The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1895-01-08
s~Ooncerning Reform.
COLUMBIA, s. c..
january 9th, 1896.

What about Reform this yearp What
about Reform In farming for instance?
Or is there room for Reform I'm farm
ing2 lis farming all right now? Does
1t pay with cotton at FIVE centsp Idon't
know-never tried 1t but, believe that
1t does pay,-one man,-Out Of every
thousand. Nine hundred and ninety
nine, most of them industrious fellows,
are craving poorer and poorer at it
every day.
A gentleman from Edgefield, every
thing comes out of Edge6eld in these
dismal days, has risen up and told of q
remedy. Bees r his remedy and an
italian Queen" Is one of his indispen-
sables. He advises.a "Station Queen"
some hives and a thermometer, which,
after well shaking perhaps and then
taking, you get rich.
Over In Darlington the enterprising
farmer has turned his lands out to o
ious weeds and is blossoming into q
Capitalist. In plain English he is rails
ing tobacco. He has gone about it in
q business way and his eyes and ears
are open and he has observed and
studied and worked and now he UNDER
stands tobacco as well as Col. Shaw or
Mr.. Blalock understands cotton, or as
we'll as your l%oquacious chap, who
L ~ iii hoIbo aho d bhIO0
thousand year old buggy understands
how to talk life insurance. And that
Darlington citizen and dozens of his
fellow citizens T raking in gold and
silver and paper dollars according as
their tastes incline. The News and
Courier tells of ten acres, Mr.. Chas.
s. McCollonoh's by the way, or which
the decor title sum Of 1892 was
cleared las r-markyou, CLEARED.
Thirty-fivS $ of cotton clear onf0
acres, kinGYs link Of that for a mfa-
ute or ever two minutes. Darlington
county will produce q couple of million
pounds of tobacco this year. And many
men in Darlington will sleep serenely
and dream pleasant dreams as the price
Of cotton goes humping downwards to
the bottom.
The News and Courier has gone over
heart and soul to the hog side of the
question. Youstick to hogs and the bulls
and the bears can't hurt you seems to
be the intelligent opinion of the News
and Courier. "You can't make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear" perhaps, but
If you raise big hogs and plenty Of them
you can have spare ribs and backbones
and o few silks and satins and gor-
geous raiment too, maybe. The News
and Courier has written ONE very in
teresting biographies of noted swine
and has really done valuable service
in arousing the people to an apprecia..
your neighbors had a pig of elepRan-
tine proportions this winter you should
inform the News and Courier of it's
history 80 that other people may profit
by your example. And If you did not
have such a pig buy q little one quick
and convert him into something i'm
mense during the year. The hog ques-
ton is an important n and so long as
the average man must eat meat he
should raise bacon.
Neither bees, pigs or tobacco will
make the times less obdurate, but bees,
pigs and tobacco and two or three
dozen hundred other things all of
which you easily can grow or control
on your farm will make the whole
spite of all that may be said hundreds
OF farmers will go into cotton Just as
deeply as ever again this spring, but
after a while they will learn better.
1t may take two or three years of suf-
fering yet, but people will not go on
repeating senseless rrors forever and
forever.
Here and there and almost every
where the epidemic of poverty prevails
and at the beginning Of this new year
the whole country is having an ex-
tremely bad spell. Still hope is plen-
tiful and strong as ever and even more
elastic than usual. South Carolinians
never starve so far as am informed
and when another Christmas comes
it may be that the dollar crop will be
and hustle and save this spring and
summer and fall and while we are at
it time for thinking on our woes and
disappointments will luckily be scarce.
The farmers by the way are taking
too little interest in politics. Perhaps
the remark sounds funny, but, no mat
ter, it's o fact. Time was not so long
ago when it was proclaimed that the
farmers, ignorant of their strength,
slumbered while a few lawyers man
aged all the affairs Of the State. 1t
was true in part, or perhaps it is more
accurate to say that it was not wholly
untrue. And now something like the
same condition is about to come upon
them again. Not that the farmers are
slumbering,-by no On the
fully active and aggressive in politics.
But are their eyes open? Do they see?
Do they for an instant suspect that the
''lawyers" are in the saddle again?
That the lawyers, smart, keen, clever
chaps with funds of affability, and sleek
as some old lady's cat have captured
the Reform movement? It's a fact
whether my statement is believed Or
not. The house of representatives
which met last month, for the influence
it had in legislation had just as we'll
have not come together at all. If it.
did anything, If it enacted a bill to re-
quire the railroads to furnish separate
cars for whites and blacks, If it re-
duced salaries, why the Senate without
a word of debate buried out of sight it's
puny efforts to make laws. And the
Senate was dictated to by four lawyers,
genteel, swedish, oily coons they were,
and with two or three exceptions the
plain old farmers with heads full of
common sense, but slow to catch on,
had nothing to say and would not have
been listened to If they had tried to
speak. The journals of the Senate and
House will prove what 1 say. Four
lawyers were complete masters and
bosses of the situation.
AS to the election for delegates to
the constitutional question, one thing
is certain. Unless the factions are
willing to compromise the warmest
campaign of years is ahead of us. A
campaign which will do inestimable
harm to the State and at the end leave
her poorer and more helpless than she
Is. 1t Is far from certain which side
would win. Possibly the fact that O
new and general registration of all
voters is to be permitted would give
the Conseryatives the adya