The Augusta Courier

South Destined To Be No. 1 Region In Few Years-Herman

ATLANTA, — "The picture of progress and prosperity which the future holds for the South is one of grandeur which far surpasses the wildest dreams of the most ambitious leaders of 20 years ago. Within our lifetime, we can expect to see here in our State of Georgia and in her sister states of the South the development of a balanced agricultural and industrial economy which will place our region in the forefront among all the great areas of this nation."

Thus declared former Gov. Herman Talmadge in addressing the recent Georgia Press Institute held in Athens under the co-sponsorship of the Georgia Press Assn. and the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism.

But the former chief executive, now a practicing attorney in Atlanta, doesn't think the real story behind the South's great industrial progress has been adequately told outside the region. He said this is because "many of the nation's newspapers and magazines are more interested in building circulation than in telling the truth." On that theme he said:

"The popular reports of Southern advancement circulated nationally, with a few notable exceptions, either fail to take into account or ignore the dynamic new forces which are at work shaping a new destiny for Dixie."

National magazine and newspaper reports lead the casual reader to believe that "the New South" is progressing in spite of itself. when the truth is that the South's industrial progress is really the result of "intelligent leadership, coordinated effort and applied technical knowledge," the former governor asserted. He
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South Destined To Be No. 1 Region In Few Years Herman

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said such publications "substitute sensational accounts of political battles and racial adjustments for the truth."

Talmadge congratulated Georgia's newspaper editors and publishers for their contribution to progress, made through their editorial columns, and urged them to "continue without letup to champion the cause of economic advancement in all fields."