The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-03-01
is 1T


Mr.. WATSON, of Forsyth, has a very
important bill before the legislature. 1t
is "a bill to be entitled an act to license
tobacco warehouses in this state to pro-
tect tobacco growers from fraudulent
combination to reduce the price of to-
bacco sold in such warehouses" The
license tax is nominal, being but 81 per
year, and is levied, we take it, only for
the purpose of bringing the warehouses
within the control Of the law in order
that the provisions of the act may be the
better enforced. The evident design of
the bill is to reach such conspiracies as
the cigarette trust, known to the public
as the american Tobacco Company"
and The Observer wishes MR.. WATSON
godspeed in his righteous crusade. If
the only purpose of this conspiracy was
to keep up or even to further put up the
price of cigarettes we would have no
word to utter against it but while doing
this with one hand it presses down with
the other the price of the leaf tobacco
which goes into the cigarettes, until
what was formerly the best paying grade
of tobacco grown is now raised at a
price but a shade above the cost of pro-
duction. The cigarette trust dominates
the cutter market, and the tobacco raiser
deprived of competition, must take for
his cutters whatever this Internal monop-
oily is willing to give. 1t is not as gen
erous to him as it is to the schools and
churches which it enriches with the
money coined out of his sweat and blood.
1t has reduced the price of his tobacco
an average of about 40 per cent, and the
grower must submit to its terms or go
out of the business-a business to which
his land is adapted and in which, per-
haps, his life has been spent.
We doubt not the Hobbies of the capt.
toll will swarm with lobbyists working
against this bill, but Mr.. WATSON is en-
gagged in a fight for humanity, for even
handed justice and fair play. We again
bid him god speed and c~onjure his col,
leagues in the Legislature to stand by
him and pass his bill.
The above is from the Charlotte OBJ
server, edited by DR.. JOE CALDWELL, a
clever gentleman and one who is able as
a writer and usually levcl-headed. He
says that the bill of CY WATSON, which
means cold and clammy death, or at least
paralysis to all the tobacco towns of this
state, is a righteous measure.
We fear that our friend JOE is infatu
ated with a populist idea and is writing
under some peculiar beguiling, f~ascina-
ting Influence which leads him from the
path of solid sense and which blinds his
understanding to what he ought to do
for his state and for our people. To re-
view his propositions we start:
First, the nominal warehouse tax of
81 90 a year is no hardship and no one
will find fault with that part of WAT
SONS bill.
Second, if the design of the bill, as The
Observer suggests, it is to annoy and
modest the American Tobacco company,
also known as the cigarette trust, then,
we take it, that MIR. WATSON is wrong
in introducing his bill and JOE CALD.
WELL is wrong in endorsing it.
If it be true that the cigarette is an evil,
then why should the farmer so carefully
and fondly nurse the egg which, in the
incubator of the American Tobacco com
pany, matches dissipation, disease and
death?
If this peculiar style of tobacco known
as cutters and which was formerly the
best paying grade" can be used alone for
the death-dealing cigarette, hen why
should the army of tobacco producers
join hand with the Fearful Demon and
abet the transplanting of our living
youths to populate the graveyards of the
country?