every day
more and more space is given to the
subject, and every week more papers
are added to the list Of those that su-
bordinate party politics to business poll
tics. So deep is the interest, and so en-
thusiastic, that more than once in re-
cent years these enterprising newspa- ]
pers have mistaken sound for substance,
and have been misled into countenanc-
ing schemes that depend for success up
on impressing Southern newspapers
with their preteEces- All that sort of
thing is to be expected. Never yet has
there been legitimate project of pub
licity on large scale without the APP
pesrance on its surface of pretenders
and rarasifaa. But the infelii0ence of
the Southern newspapers may be de-
pended upon to overcome all of that IN
course of time. and finally TO make