The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-08-18
Always Staple Commodity, But
Lust Now 1t Is Very Ill. Is One.
Of the Worlds Oldest Articles
Of Manufacture. Some Facts.

A., major industry Of America is in
r,or,. anomalous position today than
.4or says Corn Exchange. This APP
.rss not only to the raw product, but
-, Manufactured goods. There is an
4,s that cotton cultivation originated
:. NH. country That is absurd.
cotton was grown and the lint WOW
;1.o cloth ages before the Christian
=, As matter of fact, the United
&C. g. was one of the latest countries
% t~. earth to make it staple prod
'' e. lar as the records show our first
.ott,n seed were brought to the Caro-
49, a.. rom Bermuda in colonial days
n und the first cotton grown here was
as garden plant.
d. ,,er when the utility of the fibre
,as apparent, there was some grown
tyr commercial purposes, but the la
b No. cost of removing the lint from the
Daed Inv hand, even though the labor
,r9. Slave, made developments slow.
Beginning OF Expansion.
# WAS not until Eli Whitney devils
ID the cotton gin that cotton growing
.ooIlv expanded. Coincidental with
Whitnev's invention were the revolu,
t;onary inventions of Hargreaves and
Artwright with the spinning jenny
nd Inc frame, which laid the basis
ior Fngland's pre-eminence in cotton
manufacturing.
Cotton has been both blessing ano
o bane TO the south.
II made the south rich before the
o;,,;1 war and led to the creation Of
great plantations, but it also was con
3rctive of wedding the south to cot
fan TO the neglect Of other resources
Ont OF the prostration and poverty
+hat followed that war there has come
mighty change in the south. Con
sider Birmingham, Alabama! 1t was
NOT on the map at the close OF the
civil war.
II was not incorporated as a towr
mill 1870 Now it ranks as one OF the
great steel manufacturing centers o
tbe world and there are only 5O-odc
cities in the United States with larger
population. =
laid out by Arthur E. Stilwell IN the
late nineties. Today it is the Creates
oil port in the world.
Then comes Galveston, which, IL
various wears, has ranked first port o.
the world in cotton and grain.
Nowhere in the republic has there
been more revolutionary change
since the civil war, than in the south
If is not in agriculture and commerce
alone, but in hydro-electric power, II
transportation and in industrial enter
prices.
Meanwhile, there has been a trans
formation in relation to cotton. Fol
many years the south produced 90 =
per cent OF the cotton OF the earth
To-Day it barely raises r: For abou
century the vast bulk OF the cottor
spindles Of America were in New Eng
land.
Practically all the manufactures o
cotton goods were confined to New
England and Pennsylvania.
Today southern mills consume more
cotton than do those OF the north anc
the trend of cotton manufacturing Is
definitely toward further increase II
the south and further decrease IN tht
north.
Nearness to the source OF raw sup
ply is popularity supposed to explain
the growth of the south in cotton
manufacturing. That is a minor tac
tor The major factor is labor. There
are incidental elements, such as more
modern machinery, hydro-electric en-
ergy, etc, but the key to the situation
is labor
Old Yankee Factories.
Some Of the New England mill cor
poratons are old, as age is measured
in America, and now are in the hands
Of the third of fourth generation iron
the founders
In the long ago mill workers emf
grated from Lancashire or Ulster tt
New England They were skilled anc
able The plants were small as rule
The boss was Anglo Saxon ant
spoke the same language as the work
ers alter. as New England plants IN