The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1883-11-15
KING COTTON.
What Tie Has Done and Nigh, DO.

We make the following extracts from
the greatest article II. W. Grady ever
wrote for the Constitution
Ten years ago the South sat in poverty
at the feet of the corn-raisers of the
West and tho changers of the
East.
Her farmers made the cotton crop.
The meat and bread they made it with
they brought from Iowa. The money that
enabled them to buy the bread and meat
they got from New York. Their implc.
ments came from Illinois and Pennsyiva.
MIA. Their fertilizers from tho chemical
works of the East and distant islands of
the ocean. They furnished the ground
and the sweat While they toilcd in
poverty and in the humiliation of depcn-
dence, other people grew rich by feeding
and clothing them, by making everything
ior them, from pins to pianos. In the
meantime the crop they raised from hand
to mouth gave America; the balance of
trade against the world, and made specie
resumption possible. Its manufacture
made New England populous and busy,
and old England mistress Of trade and
commerce. The south grew poorer and
poorer, the soil grew thinner, and farms
and homes more and more tlismantled.
NOW what cotton might do for us, is
this.
With the proceeds of last years cotton
crop, we might have put four cotton
factories where only one stands to-day.
We might have duplicated every shop,
mill, and furnace in the cotton States
and spent fifty million in new industries.
This would have given work to every idle
hand In these States and started q swell.
ing, tide of immigrant artizans who would
lind good wages and steady work awaiting
them. We might have invested besides,
nlty million farm improvements and
stock. After all this We should haye had
more than hundred millions to spare,
from the receipts for one years crop of
one single staple.
There arc three things necessary to be
done.
1st. On the edge of every cotton field
let there stand corn crib and smoke
house Set them in front of the gin
house: Unit! they are filled, never let it
be fed. No amount Of energy or enter.
prise can make prosperous land in
which farming does not mean first of all
things, the making of grain and grass
and meat.
"a. w must manufacture, small things
as well as great, at home. The richest of
farms, no matter how wisely their cropy
are pitched or titled, cannot make pros.
porous land that deals solely with raw
material and pays tribute OH all it uses
to distant workshops and factories.
50. We must stand by our home
industries. No amount Of capital or
skili can build up varied industries in n
thinly populated section, against the
competition Of established industries in
popuious regions, unless they have the
earnest and persistent support of home
constituency.
Here then is work-and glorious work
1t IL, too-for three comprehensive class.
es. The farmers, the manufacturers and
the trading public. The work of each
compenssates the other. The farmer
makes the basis on which the others
buiid. The mechanic gives to the farmer
his implements and supplies and pro.
Tiue5 ioT him n market. They both
maintain the trading public, which in
turn, absorbs or distributes what they
produce. When they have all locked
hands and hearts and sympathies, are
entered the great struggle for Southern
independence, then, aud not till then,
they will achieve victory, the benef.
cence and glory and grandeur Of which
the brave men who died under Lee or
Jackson never dreamed of, and for the
winning of the half of which they would
have esteemed their sufferings we'll en-.
dure0, and their lives we'll lost.