Vol. XXXVII, No. 3 WASHINGTON 



March, 1920 



Ti 



AIDOMAL 

 GRAPHIC 

 AGAZHM 



MASSACHUSETTS-BEEHIVE OF BUSINESS 



By William Joseph Showalter 



LILLIPUT in area, Brobdingnag in 

 industry; forced to get its bread 

 ^ elsewhere, but helping to clothe na- 

 tions ; longest American, except Virginia, 

 in the span of its history, yet least Amer- 

 ican, except Rhode Island and the Can- 

 ada-bordering States of the Mississippi 

 Valley, in the ancestral stock of its pres- 

 ent inhabitants ; losing half of its im- 

 proved farm lands in thirty years, while 

 doubling its population — Massachusetts 

 rewards the investigator of its twentieth 

 century status with manv contrasts and 

 not a few paradoxes. 



Everybody knows that the Bay State is 

 one of the smallest of the Commonwealths 

 that compose the United States of Amer- 

 ica, but who realizes that it takes as many 

 Massachusetts to make a United States 

 as it takes days to make a leap year ? Or 

 who appreciates the fact that in area there 

 are as many Bay States in California as 

 there are holes in a full golf course. 



A GIANT IN AU, SAVE SIZE 



The crow needs to fly only 135 miles in 

 going from Sheffield to Salisbury, or only 

 180 miles in winging its way from Grey- 

 lock's summit to Chatham's sands, while 

 the distance between Lake Monomonac, 

 which spans the Xew Hampshire bound- 

 ary, and Lake Chaugogagogmanchaugag- 

 ogchaubunagungamaug, which touches 

 Connecticut, is only a little longer than 

 the name of the latter. 



But this midget in domain is a giant in 

 power. Measured by the products of its 



factories, by its financial contributions to 

 the Federal Government, it occupies fifth 

 place in the sisterhood ; measured by the 

 money it annually appropriates for its 

 own betterment, it attains fourth place 

 from the top, and is a lively disputant 

 with Illinois for third ; measured by the 

 debt it has dared to incur in order to pro- 

 mote the welfare of its people, it takes 

 second place, despite the fact that there 

 are seven States that surpass it in wealth. 



This year Plymouth, Massachusetts, 

 plans to entertain the country in honor of 

 the 300 years that will have passed since 

 New England was born. There are citi- 

 zens in the Bay State who have ten gen- 

 erations or more of American blood in 

 their veins. Yet two-thirds of the people 

 of the Commonwealth have sprung from 

 parents one or both of whom were born 

 under alien flags. 



Where Paul Revere lived in Revolu- 

 tionary times is now Little Italy, almost 

 as foreign in the tongue spoken as Naples 

 or Genoa. With only a third of the 

 State's population born of parents who 

 first saw the light in America, how small 

 must be the percentage born of full 

 colonial lineage ! 



But is Massachusetts less American for 

 its tremendous foreign stock? Look at 

 the recruiting records — holding sixth 

 place in population, but fifth in voluntary 

 enlistments for the World War. Look 

 at the Liberty Loan records — third place 

 in the first and second loans and fourth 

 place in the other three. 



