The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-07-07
(By BION II.

Ehat oppression caught the eye OF
Clarence Poe, President of the State
Press Association, and one afternoon
the telephone rang at my house and
the operator said he had a message
from Or. Poe asking me to address
the Association at Wrightsville Beach
on that subject of North Carolina
sloppy with opportunity Believing
that | would have an audience that
could spread a helpful enthusiasm re-
sarding the advantages Of the State
l grabbed at the chance 10 join with
a body of men who are doing what
they can to put North Carolina to
the front.
Naturally when d man has some
thing in his head it runs riot there in
It's irregular current of thought, and
is turned and affected by each new
object that is presented by succeeding
circumstances.
On the way from my house to
Wrightsville L could see opportunity
in the promising fields of tobacco in
Hoke and Moor counties, in the ex-
cellent broad fields Of cotton that
cover the ground from Raeford to
Laurinburg, in the dewberry Fields
around Keyser, the fine corn fields
that are showing around Hoffman,, the
significance of the big plantation as
shown in the Gates place at Holman.
Hamlet tells its story of opportunity
in the wonderful development. There
is IA town coming to the front in sur
prisipg style. On down the SeabOard
To Wilmington it is the same. Cotton
fields, corn fields, in Scotland and
Robson the growing fields of can
%taloupes, and industry that is swiftly
opening to the farmers "a new source
of revenue and on a scale that prom
iSeS to be of magnitude.
of acres of melons will go
to market from Scotland this summe
and the healthy condition of the
plants tells the story of satisfactory
return, and an increase in the acre
age next season.
Darkness had overtaken us before
We had progressed far down the Sea-
board, and it was only occasional
slimpses of promise hat could be
caught clearly enough at night TO tell
what it signified.
Wilmington, as the seagoing men
say, was picked up shortly after mid
night, and there our party, which had
grown to be large, was transferred to
electric cars and hurried over to
Wrightsville Beach, where a tired
horde promptly went to sleep to arise
in the morning in an interesting new
world.
Our hotel at the beach fronts the
sea. as a hotel in such a place should
and / sat on the balcony and thought
of the older days on the balcony OF
the Cliff house in San Francisco, Oh
at other places where a mint O1
money has been spent to give to thu
people the benefits that come from
the advantage of a magnificent sec
frontage, and I could see at Wrights
vile in the early future sue an op
p%ortunity for the people of NORTH
Carolina that | will refer to it asaiI
at Al later date.
North Carolina Newspapers.
Being a newspaper na for nor
than forty years it is only natural tina
in my days in North Carolina / hav,
kept an eye more or less on the pa
pers of the State, and while not nue.
acquainted, with the men who max
the papers / rave known them b
their work, which has struck me a
of a high rder. The first paper tina
! began to be acquainted with in thi
state was the Charlotte Observer, an,
the acquaintance with the paper wa
followed by slight personal acquain
tance with 10 Caldwell, and with L
A. Tompkins. That slight ~acquaint
ance was sufficient to show why tn
observer was Il great paper, and I
explain why from the first j rated
as one of the model papers of tn
united states, which is exactly wher
! classified it. My caree
IN it's two score and more years, ha
covered a wire area, from the on
ocean to the other. and embraced
wild acquaintance with papers an
the men who make them. or VIII
have made them, for a fair propol
ton of my story is of yesterday, an
many of the characters have gon
like Caldwell, to the morning Ian,
where. l assure you, IL there are ar
rewards, they will be recognized. 3,
am not composing a t~hernOdy. Tho.
who have gone their way, have fulfil
ed their tasks, accepted that whiG
the fates allotted them, leaving I'll
slate with it's curious record, ar
with an overwhelming credit to the
o
am not familiar enough with Il
story of North Carolina journalism
the past to know whether this sta
has produced any of the Raymond
or Prentices, or Wattersons, or Nj
Culloughs, or the Greeleys, or t
Danas, or the Childses, and it is n
OF consequence just now, for it
not to the past that I look for the q
sets Of the state, but to the presel