The weekly Iberian. (New Iberia, La.) 1894-1946, 1918-02-16
DEAD town VERY
SELDOM RECEIVERS
Community That Is Not Prosper
Gus Cannot Attract New
q Residents.
-rS.'~ "ssss@s
IS LIKE Big CORPORATION
People Are Stockholders and When
They Spend Their Money Away
From Home They Deplete
a, Its Capital.
(Copyright.)


There is nothing deader than dead
town. Try as hard as it may to con-
ceal the facts, the truth is written all
over 1t so that he who runs may read.
No camoufiage of bluff and buster can
conceal the true situation from anyone
who comes within the limits of the
community. A dead town Is dead and
that's all there Is to 1t.
The worst Of 1t Is that once town
dies it stays dead. There have been
exceptional cases in which dead towns
have been revived, have taken on new
life and prospered, but these are mere
ly the exceptions that prove the rule.
The fact that town can seldom
"come back" Is easily explained. The
growing and prosperous town today
is the one that can attract new resi-
dents and new capital. 1t Is one that
can offer attractive inducements for
the location of new industries. The
dead town offers no attraction to out
side capital. A man looking for
place to launch new business or
new location for an old Industry, IL
not going to pick out dead town.
He is going to select town in which
money Is plentiful, town whose bust
ness men are progressive and whose
residents, as a whole, are prosperous
and contented. There are too many
live and thriving towns In the world
for man to risk his future In one
that is dead. This Is the reason that
a town, once dead, almost always re-
mains dead.
Town Like Corporation.
There Is just one thing, ordinarily,
that kills a town in the first place and
that is lack of money. A town Is
just like corporation and the money
possessed by Its Inhabitants is its cap
ital. If this capital is depleted the
town will fail just as the corporation,
whose capital is depleted through poor
management or other causes. fails.
And just as the corporation which has
once failed can seldom retrieve its lost
fortunes, the town which has failed
cannot often 'come back"
The capital of community is de-
pleted when its money is spent away
from home in a way that brings no
return benefit to the community. 1t
takes no great amount Of thought to
be able to realize that the town, like
the individual, cannot last long II 1t
Is paying out more money than II
takes in. That does not mean that a
prosperous town Is one in which the
people do not spend any money. On
the contrary, prosperous town Is
one In which the people do spend mon
ey but 1t Is one In which they spend
the money at home. AS long as the
money Is spent at home, the town
gains by having 1t kept In circulation,
but when 1t Is spent away from home,
either by being sent to the mail order
houses or by shopping trips to other
cities, the towns capital is impaired
to that extent and If enough money is
spent away from home In that way,
the town collapses and virtually goes
into bankruptcy just as does the cor
poration which dissipates Its capital.
The people of community are apt
to overlook the fact that they are
stockholders in their town and that
their fortunes are bound up with those
Of the community as a whole. They
do not realize that II their town fails
they will fail with 1t. They-or many
Of them at least-send their money
away to the mail order houses In the
great cities. without realizing that they
are impairing the capital of their own
corporation and that IL enough Of them
pursue that course they will force their
corporation into certain bankruptcy.
Merchants Not Only Ones Hurt.
Many customers Of mail order
houses say that they are under no
obligation to trade with their home
merchants and this may be true. They
overlook that fact that the business
men of town do much for their COM
munity and are entitled, In return for
what they do, to the support of the
people In the community, but leaving
this out Of consideration, they over
look the fact that they are bringing
about their own downfall when they
drain their town of its mOney-its
capital.
The home merchant will not be the
only one that will be hurt when the
town ''goes broke" The merchant
can reduce bis stock and cut down his
expenses and get along some way or
he can sell out and move to some 9TH
er town which has not been so blind
to its own welfare. 1t Is the great
body of the people of the community
including all those who have sent their
money away to other cities instead of
spending 1t at home. that suffers most
when the hard times come.
The time for all the people to pull
together for live town is while the
town Is still live and not after 1t is
dead, for when a town dies 1t Ia q
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