The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-29
A Record Breaking BuSi- ness in Every Line. THE STORY OF RICHES Negroes, as We'll as White, Have Part in Prosperity. Merchants Talk of the Trade Season Just Closed as Wonderful and
 Inexplicable-Retail Men
 Have 30 Per Cent
 Increase.

Montgomerys business turkey for the Christmas of 1905, was big, fat and lucfous. There never was just such an- other feast. There may never be just such another business feast, but the in dications are that there will be. and should 1t be duplicated the South will be the richest agricultural section of the United States.
 It has, in the past three years. made wonderful strides towards that goal. It has undoubtedly pressed forward to that end faster than any other DOT ton of the union. But this business turkey-which has just been carved and eaten in Montgomery-it was a wonder. And everybody in business got a chance at it and got a helping. It was a most satisfying meal Mont | gomery in all her history never had | such a contented set of merchants. And with just cause.
 Tt was the best business season Montgomery ever had in all it's his tory. This is general the universal verdict. from every man in business. It don't make any difference what he had to do, what he had to sell; 1t doesn't make any difference what line | he is in, the verdict is the same. Its l the best season we ever had"
 And the condition of financial solid | arity is at once anomalus and para doxical. Of course everybody knows 
 damentally responsible for business happiness and business contentment in Montgomery. Of course that is set tied But there are other mystifying features to the situation. For instance, all the warehouses in the city are filled to the roofs with cotton. Now, this circumstance in the past meant that | there was little If any money in cir culation for retail trade. It meant if it meant anything in the past that the money of the farmers was tied up in cotton and there was going to be but | a little bit of it turned loose in trade But this year. although there is just as much cotton in the warehouses as | the warehouses could hold, there was more money for trade and business than the city ever knew before.
 The condition was rather odd and rather queer, but its statement is nevertheless correct. More cotton is stored In the warehouses than ever before and more money passed through the channel of trades during the holi- days than ever before.
 During the wonderful trade of the two weeks preceding Christmas lead ing warchousman said, Tn our ware house there are stored 13,000 bales of cotton This Is the heart of the Christ mas season, the dime when most of all others Y have heretofore had to sell cotton for my customers to furnish them with money for the holidays. But this week. do you know how much cot ton I have sold at the order of our clients. I will tell you. Just nineteen bales, no more, no less. Now what does this mean? It means that the farmers, that the people who own cot ton have more than enough money to carry them through the holidays. At this time of the year, when, heretofore they had to sell cotton to get money for hn fa ilu a hn n eyin hand and the cotton can stay in the warehouse"
 | To the man familiar with business conditions of the South five or six years ago along about Christmas the situation as outlined by the warehouse men is most remarkable and most un- usual. But undoubtedly the best evi dence of the richness of the Black Belt is furnished by the financial condition of the negroes. The negroes have been and are yet considered to be the most thriftless class of the inhabitants of the agricultural sections. They are | supposed to pay less attention to the coming and the going of dollar than any other class. They usually fail to grasp passing opportunities as readily as the white man, even as they are less | thrifty and less careful than the white man. But the negroes in Middle Ala bama arc knowing financial satisfaction anu HndnCldl dS they nave never known 1t before.
 As to the Negroes.
 "A negro farmer came in here the other day" said the manager of Mont gomery branch of a big music com pany. and bought an organ for his wife. He brought her around to look | at the organ and she said she did not like it, whereupon he bought her fine piano. And he not only bought the piano but he paid for it down on the nail. And when he paid for it he show | ed me a deposit certificate from one of the biggest banks of the city, stat | ing that he had made a deposit of $5.600 Now that negro had not only paid back all the money he had to borrow to make this years crop but he had left ever the | sum of $5.600.'
 The very next day a negro woman came in and wanted to look at an or gan. She liked the organ and to our surprise she did not buy one organ, but she bought half a dozen. And she not only bought half a dozen organs. but she paid for them in cash before one of them went out of the store. This woman lived on one of the Tyson places which she rents herself On this place she works only women labor. She hires no men at all. When it is too rainy for the women to work in the field she puts them to work in the house sewing and making garments for the other ne groes who live in the same neighbor- hood. She bought those organs to sell to negro women who work for her. for she said she knew six of them who wanted organs.
 Full of Evidence.
 The town Is full of such stories of the prosperity of the negro farmers. Any merchant has one or more to tell ! On Commerce Street a big wholesale | man had a similar tale of a Montgom- | cry County negro and the amount of | money he had made durIrg the year | The negro got advances from a promi- | nent merchant of Fitzpatrick. He was | hard working negro, but heretofore | never had made much money at farm | ing. The Fitzpatrick merchant had | so much confidence in him that he | loaned the negro $500 on which to make | his crop He was paid this money | early in the fall. And as the Christ | mas season approached, the negro met | the Fitzpatrick merchant on the streets | of Montgomery and asked to be shown | good bank where he could deposit his | money. and to be shown how to make | a deposit. At the bank the negro turn | ed over $9G0 to the receiving teller In l addition to that, he still has some cot ton to sell
 Now, that negro, to put it at the | least figure. has made s1,300 clear in the past twelve months at farming. That's a fine showing. And think of it,