The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-08-26
M D N w o M E N
 A ND THIN G S

l went along with the Anniston Chamber of Commerce to keep & close tab on all that was to be seen and to come back home and tell the truth about 1t, whether it was for or against ry native state.
 Without the least disparaging the beauties. advantages and wealth of Tennessee. I am more than ever con- vincsd that Alabama is a favored state from every standpoint Nature has been most bounteous to her peo- pie, and fortunate indeed are her sons and daughters, both to the manor born and the adopted ones.
 
 Yet Tennessee has much to boast of in the way of situation. It is such wide state that 1t takes two maps in the atlases to show it, and is di- vided into east and west Tennessee. It is bounded on the north by Ken lucky and Virginia, on the south by Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, on the east by North Carolina, and on tho west by the Mississippi river. which separates 1t from Arkansas and Missouri.
 know most of the boys and girls who read this will wonder why I am bounding the state. I do it for the grown-ups who have forgotten their raogrophv apa to o;.,a al, ;daa of just what a wide range of ter rtory the state just to the north of us covers. I have only spoken of east and west Tennessee. while many think that middle. Tennessee is the garden spot of the world, but our party only visited the eastern sec tion of the state.
 If Tennessee has the advantage of Alabama in spreading east and west, the latter can claim that she stretches out further north and south. One Is long, slim crosswise state, while the other is blessed in length. It is the geography of the
 
 standpoint of citizenship more ho- mcgeneous than Tennessee, for there are no such sharp divisions amongst us politically and otherwise as in our neighbor, and for this reason we are always ready to give asylum to runaway Tennessee legislature.
 
 East Tennessee for more than a century has had a reputation for thrift. Capt Frank s. White, in talk ing to mo about my recent trip. re- marked that the east Tennessean never eats anything which he can sell" statement made by him to show their thrftiness. But he did not mean to inslnuate that the east Tennesseans were not good flyers, for aa a matter of fact I question whether any other people in the United States live better than they do.
 conservationists and not wasters, and that this trait is imbedded in the people. lived for a year at John son City. and although it was a place of more than 5000 inhabitants. there was only one Jew family in it, and it was laughingly said that it had survived only by adopting the way of the natives. By the way, it was. a mighty fine family. The Bir- mingham Adlers came from near Johnson City.
 In my talk before the Knoxville Chamber fo Commerce I said: So far as I am concerned, I advised the An good soil and could grow crops as easily as Tennessee, but the thing I wanted the Calhoun county farm CTS to see and study was the east Tennessean and learn from him the habits of industry and savings" It has been white mans country, and for this reason the work has been done largely by the owners of the land which has been conserved and its products used judlciously or wisely marketed.
 I am not discounting or depreci; t ing the fertile valleys. the productive uplands and the truly naarveliously rich hills and mountain sides; but in the last analysis the man on tho land has counted more than the land itselfS It was constant occasion for surprise how the farmers of east Tennessee has been able to cultivate the hiiisides and the mountains with out having them wash away. The absence of sulies was an eye-opener. This with the condition of the pas lures caused more comment than snything else.
 Every farmer on the trip returned home better satisfied with his land than before he made the trip, but on the other hand all of them were Jess satisfied with themselves and what they were doing with it. It was this that made the, trip worth all that 1t cost in time and money.
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