The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1899-06-28


get ten miles, from railroad town in
large acres of the corn and wheat
growing sections of the United States.
> And when the Southern farmer gets
to his railroad town he finds rail rates
much higher than does the corn and
wheat farmer.
Fear of the Fire.
The power of fire is fearful thing
if uncontrolled. Light one in the
middle of the floor of your sitting-room
on a cold day. Not for long will it
: warm you. It will scorch, burn, de-
stroy your house and yourself if you
stay by it. No one fears the fire so
little as to handle it otherwise than
with care and with ample arrange
ments for keeping it under control.
No one fears it so much as to try to keep
house without it.
The power of a corporation-of
corporate capital-is so feared by
many that, far from trying to control
it, they would suppress it. Rather
than risk its dangers they would lose
: it's benefits. Or, lacking little OF
that supreme folly they essay to con.
troll it, not in wisdom. but in malice.
Rather than use the fire for warmth
and other service they would beat it
out of existence, or so cripple it as to
make it useless.
The farmer does not expect such fol.
ly to rule in his kitchen. He looks for
Intelligent handling of the breakfast
fire, and would be astonished if his
wife should propose that he 60 to work
on a cold snack because of the danger
of having fire in the house.
The farmer has been charged with
being at the bottom because he hires
his thinking done for him and pays
folly's price for poor job. If his
thinkers are the howlers who have
shaped much of the legislation of the
South, the charge is not without
foundation.
Fear is always loud talker, and al
ways gets an audience. The fellow
with an axe to grind knows this. He
hunts for fear that he can use to set
scant thinkers to bowling, knowing
well that If they get what they howl
for they will grind his axe and never
know it. Southern offices are full of
such aXe-grinders today. They start
ed howl about the dangers of corpo-
rate government, and the men who
think by proxy swallowed the bait
and howled for laws, not about corpor-
rations, to be framed in fear and
executed with a club. They forgot
that the life of a corporation is pure
ly business affair, and that clubs
destroy life, but do not help business.
The farmer did part Of this bowling
and is at it yet. He had and has
plenty of help. Does his help lessen
his folly? The farmer needs corpora
tions, not as enemies, but as friends |;
not as masters, but as diligent and
helpful servants.
Senseless fear of their power has
crippled many a one of those now here
and kept many more Of them from COM
ing here, thus losing to farmer, mer-
chant, laborer and mechanic the help
they are giving to other sections.
Where is the business safety that
suppreases activity? Where is the
business life that can 60 we'll on
crutches? Where Is the, capital that
can build up while being itself torn
down? Where Is the business that
can bring to a community profit
while not allowed to make one itself?
Is fear, mere slavish fear of corporate
capital a benefit or curse to the
South?
Are Southern men brave only in
war and towards in business? Dare
Southern men light corporate fire for
warmth, power, profit, or dare they
they only hamper what is here and
hinder from coming what is not yet
here? Our statute-books say we are
business towards. Our laws say we dare
not trust our wisdom or our strength.
Our constitutions even assert that we
fear to have wealth come among us.
Thus have we recorded verdict at
war with our good sense no less than
with our interest.
If my critics say here that I have
named five causes of the farmers
unhappiness, two of which affect the
merchant scarcely less than the
farmer, and the other three Of which
affect, almost equally with the farmer,
every individual in the South, l can
only plead guilty, with extenuating
circumstances. ] did not arrange the
economic laws that put ell classes
under the ban or the good which
covers any one of them. I speak to
the farmer, not because be is supposed
to have a monopoly of the adverse
conditions I describe, but because, as
I know him, he is clearer-headed,
more candid, more willing to test a
new idea, more ready to act on bis
convictions than his partners in mis-
ery. I realize that in this last 1
malign the howlers. They are wont to
class the farmers troubles as sons of
his stupidity, bigotry, all forms of.
stand-fast-in-the-rut qualities, and
weep for him with one eye while they
wink sneers at him with the other. l
am hopeless of getting the howler's
forgiveness, 80 I will not apologize. l
take the farmer as the type Of the man
who thinks on what he reads. In so
far as any reader of the Southern Farm
Magazine who is not farmer is a
thinking reader he is part of my chos-
en- audience.
To prove the causes of Southern ad-
versity broader than the farm is only
to emphasize their claims to earnest,
thoughtful consideration. If the
quintet of causes I have listed Is CT such
q character, the merchant, the manu-
facturer, the professional man, the
mechanic, every Southern man who
reads the Southern Farm Magazine is
personally interested in them.
These five causes are not independ-
ent of each other. If they could be set
each to itself it would be simple
thing to point out the five needed,
effectual, simple remedies. They can
not be so separated. Working both
independently and interdependently,
thew have produced q complex result,