The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-07
Spirit of the Press.
No Analogy Between the Standard Oil
Company and the Southern Cot
ton Association.


Mr.. J. p. Kerr, of Asheville, Wh'
is a man of some note in his sec
ton, has written a letter to the New
and Observer expressing his idea
about the object of the meeting o
the Cotton Growers Association that i
to take place in Asheville on the 9th
Among other bits of logic based upon
fallacious conception of the SUB
ject, he says:
Can the South continue to de-
nounce 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 any
thing, when our people openly and
without apparently one single
doubt as to their right to do 50.
meet and fix, arbitrarily, Ivy COM
b ..ation and a pledge to stand
by it, the price Of the largest and
most necessary commodity on this
continent? l have not seen or
heard of a newspaper that has
suggested that there was even an
impropriety, to say nothing OF
wrong. II. such q meeting for su2h
purpose.
THE cotton growers will gle
by their proposed meeting, the
most potent end 0rSemeHt to trust
and monopoly thu, has ever been
given in this country, and the
wonder to me is that the southern
press, by their marvellous dumb
ness 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
If has not succeeded in
curing by right"
Mr.. Kerr is unnecessarily alarm
ed. He has visions of bugaboo. he
has flown many miles out of the orbl
of reason in order to jump at con
clusion. There is no more analogy
between the Standard Oil Company
and the Cotton Association than there
is between Mr.. Kerrs reasoning anc
good logic. They are as far apart d.
his article and common sense. The
association is not monopoly and it:
suggestions have no binding effect upor
farmers 1t is advisory in its nature
and the object of the meeting at Ashe'
vile is not to tell the world VIVA
it shall pay for cotton nor the farm
ers what they shall sell for. 1t is tC
decide what would be a fair price FOL
this crop in the light of the visible
supply, the apparent demand, and The
cost Oh NIL INCIi i'e'i u
on the law of supply and demand. The
object of the association is to Sc
cure a chance for these laws to &c
into effect. The marvellous dumbnes:
of the Southern press needn't to rot
this gentleman of any restA Ii the
farmers can't organize 20 say how
much they ought to have for com
modify that they have made them
selves out of the ground, not by ma
nipulating the market and cornerint
the product of somebody else's Worl
and sandbagging all those who would
would engage in the same business
who should have a right to organize
The beef trust or the oil trust kills thu
producer and robS the consumer. The
price of their raw products and thu
price of the product to the consumes
have no relate and both are Stran
gers to the law of supply and demand
TO make Mr.. Kerr'S analo~-- hole
good the cotton association Woulc
not only have to control all the cot
ton produced in the country and force
its consumption at an arbitrary price
but it would have to be composed o
other men than those who made thu
cotton by no aid but that of the sol
and the sky