The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-07-09
SOUTH DISCUSSED
 MORE THAN EVER Resources of This Section At- tract Much Attention NEGRO QUESTION HOBBY Some Interesting and Suggestive Facts About south-Wonderfu Increase
 In Wealth-comparative Fig
 ures-comment and Gossip.
NEGRO QUESTION HOBBY
BY sEWElL HAeoARp.

New York, July s.-(special )-seldom has the south occupied so much space in the eastern newspapers as now. It's farm ing, manufacturing and political interests attract more attention, it seems, than any other section. And the negro question is
 of course, the hobby of the eastern and northern editorial writers.
 But all this Is a good sign. It shows that the south Is doing things, that her pluck and perseverance have won Just now the question of how the shortage of labor in the south is to be overcome Is agitating some of the conservative pa pers, among them the Evening Post In connection with this the Post sees signif- icance in the speech of Booker T. Wash ington at Montclair. N. J.. on the Fourth of July. It says:
 Booker Washington's plea for the Chinaman, on the anniversary of Ameri- can freedom, was the most striking event of yesterday It would seem only na- tural that the races which are dscrimi- mated against because of the color of their skins should speak up for one another;
 but as they stand at present, the law abiding and industrious Chinaman would perhaps be more sought after in the south than the negro, should the exclusion law be repealed. Hence there is added sig
 nificance in Washington's desire that jus tce be done the Chinese. Here is fresh proof that, in the eyes of the leader of the colored people of this country, the negro has nothing to fear from the com
 petition of foreigners. MT. William Gar rott Brown and other southerners have recently been dwelling upon the suggest ed immigration of foreigners as the ne- gros real danger" But the scarcity of labor in the south makes it obvious that If the coming in of foreigners is to be a genuine peril some day, it is yet long way off. Washington. to judge by other utterances than those of yesterday. is convinced that if Italians or Germans should drive the negro out of certain oc- equations. there are plenty of others to which he would turn according to the
 natural workings of economic laws. None of the papers except the "yellows" take seriously the alleged refusal of fire company at Montclair to march in | a procession headed by Professor Wash | ington The fact is that he did not lead | the parade and it was never intended | that he should. Some of the yellow I papers announced that he would and this l caused revolt among the volunteer fire ! men who said they would not be in line
 It was explained to them that Professor l Washington would review the parade. | the revolt was over and there was no more fuss except in the yellow news
 papers which think more of good story
 than facts.
 | The panic in the cotton market the other | day calls attention to the fact that not
 many parallels can be found to the cot l ton trade of the past eighteen months. In February last year the consumers got the | idea that the American crop would never l again go much above the 100000 bales i, of 1903. and that this was not enough to l meet requirements. Then 1t was that I Spinners closed their mills and British as- | sociations began trying to arrive at some | plan to establish cotton growing In Af- | rica or South America. Spectators boost | ed the price to a little more than IT cents | a pound when for years 10 cents had been looked upon as high. All this was | followed by an American crop of more than 13500O00 bales. The previous maxi- mum had been II 275, 900. The cry of reck- | less over-production and the campaign of | the cotton planters convention to have the l acreage reduced 25 per cent came next.
 Folks were even advised to burn part | of their product of 1904 There were pre- dictions here in New York of scent cotton and in December last the price had tum-
 bled to 6A.
 1 What was the result? The forced re-
 ducton in the laying in of cotton supplies ! from the crop of 1903 was followed by an
 unusually large consumption from the big crop of 1904, and thus matters were ad- | justed Now that all this has been worked out without disaster the cotton market expresses surprise. and on top of ihe
 inevitable result plunges into wild specu- lation. The fact that planrers did not cut town their acreage -5 psr cent, as
 urged. but did cut it 11as per ceat, and
 weather troubles helped matters along.
 so that the June estimate of cror cond.- 1 tions was n against sS at -hs same time
 last year A fair example of tho markets fluctuations is seen in the fact that on