The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-02-10
BIG BANQUET AT HIGH POINT.
Many Notables Present - Secretary
Metcalf the Guest of Honor
Speeches by the Cabinet Member,
Senator simmons and Others.

Senator Simmons ana OtEefS.
High Point, N. c.. February ca
notable gathering of public officials
manufacturers and railroad men gath,
by me Manufacturers Club.
The guests of honor arrived on 9
special train from Washington over the
Southern railway. The party consisted
of Secretary Metcalf. Don Gonzalo dc
Quesada, the Cuban minister at WASH
ington, Senator's Simmons n Over
man, Representatives Page and SmaiI.
of North Carolina and J. NJ. Dixon, Of
Montana, President Samuel Spencer,
w. ". Finely, l.. McManus and l.. 5.
Brown, OF the Southern Railway and
several newspaper men.
The first speaker of the evening was
Secretary Victor H. Metcalf. of the
department of ommerce and labor,
who discussed industrial conditions In
North Carolina and the south and the
need Of an expansion of our foreign
trade.
After quoting figures to show a
notable increase in business in North
Carolina, during the past decade,
Secretary Metcaif devoted some at
tentiOn 70 the South at large, saying
hat the lumber and timber Industry
showed greater expansion here than
elsewhere in the United States. OF
the production of cotton and the
manufacture thereof the speaker
said:
During the recent years the
worlds commercial output of raw cot
ton has averaged approximately fiji
teen million bales a year. The aver
age production of the United States
for the last seven ear has been a
little less than eleven million bales q
year, or about rs per cent. of the total
conn ercial supply. The continuance
of Il is condition, of his proportion
of American supply of the worlds re-
quirements. will depend primarily up
on the ability of the South to meet
the demand at prices which England,
Europe, Japan and other customers
will regard as fair and reasonable.
the interests of the United States
and of the Southern States more es-
pecially no longer lie in being only Il
source Of supply for raw material.
Those interests now lie in the ship
ment Of the finished product. the
manufactured article. 1t is better to
ship yarn than to ship raw cotton,
but it is better still to ship the woven
cloth.
No people have ever been SO great
ly handicapped as o people of the
South. For nearly five years you
maintained a contest unparalleled in
the worlds history, and at the close
of that contest. deplorcd now alike by
men Of the South as we'll as of the
North you found yourselves in q
bankrupt condition and compelled to
begin life But you were equal
to the OCCASION
The speaker urged the cultivation
of foreign trade: saying that it must
be sought and when found and de-
veloped mills may be multiplied and
still be kept busy.
The United States grows the cot
ton and can continue to grow it in
competition with all the world
Secretary Metcalf was followed by
Senator Simmons, who said in part:
senator F. M. Simmons spoke on i'm
migration, emphasizing the need of more
in the south. He said in part:
That this is a question of great and
pressing urgency is now conceded uy
well nigh every one in the south, III
Guiding most of these who until recent
iy denied that the south was confronted
by either a present or prospective labor
problem, and who denounced as dan
gerOus, if not revolutionary, any and
every movement looking to the intro
ductiOn of foreigners into that section.
The presence in the south in large num-
of the negro, a dOcile and cOmpar-
cheap laborer, created and fos-
much of this opposition, and now
/ e red, his presence, though in con-
I >ratively less numbers, adds greatly
10 the difficulties of a successful solu-
ton of the problem"
The difficulty he continued, grows
of the objection of the white wage
G.: rner being brought into competition
with the negro, whose wants compared
with his are meagre and who is content
TO live upon a lower plane than will
his aspirations. This has been
the main obstacle and is to an extent
still an obstacle to getting desirable
earning immigrants to settle in the
out whatever may have beer
true of the situation in this respect in
the past, there is but little in the pres
Cnt Industrial status of the negro in
the south upon which to longer base
this objection.
The competition between the White
immigrant wage garner and the black
ma on the farm in the south would not
be a competition between joint wage
carriers at all n the immigrants
would soon become independent Of the
farmers.
After reciting the need of immigrants
the speaker expressing the belief that
they can readily be secured, said:
IF the bill 1 have introduced in Con-