Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1884-03-15
Western Farmers to the South.

South, as is my custom nearly every
winter. l live in that portion of our
country that John G. Nicholson of Mt.
Meigs, Montgomery county, Ala, calls
"The West" wish to say to the
gentleman from Alabama that we, the
farmers of the West, have prospered
and accumulated wealth faster for the
past twenty years than ever before,
and the greater part of the renters of
twenty years ago now own good but
small farms. can stand in my own
door and see thirteen good, nice frame
houses with large barns full of the pro-
ducts of the different farms. A large
per cent. of these Improvements have
been built inside of these twenty years,
and 10 this time the county has built
over five hundred miles of turnpike
roads and paid more to dig large bitches
for farmers to run their tile bitches inN
to than the turnpikes cost, and built a
courthouse that cost two hundred and
thirty thousand dollars. The turn
pixies are free and kept in good condi-
ton by a small tax, and the county is
out of debt. Besides, the farmers of
the county have spent quite a large
sum in laying their low lands with
tile.
Our county taxes have necessarily
been high all this time, but I can say
that 80 per cent. of our farmers are
out of debt, and have a surplus in bank.
We have raised a variety of farm pro-
ducts, with stock for sale, and prices
have been good, and we have pros per-
ed, and had thought until we read in
the Louisville Courier journal, of
March 8, the letter of said Nicholson
that the tariff, so obnoxious to this
Albanian, was the great factor in our
prosperity. We have most certainly
made greater per cent. on the money
invested than the manufacturers.
The great secret in NUTSHELL that
we help each other. They need our
surplus, and we buy their wares. We
tried q low tariff under the Pierce an d
Buchanan administrations, and Cali.
fOrnia was digging her millions of gold,
but it all went with our products
across the ocean as a bonus that our
industries might be sacrificed to build
up foreign nations. | was then. with
the low tariff party but the practical
workings of the tariff of the past
twenty years has made me of the Hew.
lit and Randall school.
Let me say to this Albanian thai
the Western farmers are practical men.
There is prosperity over the West
North and East and all portions of the
South where factories and mining en-
terprises have been started, and the
farmers come in for the lions share O.
this prosperity. could see it plainly
at Nashville. All farm products hat
a ready sale at good prices also a
Birmingham, Atlanta, Columbus, Au
gusta and other localities. But in many
other localities, where there were nj
factories the farmers were respondent
Nicholson would kill the goose tina
lays the golden egg. With the superi
or advantages of the Southern States
now on the eve of drawing thousand
of men and millions of money to worl
up new industries that would make tn
farmers laugh with joy, what a Grim
of self-destruction
There would be no use to plead
want of knowledge, when we have ha,
twenty years of the practical working
of protective tariff, with the result
! from Maine to California, of prospect
ty in all our industries. The farmer
are receiving benefits which have n
. precedent since the world began.
| l wish to say to the low tariff me
of the South that the cause of thei
trouble is not the tariff, but halle
. they have placed around their ow
necks. They raise cotton, we furnis
them their supplies, and the merchan
charges them large per cent. to wal
I yearly for their pay. Besides nearl
! everything used South in the manufaC
tured line comes from the North an
West, and when they sell their cOtto
onl olo,o 49,, 4bosr x,oor,, ooon,,-k Al