Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — COTTON STILL KING. America’s Greatest Single Contribution to Modern Progress. [ARTICLE]

COTTON STILL KING.

America’s Greatest Single Contribution to Modern Progress.

The development of the production of cotton in the United States with a single century from insignificant proportions to 9,000,000 bales a year, considering all its relations to modern industrial progress, is without a parallel in history. The facts in this case have led D. A. Tompkins to write for the Engineering Magazine a review of “Cotton as a Factor in Progress,” which contains many facts of great interest, which doubtless will prove new to a large number of readers. The present industrial development in America, in England, and on the Continent had its beginning, says Mr. Tomp kins, in four events, the absence of any one of whioh would have destroyed the greater portion of the value of the other three. These were the invention of the power-spindle, the invention of -the power-loom, the invention of the cottongin, and the response so these of the southern portion of the United States in the production of the raw material for the utilization of these inventions. It is not alone of interest that the imEetus given to the production of cotton y meohanical inventions has added to the productive capacity of Southern agriculture and increased the wealth of an important section of the United States. Every family in the whole country has been benefited by the cheapening of clothing and other articles made of cotton by reason of the marvelous increase in the extent of production of this fiber. The manufacturing and commercial interests of New England have been promoted to a remarkable extent by the same cause, to say nothing of the effect upon the cotton manufacturing interests in England and other parts of the world, and the increase in the consumption of cotton goods due to the wonderful cheapening of their cost. The single item of the benefit to the shipping interest due to the cotton carrying trade is of great extent. Cotton, more than any other one item Of freight, has been the basis of transatlantic commerce. Leaving aside these general considerations of benefits at home and abroad, to industry and commerce, and the increased comfort of the human race, we may again recur to the importance to the Southorn States of the cotton-growing industry in a great variety of directions. Cotton as a basis of wealth and of productive industry has made possible the growth of prosperous cities and towns where, at least before the development of mineral resources in the South, nothing of the kind could hare existed. The cotton interest has contributed to the success of all transportation systems in the Sonth, whether in the palmy days of steamboating or since railroa s have been constructed in every State. Even the development of the mining interests of the South has been hastened by the need of iron by railroad oompanies in preparing for the transportation of the cotton, and in the manufacture of cotton machinery, and the need of coal for transportation and manufacturing purposes, to whioh cotton has given rise. The cot-ton-growing industry, in short, has furnisheifwhat opportunity has existed in this large portion of the union, for the employment of engineering and mechanical skill, contributing thus to every branch of material progress.