The Van Buren press., 1897-07-24
TIME AS A DOCTOR.
Arp Says That Patience Will Bring
All Things
1t Beass PO1itician-Bartow Man
Declares That Better Times
Are Now In
Sight.
"watch,nan. tell us of the night"

|
clans nor legislation has done any
good. The disease was not even dag
nosed, but the patient is getting well.
Neither Cleveland nor anti-Cleyeland
nor Mckinley nor the tariff, nor pop
ulism has anything to do with it.
Time is the medicine, and when time
cures patient he stays cured good,
long period. | had rheumatism several
years and the doctors worked on me
until they got tired and quit, but old
DR.. Time came along, and after awhile
the rheumatism just got tired and quit
me and went away of its 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 remedy, but
somehow the people have lost conf
dence in our so-called statesmen and
their medicine won't stay on the stom-
ach. A frst-class politician can argue
the legs off an iron pot or the spots off
leopard. I heard Aleek Stephens make
great speech away back in the '40's
and he proved that the democratic
party was responsible for all the ealam-
tiles that had befallen the country for
20 years, even to the high price of cof-
fee and the low price of cotton and the
yellow fever in Savannah.
was Illuminating about this because
| have been travelling around good
deal of late, and if the times are not
better then all signs deceive me. Farm
| ing is claimed to be the foundation of
all prosperity-the mudsills of the
building--and if SO, then | know the
times are improving, for the diligent
farmer is prospecting everywhere in the
sunny south outside of floods and cy-
clones. The crops in South Carolina
are well advanced and promising.
and Tennessee, and was never better.
Everything the farmer grows COM
mands 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 1S90-wheat at
81 per bushel, hay at 81 hundred, corn
at so cents, sweet potatoes at 70 cents,
! Irish potatoes at 60; chickens from Is
to 90 cents and wood at $3.50 a cord.
What is the matter with the farmer
Suppose his cotton is down to seven
cents, he can make money on it at that
A man at Union, S. c., told me he had
made last year 500 bales on 800 acres,
and cleared SIS, 900. How is that? When
l was young merchant cotton aver
aged about eight cents pound; corn
40 cents a bushel; wheat IS cents, po-
tatoes 25, wood 81 a cord. Shifting and
calico were 1914 cents yard, sugar
and coffee 1914 cents a pound. Iron
was five cents, and steel rs cents and
nails eight cents. Now all these
things except coffee are half price, and
all that the farmer grows for sale is
rs per cent. higher except cotton. But
still he is not happy. Up north, of
course, it is different, for it takes all
they can make in six months summer
to support them the six winter months.
/ 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
md work about for wages say they are
not coming, for they can get $25 a
month up there, and we pay our ne
groes only ten dollars. That's so.
That's the way it's put down in the last
census. But the census didn't tell how
the farm laborer up there is wanted
| he md tha of bpr m n q
he jobs 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 comfortable cabin rent
free and have no firewood to buy, and
every family has a garden and they
raise chickens and eggs and u pig OF
two and have scraps enough from their
table to support two hound dogs and a
flee. 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 isn't
respectable negro man in Barlow
county who isn't better off and hap
pier than the average farm laborer al
the north. That is one good thing
the negro has done for the south. He
has inundated the northern scuri
and the foreign scurf and kept them
away. | saw in the columns of the
Constitution not long ago n statement
in figures that was taken from Boston
paper showing that since 1890 the for
eirn population, inclusive of their chill
dren born since their arrival, has in
creased rs per cent. in New England
while the natives have increased but Sin
per cent. in all that time. The exact
figures were given. Isn't that awful
New England had just as well give up
their time-honored and historic coun-
try, religion and all, to these foreigners
When was in Nashville the other day
I looked with pride at the exhibits OF
our southern industry that greeted me
everywhere. In former letter made
special mention of the magnificent dis
play of the Nashville & Chattanooga
railroad; that includes the Western &
Atlantic railroad of our state, but oui
other southern roads are emulating
Mai. Thomas example, especially the
Georgia railroad, whose exhibit makes
every Georgian feel proud. Besides
the beautiful hsow of grain, fresh from
the harvest fields, there are minerals
of almost every kind, from the grant,
of Stone mountain to the gold and pre-
cious stones of Hall county. just imag
Inc a solid granite obelisk split out II
the rough and unhewn that is 40 fee
high and five feet square at the base