The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-23
NOT A BOYCOTT BUT RECIPRO-
CITY.

out taking sense with an originality ana
quaint wit that hits the nail on the head.
In brief, wise and witty speech at the
Rocky Mount Convention, Mr.. Jesse
Brake summed up the whole situation
that now confronts the tobacco farmers,
as the following extract from Mr.. Britton's
report of his speech shows:
Christ had his Judas, Washington his
Arnold; look out that both are not in
our ranks. If we don't watch out they
will creep in.'' Farmers are like sleepy
lions, but if you wake them they will
show their teeth and their strength, es-
pecially if you rub their noses.' Some
thing is wrong, 1 don't know what, when
$50 pounds of tobacco brings $14.65. This
won't do II don't believe in a boycott,
but in reciprocity, so as the American To-
bacco Company has treated us we should
treat it, The American Tobacco Company
has not started a boycott, but it is con-
fiscating the farmers tobacco. 1t has
taken the tobacco and only paid for The
housing of it. 1t has put up the cost of
the manufactured articles three cents, it
has had six cents taxation taken off, yet
it puts the farmers tobacco down one
stocked let it build more storehouses." Mr..
Brake urged farmers not to sell at the
low prices but rather to let the rats eat
up their tobacco
Think of it, men and brethren, if you
would conceive the full extent of the ra-
pacity of the tobacco trust! The trust has
added, according to Mr.. Brake, three cents
a pound to the consumer, kept six cents
pound in it's pocket on the tobacco tax re-
duction which it lobbied through Con-
gress, and has now cut down the price to
the farmer who grows the weed one-thirG
or more. In all history there has not
been any trust that has played the hog
on so great a scale.
Some misguided farmers helped the trust
to reduce the tax on tobacco. Last year,
when active competition put up the price.
these farmers said that reducing the tax
had helped the farmer. The tax is as low
now as then. Where is the help to the
farmer? The trust told the farmers that
the reduction In tobacco tax would enable
it to pay the farmers a better price. That
is the truth. 1t has enabled them to pay
an additional six cents a pound, but has
it done so? Instead of giving the farmers
portion of the tax reduction, the trust
takes all that, increases the price to
the consumers, and confiscates the tobacco
of those farmers who are forced to sell
their crop as soon as it is ready for mar
ket. That, in brief, as pointed out by
Mr.. Brake, is the indictment the farmers
make of the tobacco trust. And yet there
are innocent babies or paid hirelings who
tell us that tobacco is low because of over
production, bad quality, and some of them
say it is low now because the trust hasn't
the money to buy it. Nobody is fool
ed by this paid or vapid tommy rot. To-
bacco is ruinously low because, having in
duced some farmers to help reduce the to-
bacco tax, the trust is resolved to play
the hog since it has created an illegal
monopoly. And there is no other reason
for the starvation prices now offered for
tobacco.
But, one or two trust buyers, living in
the old tobacco section, in order to in
duce the farmers of Guilford, Person, Cas-
well and adjacent counties not to join
with their Eastern brethren, are declar-
ing that tobacco grown in the Eastern
counties is shabby and not to be compared
with tobacco grown in the old tobacco
belt, and predicting better prices for tobac-
co grown in the old tobacco belt. Suckers
only will be caught by this. The trust
paid good prices for tobacco grown in the
East last year and Dragged about how good
it was. The crop is twenty per cent.
smaller than last year, and yet the price
is nothing like half as good. Later on,
when the old tobacco belt farmers bring
their, tobacco to market. they will be told
that their crop is shabby and worthless
and there is where the necessity of
united action of the farmers comes in.
If all the tobacco farmers put the respon-
sibility on the trust and voice a solid and
indignant protest, then we may expect
some increase in the price in order to en-
courage farmers to grow a crop next year.
But if the farmers listen to the fairy tales
of trust hirelings and do not unite, the
trust will keep the price down lower than
if they speak with the authority of COM
pact body.
There are only a few counties in three
States that can grow bright tobacco The
farmers of those counties if they are wise,
determined and persistent, can in some
measure mitigate the confiscation of their
property contemplated by the tobacco
trust. ''In union there is strength"