Marion Progress

Will Add One-third Capacity to Present Plant, with Work Starting in January. Fifty More People to Be Employed.

Manufacturer Says Depression Has Been Exaggerated.

That he is an economic optimist, with the belief that business has definitely turned the corner and is on its way up, so much so that he is planning an addition to the Marion Knitting Company's mill, was the sum of a statement made in Marion Tuesday by W. W. Neal, head of the concern.

"We will start work on the addition," Mr. Neal said, "immediately after the first of the year. I am proposing to build the addition, which will add from twenty-five to thirty-three and a third per cent. to our capacity, to the east of the present plant.

"The increase in capacity will enable us to employ about fifty additional workers."

Asked how long he estimated it would require to complete the addition, he replied that inasmuch as labor was plentiful and efficient, with favorable weather, the work should be completed in from thirty to sixty days.

"You believe then," the interviewer asked, "that business is definitely improving?"

"I am convinced of it," the manufacturer answered. "We have magnified this depression, and it has come about from the enormously increased access we have to world news. During other depressions our sources of information were not nearly so complete. Now, if in the center of Germany a little bank fails, the whole world knows it in an hour, thanks to the radio. And we have been literally swamped with pessimistic news.

"There is no doubt in my mind that business is improving, and will continue to improve. The best evidence of the way I feel about it is the fact that we are planning the addition to our plant."

Asked about the economic conditions of Florida, from which Mr. Neal has returned from a vacation jaunt, he said the state is laboring under a heavy bonded indebtedness, and like many other commonwealths is being held back by the burden.

"But I believe," he said, "that Florida is coming back, and will eventually emerge in good financial condition. Just how long the recovery will take I can not say."