The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-19
To the Farmers of Alabama and the
 South.

SOutms
 Having been brought up on a farm and suffered all the hardships and dis appointments known to the ealing, I feel the deepest interest possible in ev- erything that pertain to your welfare.
 I write you this letter prompted by an earnest desire to arouse you to a se- rious consideration of a question winch means more to you than all other ques- tions combined. In fact it will solve every question which may come before you. That question Is organization.
 It is well to have special organiza- tions like the Cane GrowreS Associa- tion. but no general or permanent ben- eft will ever come to you until every Southern State is thoroughly organized as a State, and then all these States come together and act together in one organization.
 Every profession and calling in this country Is organized except the farm" .. CTS. The lawyers. doctors, merchants. druggists, dentists, bankers, printers, miners. carpenters, bricklayers, black smiths, conductors. engineers, brake men draymen, ministers. teachers, sher- ifs, chiefs of police. distillers, saloon keepers. newsboys ,bootblacks and all other callings are organized. If 1t is good for them, why is 1t not good for you?
 
 ganizing and some sneeringly say that 1t cannot be done. That they will not keep their promises. That they will promise to hold their cotton and to 1 plant less cotton and will slip off and l act to the contrary. Thus you see they 1 put you below level of the coal-dig ger and the bootblack in intelligence and self-interest. I do not think as they do. There may be some who | fA1o but I believe that a great majority of them are true men and that their word Is as good as their oath.
 During the Civil War you and your fathers made promises to your leaders and your country and made those promises good with your property, your blood. and many with their lives. Again some say that you cannot find | leaders who can be trusted. During tho same war you found leaders into whose hands you trusted your lives. | and you can now find leaders into whose hands you can trust your every interest.
 I herewith submit a plan for your consideration. Let one. two or three men in each precinct or neighborhood resolve to organize and invite every farmer to meet at some convenient place, and elect a president and sec retary and delegates to a county con- vention. Let the presidents of the pre- cinct associations compose your county executive committee. Then let the l counties organize and elect a president and secretary and delegates to a state convention, and let the presidents of the county associations compose your state executive committee. Adopt a constitution and bylaws in which there shall be binding obligation to support all the objects of the associa- tion, and include section prohibiting the discussion of politics by any of the members at any of the meetings on penalty of expulsion from the assocla- ton.
 Select the very best, most intelligent and truest men you can find for your State presidents and let them compose the executive committee for all the Southern States. Have the ginners re- port to them all cotton ginned, and in- struct them to not give out any in formation in regard to the cotton crop except that which shall be in the inter est of the farmer. It is easy to imaE- inc what such an organization would have been worth to the farmers during the last ninety days.
 What right has any man or set of men who are not farmers to fix the number of, and set the price on, the cotton you make? None whatever I believe that the estimates that have been made on the cotton crop are not correct and that 1t has been done to rob you. If spectators will combine and corner the grain and meat markets and cause you to pay exorhitant prices for the necessities of life. and In many Instances cause helpless women and children to go hungry. they will com bne and felsify the cotton reports that they may rob you.
 The cost of living is increasing every year. If you remain Indifferent and in- active and allow robber speculators to fix the price on what you have to sell as well as on what you have to buy you cannot expect anything but a life Of slavery and poverty.
 wish to sttae that these convictions have not come to me as a result of the recent unusual and unwarranted de cline in the price of cotton, but from