Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-08-13
D. B. CULBERSON.
Extracts from His Honey Grove
Speech Of August 5.
THE CRY FOR MORE MONEY.
A Change Needed in the Industrial Condi-
lions Before Genuine Prosperity
Can be Restored-How 20
Go About 1t.
Correspondence Of the Gazette.

HONEY GROVE, FASNIN COUNTY, TEy.,
Aug. 6.-Ihe following extract is from the
speech of Congressman CulberSOn at Honey
Grove August ,, where some five thousand
people of Lamar and Fannin counties were
assembled:
But fellow citizens, while the depression
that prevails among Southern farmers may
be mitigated by the free coinage of silver
and such supplemented issue of legal ten
der notes as may become necessary from
time to time, you must know that genuine
prosperity cannot be restored to our South
ern agricultural interests until the indus
trial conditions which now exist are rad
ically changed.
propose to submit, briefly, the controll-
ing reason for this proposition.
The treasury department estimates tn at
the volume of circulation amounts to S24 per
head, exclusive of reserves in the treasury.
But while this may be approximately true,
it does not represent the actual situation.
The experts say that the amount of circu-
lation in the South, npon an average the
year round, will not exceed 81 per head,
while in the North it ranges from so to $50
per head.
1t results foom this condition that money
commands from 10 10 20 per cent interest at
the South, and from TO d per cent at the
North.
If the money received by the farmers at
the the South tor the cotton crop would re-
main, for the most part among US the cry
for more and cheaper money would be ma-
terialiy lessened.
What becomes of the proceeds of our
great cotton crops2 They are used. largely
to buy what we do not raise or make.
The North is thetmain beneficiary of our
cotton crops and other raw materials.
We eypend our money for the product
manufactured from the raw materials
which we produce.
1t follows that we have an annual famine
in the circulation. Has it not occurred to
You, that the South is maintaining 4 very
unequal struggle with the North in the
production of wealth and that we must re-
main comparatively poor, is long as the
conditions upon which the struggle is now
carried on exist!
The North employs the great auxiliary
agencies. steam and water power, of human
skill and intelligence in the production of
wealth, while the South relics upon human
muscle and the power of the mule.
We furnish the raw material produced,
Il the main, by human and animal power.
The North takes them from us and con-
verts them into the finished and manufac-
tured products by the agency Of steam and
water power. and these are sold to Us, plus
the freigh; both ways, at a profit to the
North of 200 to 1000 per cent over the value
of the raw materials. We are the best Gus
toners of the North in the consumption of
products manufactured from the raw mater
ials produced by US.
The South is so eager to raise cotton for
our friends at the North TO manufacture
into clothing for US, that we have almost
ceased TO rely upon our corn and wheat
lands for meal and flour and the production
OF bacon has become lost art.
Should there be any cause for aStonish-
ment, that during all the year round. there
is a volume of circulation among our North
ern brethren from SO to $50 per head while
we must starve and struggle with the mea-
ger sum OF 81 per head, This condition Will
exist in some degree as long Us our smoke
house is in Kansas and our wardrobe in
Rhode Island.
How are we TO account for these economic
conditions?
The fault that they exist at all is not Alto
gether with US. The war destroyed the
great bulk of Southern capital, and we have
been too poor TO compete with the North in
manufactures. Our system of labor at the
South before the war did not invite the in
vestment OF money in these great indus
tries, aud consequently they were planted
at the North
There was an irrepressible conflict, so TO
speak, between slavery and manufacturing.
Why Go these great plants still remain
for the most part at the Northl Slavery
has been abolished for more than quarter
Of q century.
The great controlling reason is the high
protective tariff. If the tariff was reduced
TO free-.rade basis, which is a tariff for
revenue only, the conditions which / have
spoken of would rapidly disappear.
II the manufacturers of the North were
compelled by q just and fair tariff to COM
pete with foreign manufacturers for the
American market-especially the great
Southern market-we would soon have 4
fair proportion of these great industries re-
moved 10 the South, near our great cotton
fields and hills OF superior iron.
The existing tariff destroys competition
from abroad, and domestic competition is