coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
lines and in great variety. You can see and
know the men who, by their energy, enterprise
and character have made it possible first to discover
your vast resources and then to devote
them to noble uses and purposes. You know that
this has not been done by the inc ompetent or the
cowardly, any more than by grumblers or robbers.
It has severely taxed all the energy and character
that your people could command, while the
profits have not been devoted to luxury but have
been put back into industry again and again along
with other enormous sums which good management
and confidence have drawn to you. You
have done these things because there was a
friendly public sentiment that invited and welcomed
capital and labor and gave them a real
assurance of protection and the shield of law.
When I looked through the census report I
found that not a single county in your state has
lost population between 1890 and 1910, during
which time this great development has been going
on. This means that while you have grown byleaps
and bounds in certain industries, comparatively
new, and that this has contributed to a
rapid, almost abnormal, increase in some districts
and counties, your
AGRICULTURAL POPULATION
has held steadily on its way, under many and serious
difficulties, and has grown in numbers
wherever this primal industry could be developed.
That you had one-third more farms at the end
of the 20-year period than at its beginning and
that these included a million new acres brought
under improvement are all healthy signs. This
process had also shown itself in a much larger
relative increase in the values of your farms and
their products, and was also accompanied by that
wholesome diminution in size which, without any
critical analysis, means better results, more comfort
and a degree of contentment for more people—
blessings not vouchsafed to all our states. When
we see, also, that it has been accompanied by a
progressive increase in farm ownership, a decrease
of debt, and a diminution in the number
and proportion of tenancies, you have every reason
to congratulate yourselves upon the stability
of this industry as well as upon its growth.
Sometimes, when I come to this, the state of
my grand-parents, I get discouraging answers when
I ask my friends about the growth of manufactures.
As a consequence, I was tempted to glance
at the returns and was astonished to find that
outside those extreme western or new states which
had almost nothing at the beginning of the census
period upon which to base an increase—so
that everything was a gain—West Virginia had
REGISTERED A GROWTH
only exceeded, during the last 10-year census
period, by four states, while its relative rank in
the country had improved at a surprising rate.
While I did not come here to instruct you about
the growth of your own state I have felt warranted
in calling attention to the fact that you
have far more than average gifts and attractions
upon which you may concentrate your attention
in the effort to create and maintain for your state
and its industries a public sentiment which shail
be fair, tolerant, and thoroughly alive to the conditions
under which your people are living. They
are fortunate even beyond most of their neighbors,
especially when they can add to these—as a
heaping up of the measure—the great mining industry
of which you are the special representatives
and guardians and whose problems you have
come together to discuss with freedom and intelligence.
Now, what should be the sentiment tov/ards each
other of a people thus situated? What effort
ought they to make so that all these elements and
forces shall understand the position of each other?
If there are misapprehensions on the part of any
how can they be removed and knowledge substituted?
If y r our people, or any part of them, listen
to false leaders, if they permit or encourage
outside interference with your industries, how
can you best teach them the error of their way
and warn them of the dangers they are inviting
for themselves and their state? Or, if this shall
be possible how can you reach the mass of independent,
FAIR-MINDED PEOPLE
of your state who, if properly instructed, will
give short shift to mischief makers? There are
no natural antagonisms, no real conflicts between
the men who are engaged in the various industries
which together contribute to make up the sum
of your prosperity and, if they will all take the
pains to know each other's position, such disputes
as may arise will be easily settled in favor of
peace and order so that knowledge may be substituted
for misunderstanding.
It seems to me that there is a tendency to separate
our people into classes which, as is always
the case, must, in time, be arrayed against each
other ancl that the only way to combat this peril
is by the effective dissemination of the wholesome
information which will discredit this dangerous
theory and emphasize anew the fact that
when the men of one occupation set themselves
up as different from those of another they generlly
do so for the purpose of seeking special privileges
for themselves. At that moment, whoever
they are or whatever they may ask, they so impeach
the fundamental ideas of our institutions
that only consistent, intelligent exposure of their
designs is necessary to bring them to confusion.