The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-10-03
The new SOUTH.
The People Undergoing a Revolu.
tiOn.-New Ideas.

In a recent number of Donahue' s
Magazine, ian excellent journal, by the
way, we find very remarkable and
valuable article, written by "a n orth-
ern Journalist" Under this cogno-
men is prObablS concealed some editor
who does not dare to express his real
convictions over his own name, lest he
should lose his employment. We
make some extracts from his contri-
button which will be found interest
ing reading.
THE Boston Herald, in the course
of recent editorial on the "Souther rn
Farmer" has this to say by way of
fOrecaSt:-
But the Southern farmer. whether in
Virginia or in Tennessee or in the Gulf
states has had inferior labor. to depend
been out of the line of competition for the
best returns to his labor, and, whether he
has raised cotton or corn, he has been
and small returns. The struggle has been
long and arduous, but it is reported by
parties who have had good opportunity to
observe that in Tennessee, in Georgia, and
in Alabama. the southern farmers are be-
ginning to rise out Of their lethargy, are
practicing more rigid economy, and are
making their crops cost much less tha n
they did formerly. The situation is slowly
improving. and the colored people are re-
much better than they used to. All over
the South the farmers are beginning to be
more fOrehanded and progressive"
The Herald has fallen victim to a
fantastic though perhaps harmless,
imagination. The Southern farmer
has not had to depend upon inferior but
decidedly superior labor for the culti-
vation of his crops. The Southern
farmers are indeed "practicing more
rigid economy, and are making their
crops cos: much less than they did
formerly" They are also rising from
their lethargy; but this rising is the
effect of an enforced economy and not
the cause of it. Moreover, 1T is not
The Southern people are doing deal
of economic conditions that demand
an economy so rigid as to exhaust the
endurance of reasoning beings.
The Southern people are to all ap-
pearances fast approaching crisis, in
which they are destined to act prom
inent, if not determining part, in
the national drama, and it is doubtful
if the science of agriculture will be
materially advanced in the process
either. In fact, the South is not
studying rigid economy" so much as
political economy. This remark, how
ever, applies not to the leaders or men
who figure in the newspapers, but to
the great body of the people. The
new energy is not to discover how the
cost Of cotton can be reduced to the
lowest peg, but to discover the secret
of the workings of a business and cur
rency system by which as the seasons
go by, they work harder and grow
poorer. They have tried commercial
fertilizers; they know how to drive a
one-horse planter, and can cultivate
with plow, without the use of
clerk line" and they have tried reduc
ing the wages of cotton hands to so
cents day, and yet they cannot force
the cost of raising cotton below the
market price. 1t is now an open Sc
cret on Southern plantations that
"rigid economy" cannot save the
farmer under these conditions"
How precisely does all this accord
with the condition of our northwest
ern wheat raisers "Rigid economy"
has been followed by mortgage fore
closures. The toiler could not sink so
low that the oppressive conditions did
not follow and destroy him:
And in the lowest deep a lower deep.
Still threatening to devour him, opened
To which the hell he suffered seemed a
heaven"
The writer of the article in question
goes on to show that, with the most
"rigid economy" it costs the southern
planter Scents per pound to raise cot
ton. while the price is and 4 cents
per pound and has been below dur
ing the past year. Twenty-Five years
ago the same planters sold their cot
ton for 10 and 20 cents per pound!
"The South is indeed silent but it's
silence is not slumber."
''In response to the question what
the planters proposed to do about it,
our Georgia friend did not reply in the
language of the Boston Herald that
they are ''practicing more rigid econ
omy, and are making their crops cost
much less than they did formerly"
for it would have been quite untrue.
What he did say was, that 1--WE people
of the South are sinking as fast as
time will permit, and it will be but a
short time before we will be compelled
to tip our hats to the money power"
which being interpreted means that
the farmers propose to fertilize their cot
ton fields ,cith q better grade Of politics.
And this is precisely what the
wheat-raisers of the Northwest pro-
pose to do. There is Gothic saying:
''the best manure for the land is the
brains of the Owner;"-meaning that
intelligence is more valuable than
muscle.
Gas things are now in the Southern
states the man does not Hre that can make
money IN farming there. The price of
cotton has dropped for a quarter of a
century with regularity that elimin-
ateS the element of chance, and point is
to some law of markets that is out of
the reach of fertilizers or any device
of agriculture. 1t is this law that the
planters are looking for"
Precisely the case with wheat rails
ing. And the law sought after by the
planters is,-that as you decrease the
quantity of money in country, the
remainder rises in value; and all other
things, cotton, wheat, ect., sink pro-
portionately. If the price of cotton,
as this writer says, like the price of
wheat, has fallen for a quarter of a
century, with regularity that elm
mates the element Of chance" it is
because quarter of century ago the
great crime of demonetizing silver,
and thus cutting in half the worlds