The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-12-16
HOW TO AVERT SOME OF THE
EVILS OF THE TOBACCO
TRUST MERGER.

The slump in the price of tobacco of
thirty-thr and a third per cent. within
six weeks after the merger of the Ameri
one of the worst blows the people of
North Carolina have suffered Fortu-
nately for the farmers. most Of them
rushed their tobacco to market while
there was competition between these
giant corporations, and thereby obtained
good prices for the bulk of their crop
Those who held for better times have lost
one-third of the results of their years
labor-it has been transferred from the
pockets of the men who grew the tobacco
by their labor to the Golfers of those who
manipulate the markets by methods both
illegal and wrong.
The men who will suffer the greatest
immediate loss are the men who bought
large quantities of tobacco at prices pre-
vailing two and three months ago and
have not yet disposed of it. Unless the
price goes up, of which there is very
little probability, they will lose heavily
There is no wisdom in denying the dan
gers that confront the tobacco towns and
tobacco farmers. They are face to face
with the conditions that brought disaster,
failures, loss to a greater or less degree
to every tobacco town when the tobacco
trust was organized They depended.
then almost solely on tobacco When the
trust cut the price to the cost of cultiva-
ton, they suffered great loss. Many cost
ly buildings, built in prosperous days,
still remain vacant in those tobacco
towns The big tobacco towns of today
can profit by their terrible experience
by taking a reef in the sails before the
storm breaks in all it's fury. OF course
the trust will continue to buy at certain
towns. They will suffer less than those
markets the trust will neglect or aban-
don. But all tobacco towns, if they would
avert portion of the ills that will follow
in the wake of the trusts, must not put
their sole dependence in tobacco. Their
future growth and success depend upon
diversifying their business and their in
dustries, so that the prostration of no
single business or industry will seriously
injure its growth or prosperity. No town
or city ought to be dependent upon
single source of income, particularly
upon a product that may be arbitrarily
reduced to a price SO low in a few weeks
as to cause immense shrinkage and con-
seouent heavy losses. The tobacco town
in North Carolina that continues to de-
pend chiefly upon tobacco is sure to in
cur great losses unless it seeks to secure
other sources of income and profit. 1t
has taken years for Mt. Airy, Pilot
Mountain, Roxboro, Henderson, Oxford
and other tobacco towns to recover from
the losses they sustained shortly after
the organization of the tobacco trust.
Durham and Winston, with the help and
stimulus of great manufacturing estab-
lishments, suffered heavy loss and their
the trust in reducing the price of to-
bacco The experience of these towns
ought TO cause other prosperous tobacco
towns, in this crisis, not to trust all their
eggs in one basket.
AS to the farmers; they should pro-
tect themselves by diversifying their
crops. In Person, Durham, Granville and
other counties. where the farmers years
ago were almost bankrupted by the
trusts big reduction of the price of their
money crops, the burnt child will dread
the fire. The farmers in the newer, as
we'll as the older tobacco counties, should
diversity their crops, grow less tobacco,
more peanuts and cotton, and raise their
own hog and hominy. They may not
make so much as in raising tobacco at
prices that prevailed before the English
and American trusts merged, but they
will live, keep out of debt and save
themselves the poverty that followed in
tobacco counties shortly after the tobacco
trust was organized
Farmers, tobacco dealers, tobacco
warehousemen, independent tobacco man
ufacturers ought to be present in large
numbers to exchange views at the meet
ing of the Tobacco Growers Association
in Rocky Mount Friday of this week, and
seek to find way to prevent the dire re-
suits that threaten the tobacco industry
in North Carolina, South Carolina and
Virginia.