Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1899-10-19
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4ocratic New snapper.
LESSON IN COTTON.
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4AoLo lS q 16SSOA III IhO AOSSho
sadvance in the price of cotton
which is not to- be overlooked.
When cotton went down to five
cents a pouEd the farmers became
alarmed and disheartened and all
sorts of measures to advance the
price we're suggested. "Plant less
c~etton," said some. "Organize a
great farmers trust so as to limit
the supply and control the price,"
said others. And still others talked
of storage warehouses. But while
the farmers and the friends of the
farmers were devising ways and
means, suddenly cotton jumped
from five to seven cents per pound,
and the prediction is freely made
that the present crop will sell at
even higher figures.
We would impress the fact that
the farmers did not organize, that
the trust was not formed, that the
storage warehouses we're not
opened, in short, that non of the
schemes discussed were carried
into effect. Cotton advanced in
price because the time for the adj
vance bad come. Some say that
the advance is due to the fact that
the crop is short. Others say that
the advance is due to the fact that
there are more cotton mills and q
greater demand for raw cotton.
Others still say that the advance
has come because every other COM
modify has risen in price and
that it was in keeping with gen.
orally prosperous conditions that
the price of cotton should take a
rise,
1t is not our purpose to go into
any minute discussion of the subs
iect. VIZ doubt not that each of
the causes assigned has bad it's in
fuence, but the reason which we
assign, and the alI-suficlent reason,
is that prosperity has come to the
whole country and the farmer is
quite naturally getting his share
of it. The advance in cotton has
come along in the natural order of
things and in response to the nat
ural laws of trade.
This is true also of prosperity
in general. A few years ago the
stump speakers were saying that
the way and the only way to
bring prosperity was through
legislation. The Times contend
ed that it was as absurd to talk of
legislating prosperity into the
country as to legislate rain into
a land suffering from drought.
We said that the thing to do was
to let the natural laws of trade
have their course We said that
il the government would only
hold its hands off aud not inter
fere, confidence would soou res
turn and then trade would take
care of itself. That is the great
lesson to be learned from the
rise in the price of cotton, the
great lesson to be learned from
the prosperity thet has come 70
the country at large. There can
be 10 such thing as artificial
prosperity, and that nation which
sits down and waits to be made
prosperous by legislation will go
to the dogs. The government is
the mere creature of the people,
and the creature cannot be more
powerful than the creator. The
people must make themselves
prosperous by their own en-
deavor, by intelligent action and
industry, and the less we have of
legislative action in this direc-
ton the more prosperous will
the people be.
1t has always been a strange
thing to US that sensible men
could be deceived by that sort of
party clap-trap, by the stump
speakers, who get up and tell
them to put this or that party
in power, and this party or that
will make the people prosperous,
and men who are deceived by
such nonsense put themselves on
a leYel with the poor negroes
who voted with the Republican
party soon after the war under
the belief that each one of them
would receive from the govern
ment the gift of forty acres and
a mule.
During the winter of 1897 Mr.. James
Reed. one of the leading citizens and
merchants of Clay, Clay Co., W. Va,
struck his leg against a cake of ice in