22 The Bulletin. 



NORTH CAROLINA, THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY 



Address of Bion H. Butler, Before the North Carolina Press Association, 



Wednesday, June 24. 



Recently I said one day in the News and Observer that ISTortli Caro- 

 lina is ''sloppy with opportunity." That expression has been brought 

 back to me to set the pleasant task of pointing out some of those oppor- 

 tunities and telling how the newspaper men may help in the development 

 of them. 



Thirty-two years ago this summer I caught my first glimpse of North 

 Carolina. At that time I had seen enough of the industrial development 

 and progress of the United States from Texas, Kansas and Minnesota 

 east to New England to appreciate what development means and to recog- 

 nize the opportunity for development where it appeared. Fifteen years 

 of my newspaper work was passed as a writer of the progress of the 

 big industrial expansion in the Pittsburg territory where big things 

 are done. That gave me a further insight into what opportunity is and 

 what it is worth. It is more than twenty years ago that I commenced 

 to write in the Pittsburg Times stories of opportunity in North Caro- 

 lina. In that twenty years I have been showing people what I see 

 here, and in going out to show them I continually fall over more things 

 to show, I did not discover North Carolina all of a sudden. It has 

 been a gradual finding of new possibilities until it is easy to see that 

 no State in the Union today can present so much of opportunity as 

 North Carolina. This is said in all deliberation, for unsupported claims 

 are of no use to anybody. It is folly to deceive ourselves. I make 

 this claim after an acquaintance with almost every community of conse- 

 quence in the United States. 



The Contkolling Factors. 



The chief factors that are putting North Carolina in the front are 

 climate, rainfall, waterpower, transportation, convenience to the mar- 

 kets of the United States and of the world, the permanent supply of raw 

 material for factory use, and a population of intelligent and upright 

 character. I do not include those temporary resources like timber, 

 mineral deposits, etc., which, valuable in themselves, and of great im- 

 portance, are still temporary, and not in the same class with those 

 permanent things that are of everlasting worth. 



In hunting the best place for a home for myself and my family I 

 picked North Carolina from all the rest of the country after weighing 

 all factors, because it offered a bigger inducement in natural advantages. 

 It has the best climate and the best rainfall. Climate makes a State 

 fit to live in. Rainfall and mild climate make it an agricultural possi- 

 bility. Soil is a factor, but fertility can be made. Kansas and Califor- 



