Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-03-13
WE MUST WORK FOR IT.

More currency is the universal cry
il the South, for carrying on its COM
merce and developing its resources.
Every one admits the great need OF
money, but very few seem to remember
that the products of the farm and the
workshop will buy money as readily
as money will purchase those products;
and fewer still remember that money
can not be kept in any locality which
does not supply itself with all such
articles as make up the conveniences
and comforts Of life. How long the
proceeds of big crop of tobacco or
cotton will remain among those who
produce them, is annually illustrated
by the continued poverty and depend
ence of the South upon the looms and
workshops of its oppressors in the
North. The annual income of the
South is virtually mortgaged, in ad-
vance of its receipt. to the Northwest
for food for man and beast, and to the
Northeast for the clothes we wear and
the brushes to clean them; for the i'm
plements we use in farming and in all
the other industrial vocations which
exc out precarious existence in our
midst-for anything, in short which
smaeks of convenience, or luxury-not
emitting the constantly changing fash
ions which make wives and daughters
a costly luxury to the more successful,
and anything but a blessing to the
hard working. With such abject de-
pendencc upon the energy, skill and
capital of the North, is it any wonder
that money is scarce, and poverty
abundant in the South? Nothing but
the worldwide demand for its great
staples saves it from abolute want, and
nothing but reversal of its suicidal
policy can secure for it, the wealth and
power, the means for which nature has
so lavishly bestowed upon it. To bring
about this indispensable change, plant
ers must create an abundance of food
for man and beast-relying upon cot
ton and tobacco, only for clear gains
and the certain increase of their pecu-
mary prosperity; and the capital
lists must invest more in machinery,
and less in United States bonds
All cotton or tobacco, may bring
in big pile of currency, but it
profits the planter nothing if he pays
usuriOus interest upon advances of
bread and meat, grain and hay as well
as the extortions of railroads and mid
die men. SO far from being prosper
Gus under such policy. he is lucky if
he saves enough from his big pile to
pay hire and taxes-leaving out the
list of losses, his more impoverished
fields and the general wear and tear
and dilapidation which follow time and
needless usage.
Is it any wonder that moneyis scarce
where this policy prevails? Or that
the little they do get will not stay with
them? Instead of clamoring for more
money, they ought to pray for sense to
manage their own affairs and to de-
velOpe the rich resources with which
the South abounds; for the wisdom
and manly pride to adopt policy which
holds out the certain means of neu-
tralizing, if not hurting back, the
curses heaped upon us by brutal Sec
tional despotism. Such a policy is
the great need of the South, and until
it is adopted, there is little chance for
political justice, and still less for that
abundance of currency for which there
is so much clamor with so little justice.