October 1954 page 1

Editorial Page

$500 BILLION OPPORTUNITY

Right now America is by far the richest nation in the history of
the world.

Yet, paradoxically, our needs are greater than ever. Because of
our amazingly fast growth -- and the fact that war halted most
civilian construction -- there is a huge backlog of demand for all
types of goods and services. We need schools and hospitals, more
housing, improved streets and highways, and more of all types of
civilian goods.

On top of that, 11,000 babies are being born in America every day
-- enough every month to populate the cities of Charlotte, Greenville,
Spartanburg, Gastonia, Anderson, and Greenwood combined.
All of these babies are good customers for American industry and
add materially to the demand for all types of goods and services.

Experts calculate that there is a backlog of need for new schools
amounting to $40 billion, for new roads and streets amounting to
$60 billion, for new homes amounting to $100 billion, and for
durable equipment and non-residential construction of $300 billion.
That comes to a whopping $500 billion business opportunity for
America in the years ahead. Never has any American at any time
in any place had such good reasons for optimism and enterprise.

This long-range look at America's future is one of the predominating
factors in the growth of new industry in the South and in
other regions of the country which were previously under-developed.
Million-dollar plants are not built or abandoned because of the way
the stock market looks today. They are built on faith in the future.

The future looks good for American industry . . . and it looks
good for the railroads which will continue to be the nation's number
one transportation system.