Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press., 1921-08-10
ON LEAVING FITZGERALD-It is with


long time However, the newspaper field here
is small even under normal conditions and under
the conditions that prevail now it is out of the
question to expect anything better in the way
of newspaper service than Fitzgerald is getting
now, except at a greater loss OF money than any
one in Fitzgerald would be willing to make.
This is great section. 1t is without question
the promised land of tomorrow" provided those
who have the most to gain by its development
and prosperity broaden their vision and the scope
of their efforts sufficiently to develope it. Those
who would see this section grow must first
derstand that the most important element in
making the wealth of an agricultural region is
the human element Every business in this sec
ton, however great or small, and the aggregate
wealth of this section depends for its size
on the success of the small farmer, the one-horse
farmer the cropper 1t is that man who really
produces the real wealth of the section.
Industrial development means nothing to this
section The socaed Labor Problem is mpor-
tant here only in its human and personal phase,
whether it is solved with justice and fairness and
humanity This country, South Georgia can
never be anything but agricultural and it
not be developed without educated intelligent,
straight thinking small farmers. Agricultural
and technical education is the crying need of
South Georgia Our wealthy can never be-
come mionaires until the small farmers able
to produce, year in and year out, millions of
wealth where they now produce half millions and
hundreds of thousands.
Fitzgerald is handicapped and always has been
handicapped by petty factionaism. 1t is
i'll this than other towns and cities of the
South but the condition has been brought to the
surface by the tense feeling caused by the strike.
In the effort of one faction to cut into the follow
ing of another faction, of one business to
get the trade from his competitor enough ener
gy is wasted every year to make real city out
of Fitzgerald and win enough additional trade
to satisfy everyone Too much personal and
commercial jealousy is hurting the town. 1t crops
up in almost every important public measure.
People who have their minds centered too much
on destroying something not have great sue
cess in building up something else
The A., B. & A. strike will last time yet
and will handicap the town temporarily. 1t is
the most important railroad strike that has
cured in many years and "captal' and labor
the nation over will strain their resources fer
their respective sides Fortunately for the town
and the entire section served by the railroad, the
strikers are largely good class of people not in
clned to violence and the sabotage and blood
shed that usually accompanies strike will I
be suffered The present employees of - A., r.
x A. will soon that most of their alleged
friends really friends to their pay checks and
will smile them only so long as the pay checks
Those people who have tried to profit by
making show of partisanship for the new
ployees will find their disguise too thin to last.
The one big thing Fitzgerald needs TO develop
is better spirit of constructive cooperation. 1t
has plenty of the cannish spirit that will exert
itself in destroying certain things but has not
enough willingness to fall in line and work with
a will to build things. In this it is not much diff
ferent from the average community.
The one who has given more of his time
and his energy and his money in trying to build
big things in Fitzgerald is Isidor Gelders. He
has started great many good things in Fitzger-
aid, too many to enumerate here. For more than
20 years he has worked to build up Fitzgerald
lagely because he holds high ideals and has Wis
ion that sees things that ought to be and he is un-
selfish enough to spend his efforts in trying bring
these things into being. He bought this news
: paper for public service rather than for profit
because he was making money in real es-
tate than he hoped to make with newspaper.
He bought the old Leader to help in his cam
pagn to put the land sharks out of business who
were stealing the property of widows and or
phans and poor people generally. Those thefts
have stopped. Since that time this newspaper
has been the first to advocate every movement
suggested for the betterment and Improvement
OF this city and section. Most of these movements
have been started by this paper because Isidor
Geders has had the vision to conceive and the
unseihsh public spirit to work to bring them
about He has been valuable servant of the
people in the past and will continue to be in the