Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-02-22
scHEmlxe scouNDREL WAS WILLING
TO Ruin the South to make Money-Haade
Proposition to Brokers,
[W. w. Price, in Columbia Record. l

LW. w. Price, in Columbia Record
Washington, February 17.-"Baok mo
up financially and 1 will send the boil
weevil into every cotton producing com
munity In the South, and you, myself and
the boil weevil will bull the market this
year, your firm and myself dividing the
proceeds of the resultant high prices,
such was substantially the offer of a
prominent citizen of Dallas, Texas, to
one OF the biggest cotton brokerage firms
In the city of New York. And. that is
why bill has been introduced u Con.
gress to prohibit the railroads from car
rying boil weevils and other pestiferous
insects, and to prevent them from being
carried in the mails.
The tale that hangs thereby is this: A
responsible though unscrupulous man i'm
Dallas thought out a plan to bull the cot
ton market, and to make a fortune. So
he wrote to the New York brokers' and
outlined his plan. He would scatter the
poll weevil into every community in the
South where cotton grows. The presence
OF the insect would be sure to drive cot
ton prices to high water mark Knowing
this fact they could buy all the cotton
In the market at present prices with a
dead sure cinch on round advance,
If they would back him up financially
and "divy" with him in the matter of
profits he would ship the boil weevil
around all right. And then he was abso-
lutely sure that the boil weevill would
carry out the contract he had made for
them as their proxy.
But the cotton brokers were not so
mercenary as the Texas man and they
Immediately took steps to prevent any
such action as proposed. They referred
ms letter to Representative Lowering, of
Massachusetts, who Immediately intro
duced bill to prohibit transportation
OF all insect pests from one State to an
other, and the use of the mails for such
purposes. 1t provides that any person,
company or corporation who shalt know
ingly violate its provisions shall be fined
$4,000 or imprisoned for five wears, or
both.
The Department of Agriculture took
the matter up and sent detective to
Dallas to investigate. They found the
man to be prominent and financially we'll
fixed, instead of a crank, as was reasona-
bic TO suppose they would. They have
decided to suppress his name for reasons
of their own.
Congress will take action on tho mat
ter at once. The House committee on
agriculture has reported the Lowering
bill favorably to the House, and it will
likely be passed at once, so as to forestall
any such scheme. 1t is difficult to
imagine what a great injury to cotton
growing the carrying into effect of such
asoheme would bring about. 1t would
give the boil weevil such firm hold on
the South as to make his determination
practically an impossibility. 1t would
make the cotton growing industry of the
South practically cease to be a paying
proposition, and would be the greatest
block that section ever had unless the
Civil war be excepted.
Representative Lever, as member of
the House committee on agriculture, was
particularly aggressive in. the action of
the committee, realizing that South
Carolina interests were at stake. tt is
on his authority that these facts are pub
lished.