Much is being said these says, and more is inferred about “Williamsport waking up” and “getting busy,” “pulling together,” with the use of like figures of speech that imply a scarecrow condition of things which neither facts nor fancy justify. It is such preachments as these in the half sepulchral tones in which they are made these days that needlessly frighten and dishearten.

As a matter of fact there is nothing organically wrong with Williamsport, there was never a time in all her history that her workmen were more busily employed; her merchants but closed a year than which none was better in even volume of business; her banks show a remarkable increase in the number of depositors, while the resources of these institutions in the aggregate, show a truly wonderful conservation for a city of this size; the building operations of last year were very substantial and already the outlook for this year is ordinarily hopeful: the Board of Trade is no less effectively fixed to work, nor any the less watchful in the promotion of the city’s welfare than before, the city government is in safe hands; a quite substantial amount of public improvements is slated for this summer; the city has lost nothing of prestige in the matter of healthfulness; local businesses have been and are being enlarged.

By this spirit of groaning and complaining and sighing now being engaged in, we are doing more to dishearten ourselves and becloud the horizon of the future, then any outside forces could possibly do.

We need a courageous assertion of the inalterable faith in the ability and security of Williamsport, an appreciation of the undeniable fact that Williamsport has not only held its own during these recent years’ industrial quietude, but there has been a substantial advance and that its face is squarely toward the sun of progress, its heart imbued with the buoyancy of hope, and its hands busily engaged in fashioning growing greatness.

Compiled by Lou Husinger Jr.