The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-03-13
GOULD HONESDALE SUPPORT
MORE FACTORIES?

Oftentimes we hear a wish ex-
pressed that Someone would come
to Honesdale and build more fac
tories" the wisher thinking evidently
that there are certain individuals and
corporations or syndicates of capital
lists waiting around for a chance to
build factories in the small towns for
the purpose of building up the towns
in question. This is far from the
truth. The number of small towns
that attract outside capitalists as a
good field in which to invest money
in factories is very few. The few
that do attract these men have the
facilities for making factories sue
cessful. Their close proximity to the
railroads, in the vicinity of coal fields
where fuel can be obtained cheaply or
sometimes where there Is good wa
ter power facilities, have everything
to do with the location of factories
in town.
In ninety-nlne towns In a hundred
these facilities do not exist and the
only way for these towns to get fac
tories located there is to build them
themselves, however, Honesdale is
not in this class although she wants
more factories, and what is the rea-
son that this town with all the facili-
ties can not have more factories.
The reason Is this. There are too
many knockers in the town. There
are people here in Honesdale who
are continually knocking on the pros
poets of the town, who throw a boom
every time they have a chance to
throw a bouquet. 1t is just as cheap
m n tn nd
be booster as it is to be continually
knocking the town and keeping the
factories that might come here away.
OF course the whole trouble is not
with the knockers. There are good
prospects that have fallen down on
account of lack of capital. There are
business men here who have hund-
reds or thousands of dollars that
they can safely withdraw from their
business. If these men would only
band together and form companies
and promote factories, it would prove
a good investment and at the same
time build up the town" 1t ought
to be very easy to do this in a COM
munity where the bank statements
aggregate nearly six millions of dol
lars. or course they would have to
be very careful in selecting the kind
of goods they intended to manufac-
ture. A staple article is usually sue
cessfully manufactured because there
is always a demand for it, and if the
factory has sufficient capital it will be
successful. But if the men in any
town for that matter prefer to go on
investing their money in first mort
gage or real estate, with interest
compounded semi-annually, the
chance for factories is small indeed.
The man with $4,000 or a $780,
600 to invest in a manufacturing en-
terprise is not looking for a town,
he usually builds the factory in his
home town.
A Board of Trade or a commercial
club can not go out and collar in
dividuals with industries and bring
them to the town. The people must
help themselves. Perhaps after the
merchants of the town have built a
dozen or so factories, we will attract
so much attention that outsiders will
want to come here. At present,
however, we do not know of many
outside capitalists, who are lying
awake nights in their anxiety to come
here and invest 100000 in factor
les. But there is undoubtedly that
amount in this vicinity that should
be invested in factories in this town
rather than in some outside scheme.