The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-06-23
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Arp Says that Patience will Bring all
Things.
atlanta Constitution.
"Watchman tell us of the night"

not even diagnosed, but the patient is
getting we'll. Neither Cleveland nor
anti Cleveland nor Mckinley nor the
tariff nor populism has had anything
to do with it. Time is the medicine,
and when time cures patient he stays
cured a good, long period. | had
rheumatism several years and the
doctors worked on me until they got
tired and quit, but old Doctor Time
came along, and after a while the
rheumatism just quit me and went
away of it's own accord. For six years
we have all been cussin' and fussin'
and discussin' about the disease that
afflicted the country. Every politician
had a cemedy, but somehow the people
have lost confidence in our so-called
statesmen and their medicine won't
stay on the stomach. A frst-class
politician can argue the leg off an iron
pot or the spots off leopard. I heard
Alec Stephens make a great speech
away back in the 4O's and he proved
that the democratic party was respon-
sible for all the calamities that had
befallen the country for twenty years,
even to the high price Of cotton and
the low price Of cotton and the yellow
fever in Savannah.
I was Illuminating about this because
I have been travelling around a good
deal of late, and if the times are not
better, then all signs deceive me.
Farming is claimed to be the founda-
ton Of all prosperity--the mudsills Of
the building-and if SO, then I know
the times are improving, for the dill
gent farmer is prospecting everywhere
in the sunny south outside of floods
and cyclones. The crops in South
Carolina are we'll advanced and prom
Using. Harvest is at hand in north
Georgia and Tennessee, and was never
better. Everything the farmer grows
commands a fair price, and everything
he has to buy is cheap. The price of
wheat and corn and hay is better than
it was from 1880 to 1890-wheat at
s1.00 per bushel, hay at s1.O0 a hun
dred, corn at so cents, sweet potatoes
at Is cents, irish potatoes at 60;
chickens from Is to 20 cents and wood
at $3.50 a cord. What is the matter
with the farmer? Suppose his cotton
is down to 7 cents, he can make
money on it at that. A man at Union,
S. G., told me he made last year 300
bales on 800 acres, anG cleared So 5000.
How is that ? When I was a young
merchant cotton averaged about9 cents
a pound corn 40 cents a bushel ;
wheat75 cents, potatoes rs, wood $l.OO
a cord. Shifting and calico were l23
cents a yard, sugar and coffee IL!
cents a pound. Iron was 5 cents, and
steel Is cents and nails 8 cents. Now
all these things except coffee are half
price, and all that the farmer grows
for sale is 25 per cent higher, except
cotton. But still he is not happy.
Up north, of course, it's different, for
it takes all they make in six months
summer to support them the six winter
months.
I am sorry for those people, that is
for all the clever ones, and wish they
could sell out to the fanatics and fools
and come down here to this blessed
land. Their laboring class who have
no land and work about for wages say
they arc not coming, for they can get
$25 a month up there and we pay our
negroes only SO. That so. That's
the way it is put down in the last
census. But the census don't tell
how the farm laborer up there is
wanted only three months and the
other nine he jobs it around for little
or nothing, and it takes his last nickel
to keep from freezing to death. And
the census don't tell how our negro
laborers on the farms get their wages
all the year round and get a comforta-
BILE cabin rent free and have no fire.
wood to buy and every family has a
garden and they raise chickens and
eggs and a pig or two and have scraps
enough from their table to support
two hound dogs and a fee. Besides
all this, they bait holes in the creek
and catch suckers by night and hunt
rabbits on Sunday. Talk about our
cheap labor. There ism q respectable
negro man in Barlow county who isn't
better off and happier than the average
farm laborer at the north. That is
one good thing the negro has done for
the south. He has intimidated the
northern scurf and the foreign scurf
and kept them away. I saw in the
columns of the Constitution not long
ago a statement in figures that was
taken from a Boston paper showing
that since 1990th III foreign population,
inclusive of their children born since
their arrival, has increased IS per cent
in New England, while the natives
have increased but 6 per cent in all
that time. The exact figures were
given. Isn't that awful? New Eng
land had just as we'll give up their
time-honored and historic country re-
ligion and all to these foreigners.
When I was in Nashville the other
day Hooked with pride at the exhibits
of our southern industry that greeted
me everywhere. In a former letter l
made special mention of the magni6-
cent display of the Nashville and
Chattanooga railroad hat includes
the Western and Atlantic railroad Of
our State. But our other southern
roads are cmulating Major Thomas
example, especially the Georgia rail
road, whose exhibit makes every
Georgian feel proud, Besides the
beautiful show Of grain, fresh from
the harvest fields, there are minerals
of almost every kind from the granite
of Stone Mountain to the gold and
precious stones of Hall county. just
imagine a solid granite obelisk split
out in the rough and unhewn that is
forty feet high and five feet square at
the base and that weighs 10000
pounds. Then there is the Louisville
and Nashville, and the Plant system.
and the Seaboard Airline that the
wondering visitor will not fail to see
Well, now, of course, everybody
knows that every la and corporation
and State will show up the very bcs'
they have got, for that is just human
Any good old country woman will put
the cleanest eggs and the finest apples
on top of the basket when she goes t.
town. But if the average products Of
orr ministry and II are nearly