Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1933-05-12

WASHINGTON :. . one industry
I was in Washington for a few
days recently, and what impressed
me most was the utter Ignorance
of the people of Washington about
what is going ON in the rst of the
world.
Building industry is booming,
constructing new Government
buildings. Government employees
are working every day, yelpine
mildly about a small reduction in
salaries. Streets are crowded with
cars, driven with the utmost reck-
lessness and most inefficient traffic
regulation. Stores are doing as
good business as ever, at prices
much higher than in New York.
Rents are almost up to the highest
level.
Washington has but one indus
try, the Government Of the United
States. 1t is so detached from the
rest of the country that it might
as well be in some other nation. 1t
is difficult for the men who run
the government to realize how bad
conditions are elsewhere, when they
see evidence all around them of
great prosperity.
l have long believed that it was
a serious mistake to locate the seat
of government away from the CEN
ter of business and industrial acti-
witty. If | could do it. l would
move the Capitol and the White
House to Chicago, which is where
they ought to be if they are really
t % represent the American people
effectively.
LAND safest investment
In spite of the fact hat many
owners of real estate have suffered
great losses in the past few years.
land remains the safest, soundest in
vestment in the long run. The
supply is limited, for one thing.
Increasing population means in
creasing demand for land. Every
baby born on Manhattan Island in
creases the value of the Woolworth
building.
The time to buy land is now.
Dollars are high now; they will be
much cheaper shortly. Land is
cheap now; it will be much high
er before long. The time to buy
anything is when evfybody else
wants to sell. If you own land
hold on to it; if you have dollars,
buy land with them for safety.
Don't speculate in land! Pay for
it and hold it. Don't speculate in
anything on which you can't al
ways realize something at a mo-
ment' notice. You can't move
land around; you must wait until
someone wants that piece at that
spot. So buy land intelligently, in
the path of the movement of po-
pulation. Regard it as an invest
ment for your children rather than
as a way to make yourself rich
over night.
The worlds greatest and most
enduring fortunes have been made
by buying land and holding on to
it.
learn to work
My friend Walter Lippman, who
also writes a column and, curiously
enough, picked the same title for
it as this column cf mine, wrote
something recently which seems to
me the best statement of its kind
| have ever seen.
1.-The truly educative process
said Lippman, consists in learning
to deal with reality, that is to say
with people and objects and events
that are not the mere projection of
ones own wishes. Education is a
matter of putting away childish
things, of discovering that events
do not respond to words, of learn
ing that the world is not in us but
that we are in the world"
Most of us live in a world Of
"wishful thinking" We'd like tc
be rich, and we dream of what we
would do if we were rich, but we
aren't willing to take all the trou-
bic and worry on ourselves that
anyone must take if he is to affair
riches. Education, as Mr.. Lipp-
man points out, ought to teach