The Coolidge examiner., 1932-12-30


passengers, came to ply the rivers.
Cotton was king; sometimes 1t was
30 cents pound-and more. Real
estate companies abounded and the
South saw it's first land boom.
Slumps followed booms; but men
talked always Of slaves and cotton
and more cotton. Fortunes grew.
From New York to New Orleans
before 1S40-the "Pony Express"
was running. With 200 boy riders
and 500 horses, relayed every u
miles, the fast mail" averaged IA
miles an hourl
A 'railroad"-one of the first
built In America-was the boast of
Tuscumbia. Its tiny coaches ran
on wooden rails, drawn by horses
until its toy locomotive came in
1884. But much cotton still went
by keel-boat over the winding Ten
nessee river up to the Ohio, and
down to the Mississippi to New Or
leans.
After 1850, shops and mills in
creased. More men began to spin,
weave. saw lumber. smelt iron ore,
make shoes, plows and furniture
everything from ak handles to
steamboats,. But only In a small
way. Alabama was still a big buy
er of northern made things and es-
sentially agrarian. These were "old
plantation days"-that golden age
of Alabama, whose mere mention
still arouses emotions in the born
Southerner.
Then the guns of Sumpter; the
Confederacy. Years of war and
ruin for Alabama, in which she
learned one good lesson; that she
could support herself. live within
her own boundaries. Then that
quiet Palm Sunday at Appomattox,
when the great opponents. Grant
and Lee, without parade. band
music. swords, or cannon salutes,
quietly made terms Of surrender.
For more than a century cotton
was the symbol OF life. The poor
renter. with one mule and one plow,
like the rich planter with domain
intact from slave times. depended
on this one crop.
Then Varied Industry.
But world conditions change. Some
old customers overseas no longer
must buy most of their cotton from
US. More and more of IL is raised
elsewhere-as in Africa, Asia. So
now it grows harder for Alabama
to sell cotton abroad at a fair
price But 1t has thought, talked,
planted. picked, ginned. pressed, and
sold cotton so long, and so fixed
is this cotton-only habit that the
state imports much butter, milk, po-
tatoes. even hay.
Happily, escape is in sight. What
with science, research, farm schools
and good example of the more
alert farmers who prove Alabama
can grow much besides cotton-you
see dawning in the state a new, di-
versified agriculture.
But that is not all. From the
North men have come with money
and machines, starting mills, shops,
smelters-many industries new to
Alabama.
Its factories, scattered over the
state. with workers to be fed. open
widening market for Alabama
fruit. vegetable. poultry and dairy
farms. Swiftly, as the lives of
states are measured, you see this
clamorous, alien culture of smoke
and steel being imposed on a proud,
leisurely society. accustomed for gen.
erations to its vast cottonfields,
plantation homes, and calm, we'll
ordered rural existence.
With her water power, coal, ores,
lumber. raw cotton, surplus labor,
and fine climate. Alabama is forced
to bid her hand. And Industrial
ism is trumps. Cotton she will
grow. indefinitely. But more of
other things, too-reaching finally
a happier economic balance between
town and country life.
Colleges dot the state: free coun-
ty busses haul children many miles
to consolidated schools. and far
more teachers are graduated each
year than the state can use. You
need no rubber yardstick to meas
ure education's march.
Next to schools. electric power is
the prime factor in Alabama's
growth. 1t has worked miracles
here Men damned the streams
and blazed wide avenues through
the woods for rows of steel towers
that carry wires to all parts of the
state. Wherever raw materials ex-
ist. there power is sent.
Copper wire. hosiery. silk, con-
densed milk, steel freight cars, braid
and ribbons. electro-chemical prod
ucts. all these and more are now
manufactured In the state.