Fitzgerald leader. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1921-1921, 1921-03-17
BEN HILL COUNTY SHOWS
POPULATION INCREASE =

FOFOLA 1lON lNCKEASE -
Elsewhere in this issue of the
Leader is carried the first com
plete official census returns for
Georgia for increase in rural pop
ulation. Those figures show that
Colquittl county was the second
fastest in rural growth. Fulton
county, whose, rural growth is
really urban in that it consists
largely in overflow of homes oc-
cupied by whose business is in
Atlanta, really does not, count.
That makes Ben Hill county sec
ond only to Colquitt, another
South Georgia county, in agricul-
tural development during the last
ten years.
In that news story the Leader
and its editor find full payment
for the effort expended in that
period to make Fitzgerald better
city and to base its improvement
on better rural development.
During the last ten years, during
the larger part of which the edi-
tor of the Leader was secretary of
the Chamber of Commerce, was
the largest contributor to it's sup
port, supplying it with all it's
printed matter without charge,
and giving to it uncounted hours
of thought and labor, Ben Hill
has made its largest bid for rec
cognition as a land of promise. :"
During that ten years the Fitz-
gerald Leader, the Leader-E Enter
prise, and the Leader Enterprise
and Press have been owned, edi-
ted and published by their present
proprietor and have worked un-
ceasingly through every avenue
open to newspaper to build up
Ben Hill county and Fitzgerald.
The Leader believes it has earned
some measure of credit for the re-
markable showing the county has
made. The Leader believes that
the next ten years, in which its
efforts to develop its city and sec
ton will be redoubled, and in
which its efforts will be aided by
those of a live wire Chamber of
Commerce and a citizenship that
is awake and reaching for bigger
things, in these next ten years
Ben Hill county and Fitzgerald
are going to make even longer
strides toward leadership, to-
ward full development, toward
substantial prosperity.
FARMERS HAVE FACED
GREAT HANDICAPS
During the decade that ended
January l, 1920, rural sections in
the South faced their greatest
handicaps since reconstruction.
The boil weevil played havoc
with the one important staple
crop; the war came on and war in
dustries, offering unprecedented
wages, drew thousands upon
thousands of farmers from their
farms and into the cities. Nature
has seemed to frown on agricul-
ture in the South for the last few
years, offering the farmer an oc-
casional will O the wisp of pros
perity only to make it vanish in a
swamp of uncertainty, A price
failure on cotton in 1914 was a
great blow, followed by the boil
weevil, and other handicaps. And
still Ben Hill county grew.
The decade lo20-l930 opened
with great promise, with visions
of wealth in every farmers head,
visions of wealth built on cotton,
cotton, cotton. In this first year
of the new decade. the Monarch
Cotton has again played false
with it's friends and King Cotton,
many times dethroned in print,
and on whose sway the Leader
has Maged unceasing war for ten
long years, has at last been de-
throned in fact. The revolution
that the Leader and other far see
ing opponents of Greater South
Georgia has been urging against
King Cotton has come into final
success. Diversification, sort
of Republican form of agricultur-
al rulership, if our readers will
pardon the rather spread eagle
effect of the metaphor, has been
established.
The 1920 census report shows
that the Leader and those with
whom it has stood have won the
battle for greater Fitzgerald and
Ben Hill county in the last ten
years. The census report Tor 1850
must and will show even greater
~ :. :. - 49,. $40 SC