Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-01-14

miles of improved automobile bouevards, is being extended SO as to
traverse the entire Bay Shore region from Cape May City to the
Cumberland County line. There are frequent latera1s, all as good as
the main Bay Shore Road, which have been built by the County and
State or the Townships There are no better roads anywhere.
IMPORTANCE OF OTHER INDUSTRIES
The splendid shipping facilities by both rail and water, which the
Bay Shore could be given at very moderate cost, would attract MANY
other industries besides steel-making.
Cotton, wool, lumber, hides and chemicals could each be landed
on the Bay Shore as easily as coal, iron-ore and limestone. Textile
woodworking, leather and chemical plants will be attracted to this
favored region, when once it is developed and it's advantages made
known. Other smaller industries, including those which naturally
spring up around a steel plant, would follow.
The valley of the Delaware is today the scene of the greatest
industrial activity. From Philadelphia to New Castle the entire water
front is rapidly building UP.
At Eddystone, Chester, Marcus Hook, Wilmington. New Castle
and intermediate villages steel works, shpyards, muntion plants
powder mills, textile concerns and a thousand affiliated trades and
businesses are crowding upon each others heels, led by the lure of
rail and water shipping facilities, cheap Jaw material and accessible
local and foreign markets.
Five years ago Chester had $4,000 population. Today it is the
centre cf a district with $4,000 residents and $50 industries. Ten
million dollars have been expended n war muntion plants alone in
this section.
And the workmen of Cape May County, our best Drawn and brain
our young men-aye,. and our young women, too, are forced to seek
employment in these upriver communities!
What are we doing to bring our County before the ewes of the
world IS an industrial centre?
It is estimated that in the Philadelphia district lin which Cane
May County is included by the Philadelphia Ledger the monthly pay
rolls amount to forty-6ve million dollars!
What proportion OF this vast sum in wages is paid out in Cape
May County?
Vineland, Minvlle, Mays Landing, Hammonton, Egg Harbo,
Bridgeton, Paulsboro, Gibbstown, Gloucester, not to speak of Penns
grove-each is experiencing the effect of trade revival-what benefit
is Cape May County deriving from this extraordinary business expan-
sion that IS sweeping over the Nation?
SHIP-BUILDING-CAPE MAY CoUNTY'S ANCIENT
INDUSTRY
For ship-buidng our Bay Shore possesses advantages equal, if
not superior, to Newport News on Chesapeake Bay and New London
on Long Island Sound. Already the Delaware River is known as the
Clyde OF America, owing to the great shipyards along its course.
Philadelphia has its Cramps; Camden its New York Shipbuiding
Company; Chester its Chester Shipbuilding Company; and Whining
ton its acknowledgement Company-why should not Cape May
County have its sbin-bui1dino industrv a1so7 Th;r+n thousand 49,.
battleships could be launched on the Bay Shore Of Cape May County
as easily as at Sparrows Point, Maryland, at the head of Chesapeake
Bay.
Every indication points to the complete reestablishment of the
American Merchant Marine. One hundred and fifty vessels are being
constructed in American shipyards today
In the next few years the United States Government will expend
hundreds of millions the navy.
On the Delaware alone 90 900 workmen are EMPLOYED upon the
building of hfty-eight million dollars worth of shipping.
Orders for new tonnage have poured in upon American ship
wrights SO fast that contracts are refused, excepting for customers who
makers find it impossible to supply plates and shapes. Mechanics are
working steadily at wages higher than ever before.
And yet we, of Cape May County, with a vast waterfront on a
magnificent land1ocked bay, with a harbor protected by the curve
Of Our coast line from the ravages of winter gales, with two splendid
railway systems paralleing our shore, with a fertile soil, a superb
climate and a matchless situation, sit supinely with folded hands while
the great tide of prosperity rushes by our very doors!
For from the mighty sand dunes of our marvellous Bay Shore we
look forth over the majestic expanse of Delaware Bay and watch the
ocean borne commerce of an empire pass us by
Like Alexandria OF Egypt, we are the guardians of the gate
the people of the portal-hrst to greet the Golden Argosies of distant
nations-last to bid Godspeed to our own Path6nders of Commerce.
We are the distributors by right of God-given location of the
products of the richest territory on the globe.
Children are We of the ancient Waymakers. Offspring are we Of
peoples versed in the lore of the Sea.
Blood of Vikings, Danes, Britons, and Dutch flows in our veins
races whose playground was the uncharted deep!
Drake and Hudson, May and Cook were our forbears-is their
spirit dead within us?
Time was when the kees laid down in Cape May County ploughed
the Seven Seas-shall not the glory of those ancient days return to u7
Dwellers of the delta of the Delaware, ours is the opportunity