The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-01-31
A. Jeresni0d
Correspondence OF The Messenger.)
Hope Mills, N. c., January q.


Correspondence of The Aessenger.)
Hope Mills, N c., January q.
Who SO stoppeth his ears at the cry
of the poor shall also cry himself and
shall not be heard"
believe that David when uttering
the above was as wise q man and as
near a Christian as any man that was
elected to any office in any state of the
union in the Iast forty years.
I have written to our legislators and
ven to the governor at different times.
asking them to use their better judg-
ment and influence to get certain laws
passed for relief and to lift somewhat
the burdens off the poor women and
children; n in all these years Senator
J. d. Mcneil. of Cumberland county
been the only man whose heart
could be touched with a feeling for the
nfrmitfe of the women and children
of he poor and common people. But
he, like Moses, after hearing the truth
of h matter chose to suffer the abuse
of a few richer men and refused 70 set
his unholy foot on the necks OF the poor
to take away what God in his mercy
had given them to live on.
But the legislators OF two years ago
turned a deaf ear to the same cry and
to please a few men took away the
rights OF many poor TO increase their
suffering only because one rich man
commanded and they must obey 1T any
cost.
Why is it that of over two hundred
men elected two years ago that only
eighteen have been returned this wear.
There may be something wrong when a
man is only ose for one term.
I am now sixty years old l have
seen many mistakes in our party and I
greatly fear that without a great
change two more years will put us
back without any voice in matters once
more, n if our people manage so as
to lose the power again we will be in
bad shape, 1 fear, for many years to
come.
l am poor and without even a COM
mon school education, but I think I
know more about the necessities of the
poor and common people than the rich
can find u were they to try. The great
trouble with the rich is that they do not
know and a not know how a the
poor in this country suffer. If they
~A0 1AAN NAS Va
the poor they and the poor would all
thrive together n all be richer and
better people. BY not knowing the ne
cess1tles of the poor they pass laws
which max the poor man so poor and
heartless that he cannot work.
One Of the worst things for all that
could be done is passing stock laws in
the legislature to please a few men
while fully nine tenrhs Of the people
are bitterly opposed to them. am not
afraid to say that mis- is the leading
cause of the poverty of the south. and
Unless it is stopped it will destroy the
democratic party. This stock law causes
nearly double the cotton to be planted
that would otherwise be planted. The
people have to give up raising stock.
A poor man car not make a living in
the country if you toke away his rights
to raise stock that the state guarantees
to him in his land deed.
When a nan gets so stingy hat he
doesn't wan a poor widows stock to
u on his land he rac passed the grade
Of religion Or even civilization, for God
made the stock and put them in the
woods and made something to keep
them alive before he made man at all;
and later on He says.
"Woe unto them that lay house to
house and field to field until there be no
place left"
When the stock law is imposed on a
POOR man he gives up, moves u town
OF to a cotton mill where his children
are soon worked to death, being treated
meane than the horses and mules,
having to work before day ard after
dark, which is the greatest sin against
God and the poor that has ever been
committed in America.
Talk about whiskey sellers. I know
whiskey sellers are great sinners, but
they are saints beside men who will
force women and children out in the
mud, water and snow an hour before
day, half naked and bare-footed. Shame
and sin! B.