Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1905-01-19
To Stand Shoulder to Shout
der in The Fight For
Protection.
LIKE ARMY OF JAPS.
The Contest Must Determine
The Future Prosperity of
Tobacco Growers.

The GAINESVILLE Leaf Chronicle in
we'll written article describes the
tobacco situation so thoroughly that
we reproduce the greater part Of
the article. 1t urges that the farm
ers began their fight none too soon,
comparing the present movement to
the fight Japan is working against
the encroachments of Russia. 1t
says the farmers a few years ago
had open tobacco markets, many
buyers and strong competition.
They obtained fair prices for their
labor and the country and the towns
in the midst thereof all prospered
and were happy. But finally we
have come to the age Of money-get-
ting get money any way you can
the few making great fortunes by
sharp practices, schemes and tricks,
by which a few organized men with
capital can rob and Cypress thous-
ands of people. This great tobacco
trust, headed by James B. Duke and
Ferigo, representing some $3.50. OOO,-
600 and credit, has gone to all the
markets, made contracts for the de-
livery of the great money staple of
our section, and driven out cOmpe-
tition. No one not under the pro-
tective wing of this trust in some
way will dare bid against it for the
weed because he cannot get over or
get around this powerful combina-
ton to any tobacco market in the
world, and must sell to the trust at
a loss for his temerity in OPP
tposing or bidding against the COM
| bine.
| The farmers were forced to sell
the 1903 crop at below the cost Of
production and the combine was on
hand to take the 1904 crop for still
less, Notwithstanding the crop is as
certained to be some 60,000,000
pounds short and the consumption
increasing beyond the producing
capacity of the country.
1t is a MISUNDERSTOOD maxim
that with the decline in prices for
tobacco must come the correspond
ing reduction in the value of land.
Then it follows that farmers raising
tobacco below the cost of production
will become involved in debt, and
mortgage their land at a low valu-
alton for subsistence and numerous
expenses. Finally these lands must
be sold and the trust magnates will
be the ready purchasers, making
sycophants and slaves of the former
owners, to be hired cheap to raise
tobacco under trust instruction and
management.
Is there a man among us so stupid
as not to observe the tendency of
the situation and the final outcome
if the reign of the trust is not
broken and the heartless, avaricious
corporations downed and driven out
of the trade?
We have seen in print and heard
much talk of the valuable soil sur
veys promoted by the Agricultural
! Department for the benefit of farm
ers. But has it occurred to the
public that the tobacco trust in dis
guise has been all the while urging
these surveys that they might dis
cover the most valuable lands for
producing certain types of tobacco,
and buy such lands cheap in large
bodies, which has been tried in some
/ localities for producing fine cigar
tobacco. But they have not been
able TO find spot of land anywhere
that will produce the peculiar and
valuable types grown in our black
patch of some fifteen or twenty
counties. Consequently it is our
tobacco they want and must have,
and their hearts are set on it.