Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/455

Rh sky; or as that water will run down an incline, if we (in Tennessee) do offer greater attractions than other localities we will attract it toward us, and the quantity and the rapidity with which it will come, can and will be measured by the amount of thrift that is offered. It is about as important to induce a man, with a given amount of capital, to come to us, as to retain one we already have in our midst, with the same amount." We can not expect to develop a State or build up large cities rapidly from their present population in their natural increase, but must invite others, with their capital, to come and settle among us.

"As I have said, any tax levied upon movable property lessens its thrift, and tends to drive and keep it away; consequently, it is incorrect in principle, while a heavy and oppressive tax is absolutely prohibitive and suicidal. Embraced in the rule I have presented in the beginning, never to tax anything that would be of value to your State, that could and would run away, or that could and would come to you, are two or three kinds of movable property which I regard as most important, and which I will mention—to wit, money, merchandise, and capital to be used in manufacturing. These pertain to cities mostly. There are many other kinds of property which, perhaps, would come under the rule, but for the present I will speak of these three, because through them great wealth generally enters the State.

"And here I desire to call your attention to the fact that the great bulk of the movable property generally enters a State or nation through its cities and towns—money and merchandise or trade always, and capital for manufacturing purposes most frequently; and from the cities and towns its beneficial effect is radiated throughout the State far and near, greater the nearer the city, but beneficial, to some extent, even to the utmost bounds of the State, particularly when we owe a common debt, as most of the States of the American Union do, and as our State of Tennessee certainly does, to the extent of over twenty million dollars. And here I wish to note the fact that there exists in Tennessee, in the minds of some of our farmers, or people living in the country, a prejudice against the cities. They imagine that the interest or prosperity of the cities is entirely separate from theirs, if not antagonistic; and again, the people of one part of our State imagine their interest to be separate from other parts of the State, which is incorrect in toto. This idea or feeling has, to a great extent, been manufactured by demagogues or ignorant politicians, and by newspapers actuated by incorrect motives or ignorance of the correct relations between cities and country, and the different parts of the State. This is all wrong, and the sooner the people turn a deaf ear to all such, the better it will be for all