Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1921-03-18

SSdohlSiy tlllO uSH CFCly avenue
open to- a 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 it's
efforts to develop its city and sec
ton will be redoubled, and in
which its efforts will be aided by
those of 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 |, 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-
caslonal 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 1920-1o3O 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 its friends and King Cotton,
many times dethroned, in print,
and on whose sway the Leader
has Waged 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 for 1880
must and will show even greater
success during the next ten years.
People we've got REAL
country down here in Sodth Geor-
gia. We have got a country that
should support city of three
times the size of Fitzgerald.
We've got room in this county
for as many farmers as we've got
now three times. Farmers here
could produce and sell twice as
much ais they do now if they had
a full measure of cooperation and
aid from the people of Fitzgerald.
LET COOPERATION LEAD TO
WORTHWHILE SUCCESS
Let's set our mark high for the
next ten years Of work, you peo-
pie whose property depends on
the prosperity of your home town
and county. Ben Hill county had,
when the census was taken, a
population of 1850. Let's make
it $4,000 by 1890. 1t CAN be
done. Our neighbor, Colquitt
county had 19, 7S9 in 1910; it had
1882 in 1920. Has not Fitzger-
aid and has not Ben Hill county
as much BRAINS as Colquitt?
There is no difference in soil or
climate. There is no difference
in natural advantage except in
favor of Ben Hill county. Col
quit made its remarkable record
through cooperation of city and
county. We can do the same
thing in Ben Hill.
Let us have a standing COM
mittee of ACTIVE BOOSTERS
from the Chamber of Commerce
similar one from the Ben Hill
County Farm Bureau, and a sim
liar one from the Fitzgerald Wo-
| man s c 1iIh to form, n $3.50