USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, volume I > Part 2
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
first linotype machine that revolutionized typesetting, the first steam iron vessel in the world, the first two cruisers for the new American navy, and scores of first things that place the state in the forefront of invention and industry.
Maryland's influence has extended far to the South, so that it has been said that there is a Maryland dollar in every southern rail. Years ago Maryland began the manufacture of cotton goods, and the products of its mills today lead in the markets of the world, while it is also one of the largest producers of ready-made clothing in America. It is interesting how the pendulum of time swings back again. For in- stance, the iron deposits of Maryland were developed by pioneers, and the products of those early smelters won fame throughout the civilized world; but when the iron deposits of the Great Lakes showed a much superior ore to that obtainable in Maryland, the industrial leaders of Maryland turned from iron to other industries. In the course of time they found the fine ores of Cuba; and thus on the Patapsco were erected the splendid works at Sparrows Point, which have manufac- tured rails for every country under the sun and which have turned out some of the best ships afloat. In its early days Maryland ground the corn into meal and found a market for its foodstuffs, and today the Maryland mills are still able to produce flours that cannot be equalled. And these historic mills are able to hold their products in the third place among the manufacturing industries of their state. Maryland was a pioneer in the business of refining sugar. The industry started in the years immediately following the Revolution. In 1870 the four refineries of the state had an annual product of more than seven mil- lions of dollars, but unfortunately this industry has been lost through the influence of modern combination. Still there is no cause to com- plain. If one industry goes down, others take its place. Tobacco- growing declined because of various conditions; but with its decline Maryland became the foremost producer and canner of vegetables in America.
Maryland has struck the very happy medium between being a manufacturing, a commercial, and an agricultural state. For instance, there is no great preponderance of laborers in any one industry. Against the 92,014 persons engaged in agriculture, are 82,102 looking to trade and transportation for the means of a livelihood, while 103,684 are engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. Finally, there are 13,266 persons in professional lines, and, if it may be permitted to
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
associate the domestic workers with the professional people, the number in professional and domestic service is increased by 68,689. Thus the wage-earners are well distributed in these four great divisions of activity.
Because of this division of the activity, and also Maryland's com- parative smallness when placed alongside of other states, the state has not assumed first rank among the commonwealths as a manufacturing, a mining or an agricultural center, although in each of these lines it has shown a remarkable record in proportion to the extent of its boundaries.
In mining industries coal is easily the leading product in Mary- land. The Cumberland coal fields are the nearest to tide-water of all the bituminous coal fields which ship their products to the northern Atlantic seaboard, and these mines have been producing coal for more than three-quarters of a century. The more important of the other mining industries of the state are the quarries which produce siliceous crystalline rocks, limestones and dolomites and slate. Maryland granite is found in the Capitol and Congressional Library at Washing- ton, in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and in other great buildings. Maryland marble is in important structures in the big cities and in the Washington monument in Baltimore; it has been in use for about a hundred years. Maryland also supplies clays, cement, chrome ore and other substances. The total value of the mines in Maryland is about $10,000,000 a year, and the state's mineral wealth is placed at above $80,000,000.
From the first, Maryland has found enormous returns from her waters. Their annual yield is placed above ten millions of dollars, one- third being from oysters. The state is now inaugurating an oyster cul- ture scheme which will produce much new wealth. It has the richest oyster grounds in the world, and Professor Brooks has estimated that the product can be made worth two hundred million dollars, or many times as much as all the staple crops of the state. In agriculture the story has been the constant kindness of fertile soil. Today Maryland has 46,012 farms, with an acreage of 5,170,075. The value of each product to the state is, as per census of 1900 :
Wheat
$8,494,000
Corn
7,463,000
Hay and forage
4,709,000
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
Vegetables
4,354,000
Tobacco
1,438,000
Orchard fruits
1,416,000
Potatoes
1,337,000
Small fruits
1,224,000
Miscellaneous products
1,792,000
Total valne
$32,227,000
The animal products are as follows :
Dairy products
5,229,000
Pork. beef and mutton 4,546,000
Poultry and eggs.
3,650,000
Wool
143,000
Honey and wax
39,000
$13,607,000
This total of $45,824,000 for the farm and animal products of the state does not tell the whole story of Maryland's agricultural resources. There is now at work a wonderfully active campaign in horticulture- and the 400,000 acres in orchard fruits and vegetables are being in- vreased and the new intensive cultivation is bearing large returns. Maryland has the three banner counties of America in vegetable crops -- Baltimore, Harford and Anne Arundel. The growing of flowers is becoming an important industry. Maryland apples are gaining repute and profit equal to Maryland peaches. At the Jamestown Exposition the Maryland horticulturists and floriculturists took twenty gold, six- teen silver, and thirty-eight bronze medals-an unequalled record. To all of which may be added the value of the fruit products of Maryland, $5,000,000 annually. Maryland's farm property is valued at over *200,000,000.
In this rapid survey of the state's growth we have secured a few Menpses of the different elements entering into the population, but ::. y have not told the whole story. Since the Civil war, Maryland's :. ; ulation has undergone a great change. There have been acquisi- from the North and from the South, from Canada and from i .. .! ", until it has a true cosmopolitanism. At the same time, the ! !! \. interests remain in the majority. In the figures of the census ! : 1900, of the total population of 1,188,044, the native-born num- ł. ... 1.001,110, while the foreign-born numbered only 93,934. But of the native-born many were from other sections of the country.
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
There were in the state 235,064 negroes. Maryland's population has increased every decade since it began with 200 in 1634. By 1660 it had 12,000. In 1710 it had 25,000; in 1748 it had 130,000; in 1790 it had 319,728. The following table is given for two reasons: First, to show the growth of state and city; and second, to show the steady trend to the city, demonstrated in the growth of Baltimore's population :
Census Years
Maryland's Population
Baltimore's Population
1790
319,728
13,503
1800
341,548
26,514
1810
380,546
46,555
1820
407,350
62,738
1830
447,040
80,620
1840
470,019
102,313
1850
583,034
169,054
1860
687,049
212,418
1870
780,894
267,354
1880
934,943
332,313
1890
1,042,390
434,439
1900
1,188,044
508,957
The city's increase has been far in excess of the increase of the state. That is to say, Baltimore has rapidly taken the bulk of Mary- land's growth. In 110 years the state's population increased from 319,728 to 1,188,044, while Baltimore's increased from 13,503 to 508,957. Of Maryland's increase of 868,316 Baltimore absorbed 495,- 954. And if Baltimore could take in its immediate suburbs its figures would increase at least one hundred thousand. Moreover, we have in Maryland thirty-two cities and towns with an aggregate population of 124,084, fully one-half of which population has accumulated within the past fifty years. Thus we have a most interesting illustration of the urban growth which is characteristic of most of the old American states. In Maryland it must be said that it has not diminished the value of the rural sections materially, as the gross wealth of the state shows a healthy increase each year, the assessed valuation of the whole state now icaching $794,929,222, of which $474,079,523 is for Balti- more City.
These figures, of course, also help to accentuate the importance of Baltimore as the chief city of the state. Baltimore, however, is even more than that. It is the metropolis of the South, with a southern trade that reaches all the way to the Gulf, with coastwise steamers ply-
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
ing from the West Indies to Maine, with an interior water commerce of twenty-five hundred miles, and with the increasing trade of three great systems of railroads. The city has wealth of over a billion dol- lars. It has two hundred millions in its financial institutions; it has become one of the great educational centers of the world; and it is reaching out more and more for industrial leadership. Baltimore's splendid history would fill many volumes, but its latest and best chap- ter dates from the fire of February 7, 1904, when 98 city blocks and water-front sections were destroyed; when 139.90 acres were burned over, 1343 buildings were consumed, 2500 businesses lost their homes, and when there was a loss of $125 000,000 with insurance of $50,000,- 000, of which $32,000,000 was paid. From that time began the build- ing of the Greater Baltimore; and so far more than $30,000,000 has been appropriated for public improvements. The burnt district is rebuilt with wider streets, superior buildings, a new dock system, and an improvement in every department of city operation and administra- tion. In the face of one of the greatest disasters of modern times the city held its trade, and it has since increased it in every direction.
We have seen that Maryland devoted itself to agriculture, fishing and commerce until the Revolutionary war. Its manufacturing was some iron, some rough clothing, some distilling and some grinding; but the total was insignificant. After the Revolution, agriculture thrived again and commerce increased. The War of 1812 paralyzed the shipping for six years. After peace came a larger trade upon the seas, with more profits than ever, with rich cargoes from all parts of the world, and fortunes in rum, molasses, tobacco and slaves. In the first half of the nineteenth century Maryland gave its credit to internal development-to canals and railroads-and so liberally did it spend the public money that the state government was on the verge of bank- ruptcy. But it weathered the storm and passed safely through the crisis; and the investments it made, while yielding little but loss to the public treasury, enriched the state by the facilities it gave for the transportation of the products of the people, and especially by the at- tractions offered to new settlers, who came in numbers from England, Germany and Ireland. There had begun an industrial growth, modest in proportion and somewhat scattered at first, but healthy and promis- ing. It furnished locomotives and railroad supplies, ships and other important things, and the Civil war drew largely from Baltimore work- shops. After the Civil war industry sprang into new life, and after
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
forty years we have found that the future of the Maryland people must be to a very great extent along industrial lines. How clear this is we may see by consulting the latest census figures, those of 1905. This census of 1905 was partial, but it showed that in 3827 manufacturing establishments there had been an increase from $210,795,624 in 1900 to $243,375,996 in 1905, with an increase also of twenty-five establish- ments. The census of 1900 found the products of Maryland's 9879 establishments to be $242,552,990. The same ratio, therefore, brings the total manufacturing product of Maryland at the present writing to about three hundred million dollars, of which fully two hundred and fifty millions are in and immediately around the city of Baltimore. In passing, it may be said that Baltimore's trade is calculated to be about four hundred and fifty million dollars annually ; so that the trade and manufacturing added brings the total of seven hundred millions a year for the metropolis of the South.
Taking the leading industries we find the following in the year 1905: Canning and preserving, $12,686,711; cars and railroad-shop construction, $5,751,908; men's clothing, $19,654,916; women's cloth- ing, $3,195,498 ; cotton goods, $5,244,742 ; fertilizers, $6,631,763 ; flour and grist-mill products, $7,318,212; foundry and machine-shop prod- ucts, $9,172.034; furniture, $3,445.168; iron and steel, $12,230,409; liquors, $7,533,098; lumber and timber, $6,167,452 ; paper and wood pulp, $3,296,348 ; printing and publishing, $5,493,112; ship building, $4,541,165; shirts, $5,998,249 ; slaughtering and meat packing ( whole- sale), $6,332,914; tinware, coppersmithing and sheet-iron working, $6,833,452 ; tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, $4,648,003.
Maryland's financial record is one of the bright particular chap- ters of its history. As early as 1790 the Bank of Maryland was estab- lished, being one of the first chartered banking institutions of America. Following came the Bank of Baltimore in 1795, and a branch of the Bank of the United States. The combined capital of these banks ag- gregated about $2,000,000, which was not ample enough to handle the trade of the state. By 1807 more banks had been established, and the capital had risen to $2,500,000. In some of these institutions the state of Maryland was a stockholder to the extent of one-tenth to a third of the capital. There was a tax of onc-fifth of one per cent on the banks' capital for schools, and the banks were required to build turnpikes through the state, securing the ownership of the roads, with the privi- lege of levying tolls.
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
The state banks in the first half of the nineteenth century had their difficulties, but as a rule they came through the ordeals with great credit. Just before the close of the Civil war Maryland's bank- ing changed for the most part to the national system, and its success can be measured by the fact that during the past sixty years there has not been a bank failure of any importance in the state. Deposits in the financial institutions of Baltimore, which include the national banks, the state banks, savings banks and the trust companies, are about $200,000,000.
In 1635 the colony of Maryland exported a large eargo of Indian vorn to England. This illustrates in an interesting manner how facts recur in the history of the state. There were years in which Maryland sent no corn, but for the past half-century its exports have increased until now they reach a total of 20,000,000 bushels a year, and make Baltimore, next to New York, the largest corn-exporting port in the world. Maryland knew copper mining in the early days, and one of the great industries of Baltimore today is found in its copper mills.
In the twenty years from 1882 to 1902 the tonnage that entered Baltimore was 20,176,000. The tonnage that cleared for other places was 23,444,000, and this represented a commerce that touched prac- tically every article made or used by mankind. So important has the trade grown that the government has spent nearly $5,000,000 in pro- viding to the harbor of Baltimore a ship channel thirty-five feet deep and six hundred feet wide, one of the finest in the world.
Baltimore's relative position in commerce has shifted. In 1890 it was sixth in foreign trade; in 1900 it was third, being the second in exports and fifth in imports. Its foreign trade ranges from $110,000,- 000 to $140,000,000 a year. Its coastwise trade is more than double its foreign trade. '
In 1905 Maryland canned the extraordinary quantity of 437,585,- 552 pounds of vegetables. An unusual fact in Maryland's present his- tory is that, in spite of the competition in the West in the flour and grist industry, there are in this state 202 mills turning out over seven million dollars' worth of pre lucts every year. The industrial future of Maryland, and especially of Baltimore, is well assured by the near- ness of the raw materials, by the reliability of the labor, and by the desirability of the climate. Most of the bituminous eoal of America lies below Maryland, and Baltimore is the nearest of the manufactur- ing cities on deep water.
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THE GROWTH OF MARYLAND
In other directions Maryland has acquired a splendid equipment of most of the things that make for progress. Most of the direct taxes imposes go to the support of a fine public school system, on which about four million dollars are spent annually. There are all grades of schools and colleges, reaching up to the Johns Hopkins, the leading university of America, and to the Johns Hopkins Medical School, which is called the best medical school in the world. Thus there are attracted to Mary- land thousands of students and many new settlers, who are making their permanent homes in this state because of the peculiar advantages which it has to offer. And of all this new life Baltimore is the center.
There has come, both in the city and state, more enlightened policy in public work and administration. The city is undertaking its public improvements on advanced lines; and in the end it will have systems of parks, sewerage and docks comparable with the best in Europe. At the same time the state has undertaken a broad program .. It is safeguarding health by erecting splendid institutions. Its new oyster survey is a venture of large significance for the future. It has begun an expenditure of five million dollars for good roads. Mary- land is now practically out of debt; and while among the American states it is thirty-seventh in area, it is first in some important respects and is fifteenth in wealth.
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Vary, truly yours Prichard A Caminar
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RICHARD HATHAWAY EDMONDS
R ICHARD HATHAWAY EDMONDS is editor of the Manu- facturers' Record of Baltimore, which for more than a quarter of a century has been devoted to the material development of the South and Southwest. and which has come to be perhaps the most widely quoted industrial paper in the world.
Mr. Edmonds was born at Norfolk, Virginia, on the 11th of Octo- ber, 1857. His father, Reverend Richard Henry Edmonds, a Baptist minister, died in 1858; his mother, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth ( Ashley) Edmonds, is still living in the enjoyment of perfect health. He was the youngest of three children. On both sides, his ancestry is traced to early English settlers in Virginia. The family moved to Baltimore in 1871. For three years Mr. Edmonds attended the public schools. In 1876 he secured a position as clerk in the office of the Journal of Com- merce of Baltimore. Later he became bookkeeper, and afterwards one of its editors. In 1882 the Manufacturers' Record was established with Mr. Edmonds as editor, for the purpose, as stated in its first editorial, of making known to the world the natural resources and the industrial and commercial possibilities of the South. The publication of the Record began in 1882, with desk and quarters in a corner of a business office; and Mr. Edmonds was not only editor, but bookkeeper and busi- ness manager, and the one desk was all that was needed. His brother, Wm. H. Edmonds, a few months after the establishment of the Manu- facturers' Record, became a partner in the enterprise as business man- ager; and the brothers were thus associated until the death of William II. Edmonds in 1898.
On July 5, 1881, Mr. Richard H. Edmonds married Miss Addie L. Field, daughter of ... W. Field, of Baltimore.
Mr. Edmonds is an active member of the First Baptist church of Baltimore, and a trustee of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville, Ky.
Such in brief are the personal facts of Mr. Edmonds' life. His career, though, is really embodied in the history of the Manufacturers' Record. Of his work through the Manufacturers' Record the Atlanta
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RICHARD HATHAWAY EDMONDS
Georgian of December 24, 1909, said : " Of all the friends and helpers the South has ever had, there has never been one who has worked more ceaselessly for the material advancement and general welfare of this section than Richard Edmonds. Mr. Edmonds' phenomenal grasp of the South's resources and possibilities has fired courage in the breasts of men and capital that has opened mines, that has started mills, that has built homes, so countless and impossible to estimate that genera- . tions unborn will reap harvests of prosperity for centuries to come from the seeds sown by this man's hand."
There are few instances of the strong and beneficial influences of a journal in making known to the inhabitants of a great section of the country its economic and industrial possibilities, and in advocating systematically the building up of manufacturing and other enterprises, which can at all compare with the influence of the Manufacturers' Record in the past quarter of a century. From the outset Mr. Edmonds proposed to keep constantly before the manufacturers, the capitalists and the business men of this country and of Europe the one great fact that the South is the most promising field in the world for the invest- ment of money, for the development of mineral, timber and agricul- tural resources-in fact, that in the South is a territory of unlimited possibilities. Nearly a generation has since passed and now the propo- sition is advanced and maintained by many manufacturers and busi- Less men, and agriculturalists throughout the South and Southwest, that " no other section of this or any other country ever had such broad and systematic work for its development carried on " by any publica- tion as the Manufacturers' Record has been doing for the South.
The opportunity for this work became apparent when, in the fall of 1881, Georgia planned and carried through with perfect success its Atlanta Cotton Exposition, as much a revelation to the South, with the close of the war but sixteen years in the background, of its own potentialities as it was to the rest of the country of the wonderful progress the South had made from ruin. The exposition revealed a kindly feeling between the business men, the manufacturers and other substantial citizens of the North and the South. Exhibitors from dif- ferent parts of the country found immediate profit at Atlanta, and the promise of steadily increasing gain. Under their first definite impres- sion of the great and varied natural wealth of the South which would ultimately make that section one of the most prosperous portions of the world, they became active propagandists for the South. Their
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RICHARD HATHAWAY EDMONDS
friends and associates, as well as their competitors, were amazed at their well-confirmed stories of Southern achievement and Southern hope. In their strong demand for further detailed and accurate in- formation of the special nature which could hardly be expected to be given in the crowded columns of the daily press the opportunity for the Manufacturers' Record was recognized and seized, and the weekly journal was born to give prompt facts about the South and to be per- sistent as an agency for bringing into close touch fluid capital seeking remunerative and safe investment and fertile lands, productive mines and other natural wealth and for cultivating among alert and sagacious men of this country and of foreign parts the conviction that the South was to be of greater and greater importance as a contributor to the nation's welfare, and that of necessity, for the good of all. there should be harmonious relations among all sections.
It was really not a venture. It was an expression of unbounded faith based upon accurate knowledge. It was warmly welcomed as the most effective force yet discovered for the dissemination of informa- tion about the South and the cultivation of a sane and liberal public opinion concerning the vast possibilities of this rapidly developing section of the country. This reception given it in other parts of the country supplemented that of the people of the South and Southwest. who in ever-increasing numbers gave practical endorsement of the paper " as a new and most effective force for the advancement of their section." As the years passed, the work of the Manufacturers' Record broadened. It sent out specialists in geology, mineralogy and forestry, who traveled through undeveloped regions in the South and South- west, and wrote for it reports of the possibilities of these regions. Im- provements in agriculture which would have an especial value for large districts of country in the South, and inventions which would facili- tate the industrial development of the South, were followed carefully and described and commended to its readers with the express effort to adapt the suggestions and the inventions to definite sections of the South. Every new industrial enterprise which was undertaken in the Southern States has been promptly recognized in the special depart- ments of the paper established to cover all the branches of Southern resources and progress.
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