Bringing a healthy glow
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 12:00am
There were troubles in Europe and worries at home 100 years ago when the calendar turned to the new year of 1915, but George Bailey, editor of the Evangeline Banner in Ville Platte ,thought it could still be a good year.In those days, local newspapers were never shy about promoting their home towns — and thus the local businesses that were their advertisers. Bailey's newspaper was no different.
The Banner was apparently a family affair. In August 1915, the Donaldsonville Chief noted the eighth anniversary of the paper's inception: "The Evangeline Banner, printed at Ville Platte by the Bailey family, began its eighth volume … stepping as high as a blind horse in tall oats. … George A. Bailey, pere, is editor and publisher of The Banner; Jas E. Bailey, fils, is junior editor; and C. A. Bailey, another fils, is local reporter, and amongst them they get up a mighty good paper."
As 1915 began, the Baileys said, the key to community success was money — "without it no community can survive."
Further, they said, the key to a community's prosperity was in making more money than it spent, producing enough goods to export some of them, putting everybody to productive work, and for neighbors to deal with neighbors whenever it was possible.
With that in mind, editor Bailey made eight specific suggestions.
- Produce as much as possible, not only for home consumption, but for export.
- Buy from a distance only what is actually necessary and that cannot be had from some home dealer.
- Push the business of every home enterprise to the limit, for every dollar that is brought into the community, and remains here, makes the community as a whole just that much richer.
- Devise means for increasing the output of farms, and study methods for securing the best returns on marketed products.
- If a farmer wants to hold his crops for higher prices, see that he has the money to tide him over, for his increased return means added wealth to the community as a whole.
- Find something for everyone to do, something that will enrich the community as well as the individual. Drones are dead weight wherever found.
- Get all the money we can from outside sources, and keep as much as possible of what we get.
- Make an effort to bring two dollars in where one goes out.
"A year of this medicine will bring a healthy glow to the community cheek, and will inspire the confidence and self reliance which always brings success," the editor promised.
Happy New Year. May 2015 bring a healthy glow to your community and to your own cheek as well.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
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