The Bluffton News

Welcome To Ex-Cell-O

This issue of The Bluffton News brings an announcement many have anticipated for several months. The town is to have a new industry. From a news standpoint, this is a highlight worthy of dusting off the shop's largest headline type. The announcement will have a far-reaching effect on this community.

The Ex-Cell-O company, a manufacturing concern with which Bluffton is already well acquainted, will soon begin construction of a plant, which we are told will employ in the neighborhood of 100 persons. Eventually, if not at once, nearly this many families will be added to the community.

Economically the new industry will mean much to Bluffton. If eventually 100 additional workers make their homes here, it will mean that Bluffton's population will be increased by nearly three times that many. Statistical averages show that for every 100 new workers in a community there are 51 more school children, 107 more autos on the streets. Personal income in the community will be expanded several hundred thousand dollars per year, retail sales will jump, and there undoubtedly will be more retail stores to serve the community.

For these economic changes Bluffton will be thankful. The community no doubt will reflect its more solid financial foundations. It should mean new homes and greater prosperity to a community already blessed with much.

The additional families should eventually also enlarge Bluffton's pool of labor resources to the benefit of already existing industries and others which might choose to follow Ex-Cell-O's example. For example if the new plant, which we are told employs almost entirely men, brings new families here, it will bring women who may also wish to seek employment in the community. This should provide workers for The Triplett Electrical Instrument Co. and The Boss Glove company, where delicate hand operations require mainly the skill of women.

One can count quickly the reasons for a brighter outlook in Bluffton's future which today's important announcement brings. Our citizenry will welcome its new company with open arms.

Bluffton folk, however, should not lose sight of the fact that the arrival here eventually of some 100 new families will mean social changes in the community also. Many will be favorable while others may not be considered so. One thing is certain it will bring change. Fortunately, the number of newcomers is not so great that the process of absorption should be difficult, but undoubtedly problems will be presented as time goes on.

The point of this editorial is that the community is prepared to welcome today's announcement with a great hurrah! It is prepared to rollout the purple mat to the Ex-Cell-O company and to glow with pride in the fact that Bluffton has been chosen for this new enterprise. But it is also to remind that it will bring many changes if it is to bring many new families here, and that one of the community's obligations will be to welcome them with open arms as well as their employers. Here is a great opportunity for our churches and our schools, our women's clubs, and our civic organizations. We must make Ex-Cell-O and its people REAL WELCOME!