The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-30
COTTON FARMER AND THE LAW
OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

To the Editor: A short time ago /
was re-reading a speech made num-
Der of years ago on the floor of the
United States Senate by that great and
good man and Democrat, Thomas f.
Bayard, in which he announced to
his fellow Senators as his deliberate
opinion that the tariff question could
never be rightly settled so long as it
was considered from a sectional or
selfish standpoint. l think the Sena-
tors position was eminently sound
then as now, and | am sure it can be
applied to the trust and monopoly
questions with as much justice as to
the reputed mother of these two over
shadowing evils.
l have been much interested in
reading of the lengthy and detailed
preparations that are being made for
the meeting i'm this city on September
9Th of the Cotton Growers Associa-
ton. 1t has been definitely and dis
tinctIy announced that the object of
this meeting is to fix the price of cot
ton and cotton seed for the coming
season.
Can the South continue to denounce
John d. Rockefeller for fixing the
price of Coal Oil, and the Armours
for fixing the price of Beef, or any
other man or set of men for fixing the
price of anything, when our people
openly and without apparently one
single doubt as to their right to do so,
meet and fix, arbitrarily, by combina-
ton and pledge to stand by it, the
price of the largest and most neceS-
Sary commodity on this continent? L
have not seen or heard of a newSpa-
per that has suggested that there was
even an improperly, to say nothing
of wrong, in such a meeting for such
a purpose.
This Cotton Growers Association
has done a great and very proper
work in> unearthing the rascality in
the Agricultural Department at WASH
ington, wherein INSCRIPTIONS men
have undertaken to influence the price
of cotton by other means than that of
the. law of supply and demand. Those
Scoundrels ought to be in the peniten-
tiary. But what are we to say about
this same organization when it an
nounces through every paper in the
land that it is to hold meeting In
the city of ASheville on a day certain
for the sole purpose of fixing the price
of cotton and cotton seed, regardless
of this law? The Department ring
sters were trying to reduce the price
so that they and their pals could make
money. and the members of this as
ISOLATION will try and raise the price
SO that they and their friends may
make money.
When the Cotton Growers Associa-
ton succeeds in putting in the peni-
Tertiary every man who tries to mani
pulate the price of cotton by any
means other than in accordance with
the law of supply and demand, it will
have done the cotton grower. in my
opinion, all the good that it legitimate
ly can. If, it is wrong to put the
price of cotton down against the ma
tural and economic laws, it can not
be right to put it up in disregard of
the same laws. The difference be-
tween Bull and a Bear can work no
such economic wonder as this.
The cotton growers will give by
their proposed meeting, the most po-
tent endorsement to trust and mono
poly that has ever been given in this
country, and the wonder to me is that
the Southern press, by their marvellous
dumbness on this question, seems to
be either afraid to express itself or
else has reached the conclusion that
it ought to stop the fight it has been
prosecuting so long and go in and get
by wrong methods what it has not
succeeded in securing by right.
/ think the cotton grower ought to
have every dollar for his cotton that
he can get inside the law of supply
and demand, but / do not think he has
any more right to enter into a COM
bine than Rockefeller or Armour. AS
Mr.. Bayard said, such questions as
these can never be settled right from
the standpoint of selfishness.
/ think that Mr.. Paul Morton has
stated under oath that when he was
associated with the Sante Fe Railroad
he first tried to act honestly and in
side the law, but that when he found
that legal methods would not accom-
plish his aims he deliberately violated
the law Have the Southern cotton
growers reached the same conclusion
in the same way? If SO, wherein do
they differ from Morton or any other
trust builders or monopolistS?
JOHN p. KERR.
Asheville, n. c., Aug. %, 1905.