The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1884-01-17

| est SectlOn-thlS dependent cOndi-
ton of the south, must be attribut-
cd, in a large degree, to the mistak-
en- policy of laws-our state laws, /
mean, enacted since the war. But
having already written so much, /
will make my suggestion as briefly
and pointedly as / can 1t is to this
effect that all the state laws passed
just after the war to fortify and
stregthen the credit of the planters,
have resulted badly. The country
was poor, everybody was poor, and
the idea was that everybody needed
to borrow means on which to work
to recover the loss Of property.
Therefore, the legislatures in all
the southern states passed such
laws as promised relief Planters
were enabled to mortgage their
growing crops, to give liens on crops
not yet planted, to waive homestead
exemptions, and by all possible ex-
pedients we're put in position to get
credit, and as soon as it was done,
with one accord every man jumped,
you may say, to the end of his rope;
he got all the credit he could. And
l respectfully submit that it Is this
very credit that has kept him poor
and made him cling to cotton as his
only ready-money crop and his only
salvation. He has lost money, and
the men who loaned hin have lost
money, too, in many cases. All
were getting worse off together.
Credit, that may be a good thing
and valuable to a man who is rich
and who can command credit, is on
ly an evil when forced by artificia!
means into the hands of & poor
man. To work upon borrowed
money, and borrowed corn and
mules, and guanO, requires busi-
ness capacity that every man has
not got. He becomes q trader, in
the main sense of the word; apd
the sort of management that makes
successful merchants and traders
is requisite to the profitable use of
credit. We may see every day that
unuccessful traders swamp them
selves and bankrupt their creditors
at the same time.
If this is a true view, credit was
an evil that was abroad in the land
under these new so-called relief
laws. 1t was a rope in the hand of
every man, and he who had not the
management and experience and
skill to make a better use Of it hung
himself with it, and bangles on it to
this day.
Suppose the policy of the laws
had been just the reverse of this,
and, instead of extending facilities
for credit, there had been an effort
to curtail credit, and prevent people
who were not licensed traders from
borrowing money; as, for instance,
suppose the legislature had prohib
tied mortgages, even of lands as
well as of crops, if they could con
stitutionally Ito that (Which 1 dom t
discuss, for only Indicate the ma
ture of the measures suggested) or,
to go further, suppose, instead of
creating new forms of liens o. secU-
rites on which to borrow, they had
abrogated all processes for the col
lection of debts in the courts, and
by one blow cut of every security
except personal honor that factor
of bank or a money lender could |
rely upon to collect his money; and |
left it so that no man could borrow
money unles he had bonds or stocks |
onft,a1 20 I,ln
erty, to pledge for repayment. In
some form or shape, l imagine a
wise constitutional lawyer could |
have devised such a law-one, l |
mean, that would have left traders |
who move the produce of the world |
with their legitimate facilities, but
cut off from credit those whose con
dition would make it hurt instead |
of benefit to them. The result |
would have been reached, after one |
or two years of great hardship, and |
much actual suffering, perhaps too |
much, / cannot tell how much it |
would have been. But it would |
have been a most glorious result, in |
the personal independence of every |
man who survived the ordeal. Every |
tub would have stood on its own
bottom. Every farmer would have |
become self-sustaining then from
necessity. If any could not succeed, |
as for him he would quit farming
on his own hook and work for
wages, living by that means, as half |
the world live now, rather than
starve unsu ccessfully personal farm
ing. If every farm were thus self
sustaining, the whole cotton pro
ducing section would keep at home !
its three hundred million dollars
per annum for cotton sales and for
ever keep absolute control over this
grand article that the world must
buy"
Credit, in the view 1 present, is
the cause and the source of our
evils. The privilege to owe money
does not belong to q poor man in
any walk or condition of life; and
in the free exercise of it his final
ruin is assured; especially when the
privilege is inflated to unreasonable
proportions by laws devised for the
purpose, and every poor farmer is
invited by the laws Of the state to
enter this privilege, and owe all he
can borrow. 1t is one thing to live
on what is your own, and quite an
other thing to live on what is an
others, paying interest on it first.
The balance that is left is what we
keep poor on. Hardly a cotton
field or 4 farm in our borders but
is psying big interest on its value
to somebody, while the toiler de
pends for his living on what is left.
The heaviest of all burdens 10 bear
is debt. Lame back and sore legs
don't compare to it. Few, very
few,men can walk under il and live.
Let US down with debt, and let in
terest be struck out of the language
of the farmer; snd let not the laws
of the state any longer hold open
the doors and invite by easy en-
trance every man to walk into the
slough Of despond. J. II. A.
Consumption Cured.
An old physician, retired from prac-
tice, having had placed in his hands by
an Esst India missionary the formula
OF simple vegetable remedy for the
H.. 4