THE PINEHURST OUTLOOK
12
IN THE LAND OF PROMISE!
One of the Joe Miller Jokes With
Local Application
How You lie gin o 8e What Till
Country i Court for,
Say IButler
JOE Miller, or course
never wrote the jokes in
his joke book. I will say-
that much to clear him
of the charge, for al
though he has been dead
close to two hundred
years his jokes were still
old when he was young.
Tfl reckon Joe's jokes came down to the
English from the Eomans, and to the
Eomans from the Greeks, and to the
Greeks from the Persians, and Chaldeans
and Chinese, and but it is no use to
go into the ancestry of the joke. If All
this explanation is simply to introduce
one particular joke that I have met from
the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
Standing one day on the little point of
the Apsheron Peninsular where it looks
across the Caspian into the Turkestan
Country a man who stood beside me shook
his head and repeated the joke. "Yep,
wnen creation was nnisned tnere was a
lot of junk on hand, and it was just
dumped down in this God-forsaken country
to get rid of it." If Down in the Mojave
Desert of Arizona a miner pulled it on me
"Stuff left over at Creation, just
dumped down here to get rid of it."
If Up on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan
the old skeleton came along, "Just
dumped it down here," etc
So I was not surprised when one of the
Miller family in my early acquaintance
with North Carolina took me by the
arm one day and started to say that
"After Creation was finished the stuff
left over was just dumped down here,
and " If I know the Miller family. One
of them borrowed five dollare from me
way back in 1873, when five dollars looked
to me to be as big as a load of hay, and
it is still borrowed. He was also a joker,
but I love the whole bunch of them.
If Joe Miller, all of him, is, or are all
right. He, or they, mean well, and a
joke is a good thing, even if it is a little
grizzled with age, and whiskers on the
bottom of its trousers. If And, possibly,
when creation was finished the material
left over was dumped down here in the
sand hills, as well as in every other place
I have ever heard that joke. If But in
knocking around among the places where
things are made in this big world I have
come to find out that the men who do
things on a big scale do not throw away
materials that are left over. Such things
are simply stored, and in due season
worked up into something. If And as the
Creator is as wise in the use of material
as the rest of us, it has dawned on men
that He did not overestimate the quantity
required when He sent in the order for
the material for creation, so I have "fig
ured it out that there is nothing left over,
and that what was provided was provided
for a purpose.
So one day when a Massachusetts visit
ing brother seeking information drew up
in front of my wigwam and asked me
how I could stay in this God-forsaken
country, before I could answer his ques
tion I had to tell him that I did not be
lieve God ever made anything and then
forsook it. And that started the fuss,
so I had no occasion to say why I stayed
here. 1f After nosing around in the Sand
hills for some years and accepting the
constantly offered information that this
country is absolutely good for nothing
except to play golf in I have finally
veered over to the side of the Creator, and
although He is probably not asking any
justification for this particular bit of
world building it interests me to show
my friends and neighbors how easy it is
to overlook things. 1flt has gradually
soaked into my thinkery that you will
search the world and not find a more val
uable bit of creation than right around
Pinehurst. If No, not time yet to laugh.
TfWhat do you want in this world?
I should say that besides the wife and
the kiddies and the stock market quota
tions in the morning, you want vittles
and clothing, cylinder oil, fuel, and once
in a while you are mighty anxious for a
spare tire. If Let us take them seriatim,
if you know who he is. Wife and chil
dren I suppose you have. If not probably
here is a good a place as any to look
around, for within half a dozen miles of
Pinehurst ought to be found a right fair
collection of material from which to
obtain a wife. If But pass by that task.
If Then comes clothes, and clothes figure
if you accumulate a family. With
clothes provided you want corn bread and
side meat with an occasional mess of
collards. And when you have that or a
suitable substitute you figure on gasoline,
transmission grease and something to put
on the rim when the other tire says
pank. ' ' If Now you begin to see what
this country is good for.
Here is one of the best cotton produc
ing belts in the world, and after the
cotton is produced the water of the
streams turns wheels that make the cotton
into clothes, and that is one .want pro
vided for. North Carolina makes more
cotton to the acre than any other State
in the Union, and the territory around
Pinehurst surpasses the average of the
State. This is a cotton section. It is not
waste land, but in a way it is land that
has been overlooked by men. IfEecently
it has been discovered. That it can make
cotton has been realized. That it can
make fruit has been realized. But Joe
Miller and his joke led lots of folks to
think that the joke was a curious fact,
and if you remember Lord Fermain
Clancharlie in Victor Hugo 's story,
"L 'Homme Qui Kit," you realize what
a fatal effect laughter sometimes has on
a serious matter. Lord Clancharlie would
have moved the House of Lords to pro
found effort, but his face, on which the
Comprachicos had graven a perpetual
smile, aroused laughter, and when you
laugh at a great effort you damn it.
Luckily this case is not one to be deter
mined before the House of Lords, but
rather by the whole people.
The country was condemned because it
was not known. I remember very well
when the electric light was introduced in
a printing office where I happened to be
employed, and we concluded that it would
never be satisfactory, and we protested
until it was taken out and the oil lamps
restored. If Men did not know a few
years ago that here was a great possi
bility. They did not realize the excellence
of the fruit that could be raised, nor the
excellence of the cotton, nor the water
power that is now coming into use, nor
do they realize a lot of other things that
are just now unfolding. If I have men
tioned clothing and food as the products
of this neighborhood. Among the food
products are quantities of oil, made at the
oil mills from cotton seed. You may not
care for artificial butter made from cot
ton oil, but the world buys many million
pounds of it. You may not care for lard
made from cotton oil, but the world uses
enormous quantities of it. And I will
tell you what you may not know, which is
that synthetic rubber is coming to be a
fact, and that this synthetic, or artificial
rubber, is made of cotton seed oil. You
may not want artificial rubber tires on
your gas buggy but the world is appar
ently on the verge of using a lot of rub
ber that is grown in the cotton fields.
The man who thinks this country is a
barren waste may live, if his habits are
correct, to see it the seat of varied indus
ries that will involve both agriculture
and manufacturing on an interesting and
varied scale. Here is one country where
the materials for many lines of manufac
turing can be produced, and where power
to operate can be found on every side.
Here is convenient transportation to all
domestic markets, and convenient access
to the coast for exportation. The tex
tile trades can flourish in this section bet
ter than any where else in the world, for
here are all the factors of operation. It
is not only possible to provide the cotton
and the power, but another factor, the
starch used in woven goods can be made
from material that can be produced in
unlimited abundance. North Carolina
sandy land is not surpassed in the pro
duction of sweet potatoes, and sweet
potatoes are full of starch. The prin-
ipal need of a starch factory is an abun
dance of soft, pure water, and there is no
limit to the water supply here. The
cotton mill can come nearer supplying its
needs, at low cost and in a pratcical way
in the territory around Pinehurst, than at
any other place. If The oil mill can find
its raw material in the same section and
the power to operate. Cattle feeding
could be carried on in the shadow of the
oil mill, and probably to as good advan
tage as any where in this country. With
an abundance of oil cake made from cot
ton seed, from soja beans, from peanuts,
this section has no superior for poultry
raising and feeding, and someday the
eggs and chickens of Central North Caro
lina will be a material contribution to
the world's food supply.
Here also is a tobacco belt that is
rapidly growing famous, as it is only in
the sand that the popular bright leaf
tobacco comes to its best. The demand
for the bright leaf tobacco has out grown
the supply, and much of the product goes
to adulterate the darker tobaccos of other
sections and make imitation bright leaf
of them to meet the demands. If As 1
have said I am not holding a brief for the
Creator in this case vs. Joe Miller. But
I can see that this is not a tag end of
junk left over from the construction of
the universe, for here are some of the
most valuable possibilities if men only
come to realize what is at hand. If To get
back to the old gasoline buggy, I was
told the other day of a man across in Hoke
Country who ran out of gasoline down by
a wayside swamp. Now these Hoke Coun
ty hill billies are not so green as some
folks think they are, and the historian
who was telling of his experience said
he simply pulled the cork out of a corn
liquor jug, emptied the stuff into the
gasoline tank, gave the crank a turn or
two, and so came to town and up to the
drug store and filled the tank again, and
went away just like anybody else.
Presently, when the mineral oils have
ceased to supply the gasoline for all the
automobiles that are pestering the life
out of the countryman along the North
Carolina highways, old Agricola will get
revenge, for the chug wagon is going to
run some of these days with alcohol in the
combustion chamber, and the alcohol can
be made in North Carolina' sand country
probably cheaper than anywhere else in
the United States. If That gets us back
again to the sweet potato, which is a mine
of alcohol. A lot of other things can be
made here in the sand that will yield
alcohol. Alcohol is a great fuel, and when
it comes to hunting for a substitute for
gasoline alcohol will be the first aid
to the injured.
The immediate big things will be
cotton and tobacco. The cotton mill of
the South is a wonder in its swift growth.
Twenty years ago the Southern cotton
mill was simply a prospect. Ten years
ago the Southern cotton mill wa? spinning
for the first time as much cotton as was
shipped to the mills of the North. Now
the cotton mills of the South Have passed
the mills of the North, and the rate of
advancement at the South is no longer
approximated by the mills of the North.
The cotton spinning industry of the
United States is established on a bigger
scale South than North and Mie gap is
increasing every day. North Carolina is
the second cotton manufacturing State of
the Union now. It will probablv soon bp
the first. It is wise to get out of the
notion that the sandy country around
Pinehurst is merely the waste heap of
creation. When we consider a minute
how the Dutch have reclaimed the lands
of the low countries of Europe from the
sea, and made there intensely productive
farms, how the arid States of the West;
are making farms where they successfully
practice what they call dry farming, how
in spite of obstacles men are profiting by
all conditions of soil and climate every
where, it is easy to see that her3 where
are so many advantages the future is one
of the most intense and successful com
bination of agriculture and manu
facturing. With its many other ad
vantages it is impossible that this section
should be an exception. If No, brethren,
the Joe Millex joke does not apply to any
thing in this part of the United States.
Still again disclaiming any responsibiliy
or inspiration in my utterances I insist
that the Creator knew what he was doing
when he did his work in the upper Cape
Fear country of North Carolina.
' rnlr' Million"
"Brewster's Millions" is the week's
star movie attraction. Wednesday's the
night. IfNext week "Tess of the
Storm Country."
A