Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-05

~ NE hundred million dollars year of
} new capital for Georgia!
This is no Utopian catch phrase, but
the sober text of as commonsensed an appeal
rs was ever made to business-minded men in
q resourceful commonwealth. Mr.. H. C. Hast
ings, chairman of the farm and marketing
bureau of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce
writing in the current number of that organi-
zations monthly magazine, 1.-The City Build
err draws a vivid picture of what would
ensue if some fine day it should be announced
that group of capitalists stood ready to in
vest in productive enterprises in Georgia the
sum of one hundred million dollars. What
hurried response, what running to and fro,
what meetings and missions and invitations
there would be! And how enriching would he
the results if such an investment were made
regularly, year after year! This is fancy, but
It is not so wonderful as fact
For, says Mr. Hastings, THAT hundred mil
lion annually, and more, is in sight; indeed
1t has been, for at least quarter of century,
slipping through Georgia hands every year,
with only small per cent of it sticking Sim
ply handling money avails us little. The
money that sticks is the money that counts in
the development of towns, cities, districts and
states. The generality Of ~Georgians have
been handling money instead of accumulat-
Ing it for investment purposes. L. ..-,--,-4cd
million we refer to is the average amount that
Georgia has been spending annually for food,
grain, and forage supplies from outside of the
state"
That every pound of these costly imports
could be produced within our borders Is too
well known to need reiteration. But there
evidently is need, and urgent need, of arous-
Ing business leadership throughout the state
to the folly and the peril of suffering this
condition of affairs to continue. Much has
been done by way Of remedy it is true; but
hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of
wealth that in all reason should remain at
home to foster native enterprise, still stream
to distant regions, leaving our people no rich
er for their toll. To raise these food supplies,
1Hstedu VI Duy1US IAeul ABROAD, WOulQ amount
to drawing millions of new capital from our
own good soil and golden sun-a much more
creditable process than seeking it at far-off
centers of finance, heartily welcoming though
we do every dollar of investment from with
out
1t is to business leaders that Mr.. Hastings
appeals for action because In the nature of
the case 1t is they who must take the initia-
tive. What can the mutitudes of farm ten
ants, dependent on supply merchant, land
lord, fertilizer dealer or country banker" do
to 1ift themselves out of the rut of that Ill
balanced inefficient system of farming which
is so largely responsible for our long-contin-
ued annual loss of hundred million dollars
and more? The prime need, as the chairman
of the Atlanta Chambers farm and market
ing bureau cogently argues, is for those di-
rectly in touch with the tenant farmers inter
ests to substitute constructive credit" for
"consumptive credit "In substance this
means extending these folks credit for the
purchase of COWS, hogs, and good chickens, in
stead Of limiting credit to something to eat
Constructive credit means putting tools in the
hands of these now largely hopeless people