Roanoke Rapids herald. [volume] (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.) 1914-192?, 1914-07-17
North Carolina Sloppy With Oppor'
tunities; What Can the Press
Do in Developing Them?
BlON n. BUTLER Before the North
Carolina Press Association


Carolina is sloppy with opportun-
ity. That expression has been
brought back to me to set the
pleasant task of pointing out
some of those opportunities and
telling how the newspaper men
may help in the development OF
them.
Thirty-two years ago this sum-
mer | caught my first glimpse of
North Carolina. At that time |
had seen enough of the indus
trial development and progress
of the United States from Texas,
Kansas and Minnesota east to
New England to appreciate what
development means and to recog-
nize the opportunity for develop
ment where it appeared. Fiji
teen years of my newspaper
work was passed as a writer of
the progress of the big industri
al expansion in the Pittsburg
territory where big things are
done. That gave me a further
insight into what opportunity is
and what it is worth. 1t is more
than twenty years ago that |
commenced to write in the Pitts
burgh Times stories of opportun-
ties in North Carolina. In that
twenty years | have been
showing the people what | see
here, and in going out to show
them | continually fall over more
things to show. | did not dis
cover North Carolina all of a
sudden. 1t has been a gradual
finding of new possibilities until
it is easy to see that no State in
the Union today can present so
much of opportunity as North
Carolina. This is said in all de
liberation, for unsupported
claims are of no use to anybody.
1t is folly to deceive ourselves.
| make this claim after an ac-
quaintance with almost every
community of consequence in the
United States.
I The chief factors that are put
ting North Carolina in the front
are climate, rainfall, waterpoWer,
transportation, convenience to the
markets of the United States
and of the world, the permanent
supply of raw material for fac
tory use, and a population OF IN
telligence and upright character
| do not include those temporary
resources like timber, mineral
deposits, etc, which, valuable in
themselves, and of great impor-
lance, are still temporary and
not in the same class with those
permanent things that are OF
everlasting worth.
In hunting place for perma-
nent home for myself and family
| picked North Carolina deliber-
ately from all the rest Of the
country because it offered a big,
ger inducement in natural ad
vantages. 1t has the best eli
; mate and the best rainfall Gil,
, mate makes a State fit to live in
| Rainfall and mild climate makes
it an agricultural possibility
Soil is a factor, but fertility Cal
be made. Kansas and Californi;
and other States of the West are
not so fertile now as when | frs
knew them. North Carolina il
more fertile. Fertility is undel
the control of man, climate anC
! rainfall are not.
Therefore we must regar(
. North Carolina as one of thu
| foremost agricultural POSSIBLE
ties on earth. The story of TIN
last fifteen years bears this out
In the last census period thu
State more than doubled its farm
products. In the last five year
: it has almost doubled again
This surprising record if KEEP
up another ten years will pu
North Carolina among the frs
three or four States of tn
Union.
Mill development is fully a
rapids. Fourteen years ago thu
State factories produced about s
,, million dollars worth of goods
: about equality of climate 70
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