Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-10-01
Onslaught on king Cotton.

The following sensible view of the situa-
ton IS regards King Cotton, we extract
from the Macon Telegraph and Messenger:
King Cotton is as dead financially as
Louis Napoleon is politically, and the
planters themselves here played Bismarck
on him. Under the belief that everybody
else was as eager after cotton as they are,
they have pushed him so Internationally and
perseveringly on the world, that he has
been voted bore, and almost everything
looks him out of countenance. He stands
abashed even in the presence of Missouri
hog, who outvslues him two to one. The
entire assemblage of human crops conspire
to laugh at him, as the only thing a man
can grow which is positively worthless
that is to say, which does not pay the
ordinary prime cost of production, throw
ing in your land capital for nothing.
There is nothing on earth SO dead as
cotton when the spinner and the weaver,
and the fnsnciers and all the middle men
get sick spell on them 1t is like Gil
Bias mule-so poor a creature that man
is almost ashamed to be seen with it. Thus
it happened that Cotton has been worked
by his old friends and patrons from seven
ty or eighty cents to thirteen and a frac-
tion-all in the course of five years; while
with an unexampled iberality we have d.
vided every cent of our profits between the
western stock, meat and grain producers
and the eastern hay and fertilizer men; SO
that none of us have got any thing to show
for the high prices and are RENTED empty
handed to struggle with the low ones.
If we had produced our own supplies and
lived within ourselves, we should this day
have shown big figure to credit-cash in
hand-and what is more, Cotton would
have commanded twenty five or thirty cents
to. day, which is about fair average as
other things go. Why, broom corn is worth
six to eight cents pound and Cotton thir-
teen!
But the day will never come when South
ern cotton growers, as a mass, will reap
the fair reward of their labor; because
when cotton is high they can't afford to
raise food. Corn they will tell you will
only bring ten dollars to the acre, and cot
ton will bring fifty. What shame to raise
corn-of course they can't do it. They will
grow cotton alone, and if cotton prices are
high divide out all their profits between
the food growers and the railways. By this
process they sacrifice all their earnings in
sessions of fair prices-and they ruin the
price. And should cotton get back to
twenty-five cents next spring they would
do it again. 1t is perfectly natural as
well as perfectly fatal course. 1t disarms
and destroys the South financially.
If we had produced abundance of food
since the war, cotton would never have
fallen below thirty cents. Or, if it had
fallen below a remunerative price for a
time, what would it have mattered? We
could have turned the kew on our cotton
bales and waited the world S pleasure: But
now we must yield to an unreasonable
panic and sell to meet obligations incurred
for supplies which we should have raised
at home. We have no option. We are
compelled to sell in a season of panic and
below remunerative prices. In this way
all self protection is lost, and every princi- |
pie of sound economy sacrificed. Cotton
we have no doubt must react and recover |
to some extent, but we are in no condition