The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1902-01-29


do our friends in the towns and
cities.
It can hardly be possible that a
majority of the members of this
House can appreciate the true situa-
ton as it exists in our Southern
States, where the population is
sparse, railroads not overnumerous,
and roads bad. It is not strange
that members representing city dis
tricts, where the mail is delivered
from three to nine times per day,
can hardly realize or believe the
assertion that many Of our people,
doing large business and employing
much labor, must send from three
and as much as eight miles each day
for their nail, furnishing boy and
conveyance, or else do without it,
trusting to luck to give them a good
market when they haul their produce
into town. Yet this statement is
true, as every Southern member will
testify.
To these people, situated thus,
daily mail means something. 1t is a
blessing. 1t means the introduction
of the world to the farmer, the intro
duction of the farmer 10 the world.
It means each will better know the
other, more thoroughly understand
the mutually dependent relation that
each bears the other, and more cor
rectly comprehend their rights and
relative duties. It means the farmer,
for once in his life, will be brought
in direct touch with some Of the
benefits of the Government, ard we
feel safe in assuring his deepest ap-
! probation, for there is no class more
grateful for benefit, even if it does
come as a matter of right and JUS
tice, than the American farmer. 1t
means the broadening of his vision,
the sharpening of his intellect by
! contact with other intellects, and his
conception of new resolves. Ihls,
and much more, it means to the
farmer to have a mail at his door
each day in the week save Sunday
If our Southern farms are becoming
depopulated and our farmers becom-
ing townspeople, the causes are not
hard to find. Bad roads, low prices.
and no postal facilities will drive a
man almost anywhere. The tide Of
population in those sections which
have come under my observation has
been downward. Nice farm cottages
have been given up, and the former
occupants are now operatives IL some
nearby cotton mill, where their earn
ings exceed in the total by far theil
earnings on the farm, and, in addl
ton to this, they are not troubled
with miserable roads or the equally
miserable, insufficient mail accommo
dstions. In town he finds bette,
wages, better roads, end more rail
and so to town be turns his steps.
and valuable farming lands are left
to groan and perish under the joirt
laziness and mismanagenent Of the
OK and negro. Without discussing
the dangers and evils arising out Of
concentrated populations-tbese be-
ing known to everyone-it is the
duty CT this Congress to remove, as
far as possible, every influence con-
dacing to that condition.
When we have fully understood
the situation as it is, the necessity
for the appropriation in this bill for
rural-delivery purposes becomes ap-
parent. There is 10 deficiency in
the general appropriation for rural
free delivery, and the reason this
amount is urged by this bill grows
out of the fact that the full appropria.
tion for this fiscal year cannot be
reached in time to put on the 1900
- M into oooro