St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-11-04
ANOTHER ASSAULTED INDUS
TRY.

Where are the sentinels of the great
farming industry, that they have given
no alarm of the approach of another
enemy of their industry? Are the watch
towers deserted? Do the guardsmen
sleep on their posts? Has the sheen of
silver daZZled and blinded them? Are
they so intent on the movements of the
bulls and the bears that they have
failed to see their pasture bars let down
on the other side, and a strange ANNA
f%attening in the field?
This new adversary comes with nc
mask. makes no false pretenSe. flies no
deceiviug colors. 1t boldly proclaims
its advent in the advertising columns
OF the public prints and announces its
virtues without bashfnlneSs. 1t assumes
no mysterious name of foreign extrac-
ton, but takes On one that reveals its
source. 1t invades IL Kitchens. 1t
enters into the doughnut and the pie
crust; il browns our buckwheat cakes
and shortens our biscuits. 1t comes
with an ariStocratic air, Boosting its
gentler breeding. Itturns up its nose
superciliously at the farm product it
would drive out, and taunts it with It's
unclean. origin.
1t is cottolene. 1t contests the kitchen
field with lard. 1t does it successfully.
Its inroad is beginning to tell. The de-
mand for lard is ieSsened,a nd the price
must diminish. Whence comes it?
From the cotton fields of the rebellious
and c~antankerous South. Its place of
origin is in the black seed that reposes
in thes cotton boil. 1t is picked by
pauper laber; by ignorant and u~nclean
black men and women, who work for
starvation wages, eking out a miserable
existence by night. raids ON their en-
ployerS' hen-rooSts.
And there is no word of protest raised
by the walking delegates of the farms.
The voices that Shrek characterization
are mute. The prophets of the evil
that is to fall on the farms if our Uncle
Samuel stops buying silver, have no
word of i'll omen for the impending de-
struction Of the sty by the i~ll-begotten
extract of the cotton seed. The patriot
farmers that made a furious, repellent
attack On that other competitor of the
b~arnyards product, and drove congress
to the attempt to strangle oleomargarine
by taxation, and scared legislatures into
painting red the innocent face of but
terlne before 1t could face the public in
the markets, are tamely submitting to
the invasion of this enemy of their lard.
If men and women and children
must be denied the use of that
harmless and healthful substitute for
butter in order that the butter
makers of the farm may get a bet
ter price for their product, why should
people not be denied by that puissant
and benign thing, the state, of the right
and opportunity TO use the product Of
the cotton field as a substitute for the
product of the pig sly? Should the
state have the misfortune to have an
other Republican legislature - from
which affiictlon may the good Lord de-
liver u5-bere is a fresh field in which
to gather the laurelS of p%aternal care.
More than that, we suggest that there is
a new campaign cry, a slogan, in it.
The bloody shirt has lost its power to
charm or scare; negro outrages no
longer fire the Northern heart; ''rebeI
brlgadlers" in congress no longer can
be paraded before the voters with fam
ing swords bent on piercing and slash
Ing the constitutions; but here is an in
vasiOn of the North by the South, a con-
quest of one industry of vast import to
us, which is better as a rallying cry than
all the old ones. There is the stirring
throb of the drum beat in the cry:
"Down with cottolene; protection to
lard