Jefferson jimplecute. (Jefferson, Tex.) 1907-1926, 1911-08-18

In 1S47 Mr.. ID. n. Alley sold
to Marion county block of
ground $50 feet square for $10,-
600 to be used for a Court Hou Sc
site, with the provision that
whenever it ceased to be used
for this purpose it should then
b e enjoyed by the citizens of JEFF
ferson for public park.
The above may seem a little
foreign to the headlines, but l
want to convey the wonderful
change in values Of property
that has taken place in the inter
vening years and charge the
whole to the people Of Jefferson,
who have SO sadly neglected their
natural neutrality-suspicious. sole
salvation in commercial way
their great waterway.
1t is indeed gratifying for us
today to think that through the
effort of our able Representative
in Congress, Hon. Morris Shep-
prrd, we are getting our water
way improved to it's former great
ness and with it will come our
commercial supremacy and for
mer prosperity.
To those who doubt that the
city of Jefferson, through the
Improvement of her waterway,
will not be restored to her for
mer greatness, let us see what it
has done in the past, both in this
and foreign countries.
The first railway came to Man
chester, England, in 1880, and
many others came later. Situa-
ted only fifty miles from Liver
pool, one of the greatest ports in
the world, and surrounded by an
abundant supply of coal, the city
and its immediate suburbs had
grown by 1881 to a population of
more than 100000 and had be-
come the seat of great manufac-
turing enterprises and the chief
center of the cotton spinning
industry In the early eighties,
Manchester seems to have been
attacked by what might be well
called industrial leporsy Mill
after mill and factory after fac
tory were shut down and most
of them moved away. Block
after block Of stores and great
warehouses were empty and
more than five thousand houses
stood tenantless. 1t was evident
that some remedy must be found
if the life of the city was to be
saved
| Twenty years later what do we
find? The silent mills and factO-
ries are, again humming with in
dustry and scores of new ones
added. All OF the vacantstOres
and ware-rooms were again occu-
pied and thousands of new ones
had been built and occupied.
Today Manchester, with it's SUI
burbs, has population of nearly
| 1000, 600, and it is the nearest
port for a district occupied by
| 5000, 600 busy, prosperous PEG
pie. The cause of the disease
was costly transportation, and
the remedy which worked this
modern miracle, bringing growth
and life in the place Of decay and
death, was a ship canal.
OF course you will object to
the comparison and say that this
ship canal made Manchester an
ocean port, while our case is an
interior waterway. Then we
will take you into the heart Of
Germany, far from the sea and
more than thirty miles from the
Rhine to the banks of little,
shallow river, called the Main.
| Founded by the Romans about
A. ID. $50 in after years the resi-
dence of Charleymange, Frank
fort, by the slow growth of cen
} turtles, had reached population
/, in 1880 of about 10000. Some
thing happened to make won
derful change in the rate of
growth, for Frankfort gained
| more in the next 20 years than
in ali the centuries before and
today they have a city of more
than 500, 900. The something"
that happened was the oanaliza
ton Of the river, completed in
= 1856, which made the Main a
part of the Rhine navigation
system and enabled Frankfort to
ship goods all the way by water
to and from any port on all the
seven seas. You will say, well
this is an exceptional case; let
Us 90 further for the benefit of
, the chronic objeCtor, always in
evidence especially when the
improvement of waterways i
proposed. Let Us include, not
t only the whole of Germany, bat
: also Holland and Belgium. for
although they are practically
|, separate. commercially and geo.
graphically, they belong together
| ..........sr Ii, Ia rsy.. Ia F.f4A. "a