Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-20
The South s Worth to America


terms of her own traditional and
distinctive interests rather than in
,erms of the broadcast present-day Amer1-
,anism. We would not have her lose one
idiom of her olden speech and spirit, but
is it not high time that her resources and
potentialities, vast they are, were being
regarded in the light of their national and
not merely regional Importance? Her i'm
mense stores Of fuel and timber and iron
and valuable minerals of every sort, her
giant sinews of ~water-power, her rare fer
.ility of soil, her ports with their strategic
outlook upon the great highways of world
srade-are not all these the priceless assets
of the nation, and should they not command
the whole nations heartiest wishes for their
development?
Pleading for more liberal and enlight-
ened view of such matters, the Manufac-
turers' Record points out that in the South
lies almost a third of the continental Uni
ted States and three-1fth's of the entire
country's coast line; that in the South is
produced virtually all of Americas cotton,
which is of capital and even decisive impor-
lance in our International trade balance;
that in the South is five times as much coal
as in all Europe, Russia excepted, and twice
as much as in all Europe, Russia included.
For whose benefit are these imperial re-
sources to be developed? Assuredly not for
that of one region only; assuredly for moth
ing less great and inclusive than all Amer
lea and all Americans. For, as the Manu-
facturers' Record cogently reasons:
Every ton of coal that can be mined, ev-
cry iron ore property that can be profitably
developed, every water power utilized or to
)e utilized, every acre of timber land ev-
ry acre of soil which can produce cotton
or foodstuffs, wherever to be found in the
South, is a part of the nations assets, and
must be inventoried in summing I'D the ma
TONS resources and the nations capacity
inn N riT0O h pA1oxp
depended wholly upon the South for it's
sulphur supply, without which we could not
have produced explosives. 1t depended en-
tirely upon the cotton of the South for all
the varied ramifcations of trade into which
cotton enters, whether for the tented battle
field, for explosives, in the hospital or for
clothing. In the natural ADVANTAGES of the
southern States the United States has re-
sources of such dazzling potentialities for
the creation of employment and wealth, and
Tor the Strengthening Of this country in any
,lme or stress, that every patriotic American
should look with full appreciation upon
| ;hese national assets and rejoice in their
utilization.'
1t matters not where energy and capital
are invested and fruitful developments
brought to harvest-whether in New Eng
land or the Dakotas, in Georgia or the Land
OF the Golden Gate-all America has reason
to rejoice in the gains to her common pros
perity and progress No part Of the country
has monopoly of treasure and talent, but
certainly the South has a diversity as vel
as abundance not to be found elsewhere. She
has all the essentials of agriculture and in
dustry and commerce, and has them all in a
plentitude capable of sustaining, for a con
siderable period at least, the entire nation
How vast, then, is her worth to national in
terests and to the forging out of nationa
ideals! How rich il profit to the common
country is every dollar staked in here re
sources and every act of faith i. her SPLEEN
did futurel