The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1912-07-10

tains are many acres more than
that which viii, yield great
crops of apples and other fruits
which, among the people who
must, in years to come, work
1 out the great coal veins shown
In the accompanying illustra-
ton will find an eager market.
From the foregoing It will be
seen that here is q great accum.
uiation of material wealth, and
it implies a correspondingly
great capacity to useit. Wheth-
or it is used well or wastefulIy;
whether it developed or de.
stroye6 ;and whether the native
population shall develop along
with the material things, these
are to be the tests of the great
ness of Kentuckians-Blueg
"Pennyrile" and mountaineer.
For as they may solve these
problems, so shall their future
be. Nor will they be UNDECIDED
as they work: the whole nation
will watch them and, might
say, students of race progress
throughout the world will note
the fact that Kentuckians are
demonstrating the greatness OF
human mind and heart-if they
do, if they dol
1t is clearly evident that
merely tunneling mountains
and taking out loads of coal
which go into other States or
to the seacoast, as ia now the
case in the Virginians, will not
be developing Kentucky. That
ia exploitation, nothing more.
1t is dissipation of capital, so
far as the residing population
of kentucky is concerned. But,
while this is true, the consum-
ing power now in the State for
the products of these newly
opened mountain counties is so
small that, without outside
markets, the capital necessary
for the construction of the rail.
roads and the opening of the
coal beds could not have been
obtained. A home (Kentucky)
market for even u small per-
centage of Kentucky coal il
yet to be created; a home grown
supply for the workers in Ken.
tucky's mines is yet TO be un.
dertaken; Observation-Disclosures
equipm ent ( or Kentucky's
mines is yet to be provided for,
and the development of the
people i'll these counties to q
point of individual and socia
efficiency where they can en-
JOY real livingness is yet tc
come.
Day OF Insulation Past.
Il hese Kentucky noun.
taineers have virility
They are vastly superior to the
undesirable classes of the great
cities. If the population of the
world were reduced to these
Manufacturers there would be
ultimate civilization and refine
ment. And if it ever came to &
contest for n survival of the fit
test between the two, the Ken
tuckians would be to them as
the Scourge of God. But, sur
rounded az they are now by {
wonderfully acute and re
sourceful people and coming
into a world of life and move
ment with which they are
wholly unacquainted, t Ii )
must be educated in tho know
ledge and ways of modern lif.
or become merely driftwood, fol-
their d q ys of isolation ar,
passed. They are no longer
fossils among the hills" at
z John Il X, Jr., somewhere
speaks of them.
1t need not, l think, be OK
pected that there will be grea
self-evolved, spontaneous socia
and but little, if any, persona
development of efficiency among
the mountaineers of EasterI
Kentucky. Whatever there il
to be of this must accrue from
outside influences. And it il
manifestly the duty of persons
who can ascertain condition.
among them to help in theil
social and personal evolution
I For nndar nraaant conditions