SPENDS TWO WEEKS HERE IN OST WORK
Harral Ayres Pleads for Co-operation of Coast in Telling Story of the Old Spanish Trail.
Harral Ayres, Old Spanish Trail managing director for the past ten years, spent the past two weeks on the Coast following his official presence at the Pascagoula bridge dedication. At Kiwanis in Gulfport he said he came to Mississippi because of his admiration for the achievements of the Coast people in road, bridge and seawall construction. He told how the Coast cities and counties had been quietly investigated in 1922 to determine if the Spanish Trail could be routed along the Coast and built, or whether it should be routed across to Mobile farther north.
Mr. Ayres has spoken at luncheon clubs and has met with the chamber of commerce and has tried to bring home to the Coast people the work that must now be financed and put over to turn the travel stream this way.
He emphasized repeatedly that the communities must go after the travel stream, not merely the stranger roaming around, and to do this in this automobile age they must popularize their trunk line highway. “To sit still and wait,” he said, “after spending $70,000,000 to open the Old Sapnish Trail is simply to allow other and more active sections to run away with the traffic. Forty million auto travelers are routed annually, he said, but the travel stream is still westward, or else southward to Florida.
“To build up a city you must build on the value and popularity of your transportation systems,” says Mr. Ayres. “For the Mississippi Coast this means your railroads and your trunk line highways. In early days the cities developed along the overland trails; later along the rivers and waterways; later along the railroads; today they are developing along the great trunk line highways; for the men seeking new homes or new investments are traveling in automobiles.
“You have your railroads; they can finance themselves by the sale of passenger and freight service, and out of their revenue they advertise and build up their road, its service, and its territory.
“You have the Old Spanish Trail. To construct it we have had to bind together the people, states, counties, towns, cities and road districts across the continent and get our funds for this from popular subscription. Now- that the Old Spanish Trail is open cannot sell passenger and freight service to get money to build up traffic. The funds can only come from the communities that really want the travel trade brought into their territory.
“The Old Spanish Trail passes through a fascinating country; travelers acknowledge this to us constantly. But the northern people do not realize this interesting country is at last open with good roads. For the past generation other highways farther northward have developed because of the stream of travel to California and to Florida. Those roads have now become national trunk lines and California and Florida are seeing to it that travel keeps moving along these highways to their country. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent in booklets, maps and publicity to keep the travel stream moving over those highways. This travel stream has built up hotel service and the communities in general. These arc the competing trunk lines of the Old Spanish Trail and they have many years start on us.
“Old Spanish Trail communities have been essentially out of the
world all these years. They have not had people from the outside leaving new money among them, and this outside money is always cash. They have lived more or less by swapping dollars among themselves.
“The Old Spanish Trail country is wonderfully alluring, but the people must be told these truths continuously. If the Old Spanish Trail name, comforts and attractions were made household knowledge throughout the nation more people would come and travel the highway than the hotels could accommodate. The national organization can no longer carry on this work without general cooperation; it has no funds except from the people. Therefore it is a civic work and the national organization is the clearing house or agency for reaching the nation’s travelers, homeseekers and investors.
“When the Gulf Coast cities and all OST cities realize the Old Span, ish Trail is a basic asset and they demand its travel interest shall be built up. Then and then only will efficient cooperation be effected.”
MISSIS!* IS
With the Editors of Mississippi
State’s Woil ed by RaO Evil Cond
Emphasizi sissippi’s gr a splendid as tinued devel ment officia ments askin operate in part labor j
NO HALF WAY—
There is no such thing as a Hoover Democrat, emphasizes Editor G. M. Lawrence of the Grenada Sentinel. Says he:
The election for President is less than two months away.
“If Mississippi is to be made safe for Democracy it is time for all loyal Democrats to come to the aid of the party.
“The Sentinel is hoisting to its masthead the names of the Democratic standard-bearers, and for purposes of ready identification, is giving the names of the Democratic electors.
It is time for every Democrat to show his colors.
“There is no half-wav ground. You are either a Republican or a Democrat.
“You have heard of a so-called Hoover Democrat. There is no such animule. There are two ma jor parties in Mississippi. Smith and Robinson are the nominees of the Democratic party, and have been so declared in convention assembled.
“Hoover and Curtis represent the Republican party in this race, and if you intend to vote for them, you automatically classify yourself as a Republican, and hence cannot rightfully claim any regularity as a Democrat.”
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“Governoi speech . . . age and ca agree with 1 your admira spirit.
“Mr. Smit pion his cc spect his v: agree with the prohibit ly disagree are evils tion is evid evils under Thereto Amendmen means pos: cry for la\ fcctive. V nor Smith, that we as issue.”
PUPIL’S PART—
Stress must be laid on the work of the pupils as well as that of the teachers in developing a better organized system of schools, says Editor G. T. Golson of The Stark-ville News:
“It won’t be long now before the schools of the country will begin their terms and the children will have, whether they realize it or not, the benefit and blessings of a modern school system. Not that our schools are perfect, but they are so much better than what they were fifty years ago that the comparison is almost impossible.
“In our thinking of schools and scholars, however, let us not get the idea that a school is a manufacturing plant turning out a finished product. The schools and the teachers can do nothing for a pupil who will do nothing for his own self. No matter how fine the schools and the teachers may be the scholars have to do their part if education is to mean anything. Let’s bear this in mind as our children go back to school this fall.”
AL’S SPEECH—
Editor Carley Peebles of the Neshoba Democrat admires the frank-
Seeing Is Believing
People like to see things before buying, especially Plants and Shrubbery for home planting. The Davis Nursery