Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1927-09-09

thsF 90 ot1oi1 aa 10 tlt idtQit VI OAi
industry?
Industry, iii its broad sense, con-
sists in the production Of raw ma
terials and, through the agency of APP
piled labor, converting them into COM
modities useful for or desired by man
as incidental to his social status.
Given an abundant supply Of raw ma
%terial, the opportunity Of producing
and manufacturing it, and the means
OF transporting the product to avail
able markets, the necessary elements
of industry exist. Gaugsd by this
standard, who can be other than an
optimist about the future of this state
and it's industry? Where Is there an
area more generously endowed with
the fundamental factors of potential
wealth?
While the opportunity for rapid
development may not be as great as
existed a generation age, the diff
culties then contemporaneous have
been minimized and the results today
are more assured. We live in an age
in which the economic status of mil
lions of people is changing with a ra-
pidity unknown at any prior time in
history. This change in social con-
ditions and the growth Of the nation
now calls for and will continue to de-
mand a production of what have be-
come essentials to modern life upon
a constantly increasing scale, the linn
1t of which no man can measure and
no formula determine.
"If we but take advantage of u
opportunities. it is inevitable that
Montana's industries must grow and
prosper in direct ratio, as we have
within our borders the basic elements
that go to make for material wealth.
That these exist and will be utilized
lnsures in part the future Of Mon
tana's industry, for great indeed is
her endowment.
Here we have an area rs great as
constituted many Of the major en-
pires of the old world, where tens of
millions have lived, labored and pros
pered. Mineral deposits, from which
treasure aggregating billions, has
been extracted, sev~enty-five per cent
OF which has been spent in the pro-
duction costs and reinvestment made
within the state, and from the store
house of which %uncounted millions are
yet to come. Coal measures of such
extent that centuries will not consume
them, power, replenished by winter
SHOWS and summer rains, that should
last unto eternity, millions of acres of
tillable land, forests untouched by the
woodsman's AK, reservoirs of oil, and
base products whose potential values
can only be realized as population in
creases and markets are thereby Gre
ated. A princely heritage indeed, and
one that imposes upon our people a
responsibility. if our possibilities are
to be realized, for it should ever be
remembered that the material ele-
mems of wealth furnish merely the
opportunity for the creation of. but
cannot of themselves constitute. in
dustry.
Industry is a vital, living, con-
scious state. Under conditions fav-
orable to its development it prospers,
and under adverse conditions it dies.
Raw material, capital and labor COM
bined in the productive effort produce
the desired results. The lack of any
one of the three is fatal to its pro-
gress.
To-day vast areas of the world,
populated by an appreciate percent
age of the human race, are living
amidst conditions of poverty and dis
tress, hunger and despair, because
dreamers have taken the places of
workers; untried theories have sup
planted human experience, Individual
ism has been suppressed, religion has
been blasphemed, and the effort to-
ward industrial accomplishment de-
stroyed.
mot alone then does the future of
our industry depend on the possess
ion of the material factors that con-
stitute its basis, but likewise will it
depend upon the attitude which the
people of the state assume toward it
in the administration of their govern
ment.
Gone are the days when industry
claims, or should be accorded, any
special privileges, but never ending
will be the time when industry, to
prosper, must be accorded a just and
equitable position in the body polite.
Happily, / am convinced that in
this respect the future of Montana's
industry is quite as we'll assured as it
is in the factors we have enumerated.
The citizenship of this state has in
herited a legacy of constructive effort
that has resulted in a splendid &C.
complishment. 1t is theirs to secure
and perpetuate. 1t would be futile
to hope that the time will ever com
when the irresponsible differences of
those who would destroy will be COM
pletely silenced, or that the minority,
who seek redress for their own in
herent incapacity in the effort to un-
do what creative energy has built, will
ever be cOmnletelv silencad Rut mov