The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-06-30

~ ONE men when they pile up money
want to retire and take life easy.
~ They are selfish. Some, trained to
action and animated by the spirit of con-
Ituest. cannot stop work. They would
Etagnate IL they did not keep themselves
|hnsily employed. They are machines.
|Spme, with a fine sense of duty to their
Now men, try to round out their car
rs by employing their talents In under
Lings that make the world better
Ice to live in. They are good citi-
Ems.
Hugh McHugh comes under the second
IA third cIassifications That is not his
name, but it is near enough to serve
purpose of this article. lie is q
lherner by birth, with all the intense
Ealty of the southerner. He is grad
ate of the Massachusetts Institute OF
Technology. The education he got In that
famous institution he used to good ad-
Vantage when he went into business lie
hade money In gas plants, In electric
Hht companies. in street railway corpora
and in waterpower development.
In he went into banking. All of his
siness projects were in the south. Most
them were in his native state
He might have gone piling up more
money in establishing and extending pub
lie utilities, but eight or ten years ago
he began to think of project that
had a particular appeal to him, The
south was only recovering from the ex-
haustion of the Civil war. It's mines and
It's mills We're opening up, but it was not
keeping pace with the north agricultural
" Cotton was the only crop worthy
of consideration. The north and west
got the immigrants-had been getting
them for generations There was good
reason for this. The labor situation In the
to
ularly of the farm We're low, because of
the large negro population. Vast stretches
of southern land never had been put to
the pillow solely because of the scarcity
or unrellability of agricultural labor.
A successful man has the arrogance of
optimism. McHugh knew that most of the
colonization schemes In the south had
failed Some of them had split on the
rock of race prejudice. Blacks and whites
did not mix. Some had been badly man
aged Some had been little short of
swindles. He got all the information he
could obtain about each and every one
Of these projects. He meant to take adj
vantage of the errors made. When he
had studied the subject to his satsfac-
ton he got busy.
He got options on 5000 acres of land
in the coast country OF North Carolina
This was not In one tract, but split up
into eight or ten parcels. large por-
ton of il was wooded He had govern
nent experts examine the soil and re-
port In detail as to its properties and the
kind of products it would yield Then
he sent a man abroad for immigrants
He did not want any bat the most select.
II did not matter how poor they were, but
1T did matter how capable and earnest
they were. His agent went to yenetia
first and he did his work we'll
Not only the characters of the men and
women selected for coionists were exam
ined into, but the family history for 400
years back was searched. Seven families
from northern Italy were the first set
tiers. They arrived In December, 1905.
Simple little houses had been built for
their accommodation. but there We're no
roads, no bitches and no land had bcen
cleared on the property A forest greeted
tile eyes of the immisrants They we've
dismayer. perhaps, at the outlook at FIRST,
but they were hardy, energetic men and
soon they went TO work with a will.
LcHugh provided employment for them