The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-05-02
JOHN ALIENS VIEW S.
TALK WITH THE HUMoRIST ON COT
TOW, CHARACTER, PEACE AND WAR.

Character or JcncrSon Davis cleveland,
Carlisle. ana Bryan Analysed.
WASHINGTON. May 1.-The last humorist in
Congress Is John NJ. Alien OF Tupelo, Miss. or
that State he Is n native from Tishomingo
county, in which is the battlefield OF luka. Born
in 1897. Private Allen is not quite lfty.
He lives In Grant Row, a collegiate square of
uniform brick houses in the rear of the grand
new library OF Congress on Capitol Hill.
~. Allen Is n man Of medium height and
weight. clothed In fne gray Mississippi spun
jeans from the mills at wesson; he has a bald
ish. high forehead high, peculiar back Of the
head. curling dark hair. mustache and stub
beard. gray eyes. caGlish nose. settled, refec-
tive. yet waQGish expression. rs IL one eye was
set serious and the other ambushed. He can
start you laughing and hold himself grim. as
81 he might laugh. too, after n while.
Sitting. down to converse with him. you find
directness, information, naturalness, genuine
cordinlity. and strength of notice which have
made him. perhaps. the most useful man from
the Souti, to dispense prejudice and draw out
Northern mon.
He is q student Of the influence which he
meets. not impatient or o2inionated, n lawyer
who was twice elected Attorney.G Of
Mississippi, has been twelve years In Congress.
and was the peoples favorite for Senator.
About all the seven Mississippi members are
native Mississippians; the State has been
eighty years In tho Union and has thirteen
hundred thousand people.
.'Mr. Allen, has Mississippi q homogeneity Of
~people2"
1.-THE people along the Gulf coast. which is
some eighty miles long, arc divided from the
remainder Of the State BY a hundred miles of
intervening comparatively poor land. north of
which are high lands and prairie and the big
delta Of the Yazoo. Until Of late years tho
Gulf district was not much known to rhe poo-
ple.of. niddle.and upper Mississippi"
"Why has the State not developed some lead
ing cityr"
at is essentially an agricultural State. and
around our borders. Memphis. New Orleans,
and Mobile. in the days Of steamboats,. took
possession Of our most available ports. The
railroads which have como since the war
aimed at terminals beyond us. and in some
cases built up now towns TO the disparaFe-
meat of older ones. Greenville. for instance,
became a conn., etitor of vicksburG. Meridian is
an effective ne v place: TicksburR retains q
population of 5 5000 or 90, 900; Columbus and
Aberdeen. in:my district. are fine towns; Mem
phis. which Is but ten miles over the State line.
Is q large city, growing toward a hundred
thousand. with four of our railroads converG-
ing there. The Mississippi is continuously
followed by o railroad from Memphis through
the entire State. and it Is about q nights ride
IrOm hlompuiS 70 4N0" orlcdns. AlOSI U our
railroads run north and south. and New Or
leans Is directly under the centre OF the State
We are not DO ,sessed Of coal or minerals, which
cause urban populations to assemble"
Have not the railroads led Mississippi to
face north and east instead Of 10 New Orleans?"
THAT Is so. We get Memphis newspapers
in four hours where 1 live: Atlanta anG Chat
tAnooga and st. Louis are not far IN time. and
are within the convenient day hours of travel
which aGect adjacent populations Cincin-
natl. once we'll known to us. seems further
away than Chicago or New York. Louisville,
also. has yielded to st. Louis as our greater
emporium. I thiEk ST. Louis has suffered less
and kept her pace better in these years than
any American city, due in part to the develop D
ment Of interior Missouri, of Oklahoma. and
Northern Texas. and to her liberal manufac-
lures. 1t 10 seldom that our merchants 20 fur
Their from homo than st. Louis: they used to go
to New York for a spree, but commerce Is so
close and competitive now that economy in
travel Is the merchants necessity. We have
been hardly affected ct all by the coal and iron
development at Birmingham. except that Ala
bama coal. which costs some SO. so O ton de.
lIvered to US. has supplanted flrewood. requir.
ing less labor. The town Of Wesson makes
some forty varieties of these dress jeans. which
are sold before they are made, and the supply
10 behind tho demand"
IT'S not cotton Mississ.ppi's dependence?"
"Yes. cotton is what we sell to get money.
! am not certain that we raise enough corn to
supply ourselves, but we raise much more than
we did in the hiRh-priced days of cotton. We
also raise o good many mules. but q mule is
three years in maturing. and the present low
price .of working animals has been TO the ad.
vantage OF the cotton raiser. Cotton stands at
about six cents a pound. With one horse, a
man can attend to several ncres on our prairie:
500 pounds In tho bale. $50. Slavery did the
soil no good when IL made cotton. After tho
war tho high price of cotton brought large
sans of money into the planters hands Mt once
and unsettled his habits; tho merchants who
made advances 10 the planters were caught or
scared and tho contraction caused a revision
of economy, SO that Mississippi, by the educa-
ton of necessity, 10 a happier Stale than she
has been since the war; our emigration to
Texas, Arkansas. &C.. has stopped. and we are
receiving some Northern Immigrants. AL
though q hardy plant. cotton has Its diseases.
and from April, when 1t is put in. till It Is
gathered at cold weather. we have It TO look
after closely.''
Have the Northern immigrants done well?'
mot uniformly. They too often have that
conceit. which leads To a loss of money. that
they are above advice from our old style peo-
pie. No doubt land agents fatter them. They
too often choose poor land. paying q low price
for what turns out to be the worst price. A
popular delusion North is that the Southern
cultvator has not looked into the problem Of
his life; that somebody else can show him his
own Job and do II better"
why do You not manufacturer"
Generally speaking. the first creators Of
manufactures fail and some other persons take
the property and make It pay. So ut Wesson,
with it's now Important factories of cotton
goods, they failed till Richardson. our greatest
cotton planter. got the mills, put in Mr.. Oliver
to manage them, and now they thrive"
Does this not prove that for q time. at. least.
you must protect your factoriesi"
II think II Lroycs there are two kinds OF men.
those who manufacture and fail and those who
look close at the problem and make 1t go"
DO you favor the Government building the
broken leyees OF tho Mississippi V,liey2"
II think ] do not. for the reason partly that
In those. bottoms they raise a bale to two or
more bales per acre. the incentive TO erect their
own levees. Now. shall the upland cotton
raisers who produce q bale to three acres. be
lay0Q 10 reDair The efeyaaRaR nf chair haffar