Year: 1873




the surrounding country. 1t matter.


not what ones profession or calling


may be, all are alike interested in the


consummation of some practical plar


by which the volume and variety oi


business may be increased, and a bet.


ter market created for agricultural


products. We are all striving to make


money. The common want of the


world is money. All our daily labors


and constant endeavors are for money.


Some seek it for purely selfish pur-


poses; others toll for it with more


generous aims. Some strive for great


wealth; others feel that they would


be contented with a moderate compe-


tence. But all want money. And yet


the fact stares us in the face, however


unwilling we may be to acknowledge


it, that, in this section, there is little


chance to gain except through another's S


loss. As we are now situated, it is in


disputably true, that opportunities to


make money here, withoutunintention-
ally impoverishing the community or
some portion oft, are exceedingly linn
tied. We do not wish to be misunder-
stood. Some of our people are doing
profitable business; and, so far as we
know, all are striving in a legitimate
way either to increase their wealth or,
at least to make an honest living. We
wish to be understood as giving credit
to all our fellow-citizen for the same
honesty of purpose and integrity in
their daily transactions which we
claim for ourselves. Indeed, we as
sert with confidence, that, in this city
and in the surrounding country, we
have an unusually large number of
high toned, honorable business men.
We are proud of the commercial up
rightness and fair dealing of our com
munity. But it is none the less true
that, inasmuch as we consume all, if
not more than all, we produce, general
wealth is augmented, if at all, very
slightly; and hence the individual
can accumulate only at the expense of
his fellows. Let us enumerate some
of the facts, which bear upon this
matter.


l. We manufacture hardly anything
which we use. This pen, ink and pa
per, the clothes which we wear, that
crate, coal-scuttle and shovel, these
books of reference, our carpets, win
dow-curtains and blankets, every nail,
screw and bolt which we use, our
buckets and tubs, ax-helves, clothes
pins, and, in short, almost every man
ufactured article used by civilized
man, from the cradle to the coffin, is
made abroad and brought to us over
long lines of transportation. And we
pay not only the cost of production
but also, in the course of year, vast
sums for freight and handling. 1t is
true, that not far from here are a few
furnaces, (most of them operating
upon small scale, } that make some iron
OF excellent quality, but not much
more than the amount consumed in
this section in one form or another.


2. The best iron produced on the
western continent is made within forty
miles of Clarksville. Yet before that
iron is wrought into available shapes
for use, that is, manufactured into
railroad iron, nails, horse-shoes, ETC.,
it is stransported tgreat cost hundreds
of miles, and finally brought back and
sold here with all the charges for man.
commissions and freight
added. For example, we wish to pur-
chase a steam engine. If there were a
rolling mill here for the manufacture of
puddled iron, and such machine shop
as Clarksville ought to have, we could
buyit here and save considerable ex-
pense in the way of freights. And,
what is stillmore important, the mon
ey, which we would pay our home man
ufacturers, would be paid out by them
again as wages to their mechanics and
laborers. They, in turn, would go in
to our market and pay it over to the
farmers and producers, generally. of
the surrounding country for the neces-
saries of life.


3, We have beautiful. land fertile
farming lands all around us. Our
farmers are generally rewarded for
their labor with bountifui crops. Our
climate is mild and favorable to out
door work the year round. And yet
there is encouragement in one tre
mendous disadvantage, that out-weighs
all the natural advantages with which
we are so blessed. The single word
FREIGHT expresses it all. Not having
Built up manufactures in our midst,
having no large population of artisans
and workmen to consume the products
Of the soil, near at home, and without
transportation to some dis
tant place, farmers are told, Gas they
we're told in this city not two months
ago. that they must take Louisville
prices less the freight to that point.
The prices paid at the pork house
here, during last month, for hogs were
less than the prices paid in Louisville
by the cost of transportation to that
point. Now, if there had existed, at
that time, a population of fifteen or
twenty thousand in this city, drawn
hither by the establishment of manu-
our farmers could have sold
in the market thus created here, and
would have realized all that they did as
md much more as would have paid the
to Louisville. This is
true also of other farm products. But
the difficulty is greatly increased by
The present lack Of competing lines of
transportation.


4. Considering then, that we manu-