The Cordova daily times., 1922-05-24
WEDNESDAY, MAY A, 1922
OUR HISTORY IN TABLOID FORM

During the early colonial period the resi- dents of this country, between taxes ana Colh- ahawks had a rough time of It. Wmle Ine Revolution secured for them political mde- nendence, while 1787 gave them Constltu- fion. while 1789 showed an organized repuo- lie. the government was too weak to guard US citizens Tn the West Indies French prlVateefs, 1nti1 we showed fight, seized our merchant men, Along the North African coast our sea mon were held in bondage. Now French and Fno]ish decrees confscated our vessels. Any where. even just outside of our own ports' British press gangs took men from our decks' We had brave soldiers and splendid seamen, but poverty hampered us and we were hardly over the war of 1872 before British goods were dumped on us, to the prostration of our man. ufacturing industries Henry Clay told us that nolitical independence without industrial l1- dependence was barren.
 But, after our second war with England, even though we had lowTariff setbacks we showed a national spirit unknown before The settlements along the Mississippi inspired the Erie Canal, the Erie Canal led to railroad bulding. the Mexican War and the gold dls- coverv of California stimulated movements to- ward the Southwest With the Civil War came a new impetus toward manufactures. Next came railroad from ocean to ocean. | fifteen years after the first Merrill Tariff we were getting ready to open the gates of the Centen- nial Exhibition The freedmen of the South raised more crops and did more work than the slaves had done. During several decades tHere were repeated assertions that we could not establish new industries, and we answered Dy railroads, mills, potteries, glass plants tn plate works and chemical enterprises. In Washington s time it startled us to learn that we could pay our debt In 1914 the British and French were eager to borrow money of us and to come hither for all sorts of supplies
 Ill.
 A new era dawned. No foreign power looked to see the Republic fall to pieces and no industrial competitor doubted that it would go on finding new fields of endeavor and ln- venting new machinery. There came new idea. Europe caught Benjamin Franklin $ singular notion that our national bird was the turkey, and began to think up schemes for getting the breast the wings, the drumstlcks, the gibets and the gravey. No other country under heaven would have dug a canal through the Isthmus of Panama and failed to aid It's own shipping. Our government alone would have let foreign corporations enjoy the traffic the Canadian Pacific Railroad won from us. During the war we made concessions to for eign shipping interests. After it the Old World powers assumed that we might give them a century to pay the interest due us and states men hinted that we should cancel the principal. Every day brought its recommendation that we should let the importer have our home market. In Philadelphia, the city which above all others owes most to manufacturers, there were meetings in favor of Free Ports to cut the throat of our own industries Our his tory, reduced to it's lowest terms, is this: We began as the ugly duck; we grew to be the