W ith the shock of Hydro's closing already fading into a familiar grim resignation, the questions of "why did this happen?", "who we are?", and "what do we do now?", are on everyone's mind. It is interesting to note that 100 years ago those very same questions were being asked, in a similar environment of a community in painful decline. What precipitated that round of soul-searching was the Panic of 1907. Starting in March with a particularly steep stock market crash, it was followed by a banking crisis which decimated local economies across the country. The Ellenville Journal in July of 1907 ran a pair of editorials that seem to apply just as much today as they did then. What is most striking about them is their plea to the readership, the residents of the area, to forge their own future. The call was not to government, or big business, or to anyone outside the area. The call was to one another.

Poor Mr. Owen Moore no doubt lived in a small city or town where he tried to make a living running a store. The people who were his neighbors in that town and on the farms around the town bought most of their things from the great Mail Order Houses, neglecting to trade with Mr. Moore. Quite naturally, Mr. Moore failed in business and went away, owing more than he could pay.

He had to go away and find a location in some town where the people patronized home merchants. Mr. Moore, having been burnt once, would not stick his finger in the same fire again. No, indeed! Mr. Moore would stay away. He would let the old town continue to grow street grass.

Have you been the cause of any Owen Moore tragedies in your town?

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Make this town and country around it your battleground, and then boom! If you boom loud enough, people will come from afar to find out what's up. Then, they will begin booming, and others will come. This is the inside history of every town on earth that amounts to more than a hill of beans.

Booming may be done in many ways. A board of trade can do it. A commercial club or business men's club can do it. You can do it individually. If you don't believe in this town, why do you live here? If you do believe in it, why don't you boom it? When we all boom together, the things we desire to have happen will begin happening.

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