The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-16
This state Ranks We'll to ths Front With Others in the Production of the Greatest staple of This Country Something of the Cotton AssOcia- ton.

the South was helpless.
 The North knew that In the war 1t was fighting in the south a govern mental republic and an industrial nlon- archy. So It's first concern was to cap@ ture King Cotton, and when every Sou- thern port was bloekaded. there was only one hope, one course by which the South might be saved. The south. | if 1t had men enough, might break through the blue line that guarded Ma son and Dixon's line and take what it had to have from the northern cities, It might break through the blue guard line, take Washington. Philadelphia, Trenton. New York and Cincinnati. and what they contained. for food and the clothing of the South. But 1t never had men enough.
 The north went in behind and locked tup its cotton, The blockades made King Cotton as surely q prisoner as ever was Napoleon at st. Helena. The SSIth was infinitely more helpless lwiehssut It's industrial monarch than was ever the Grande .Arnlee. without le Empereur. s--as7..7
 Not bale could move out of tho South. Not a dollar could come into the South The blockade was deadlier to the South than the sword. It was not magnificent but 1t was war.
 Tn the streets of the Lancashire mill
 
 children marched tn starving mobs. There were seen then those terrible, awful sights the sight of men and women fighting sayagely for bread. For many weary months the English spindles had been idle and human be- ings suffered for food fin the streets of the mill towns of Merry England
 Cotton Msfses BOnfires.
 In every Eotlt hern town, the ware houses were filled with 'unEold and un- salable cotton. Thousands of bales were piled high, one upon the other They afterwards made splendid bonfiras-- l these piles-~4when the Federal soldiers came in. But the people of the south ern towns were but little better off than the helpless mill operatives in | the Lancashire towns. The English people of the mill towns hungered be- cause there was no cotton to buy! The southern people suffered and hunger ed because there was no way to Sell their cotton. The deadly blockade was between the two.
 Never before then, never since then, has the dependence of the South upon cotton been SO clearly and painfully dAnonstrated Never before and never since has the south been helpless and hopeless. Never before. and never since has King Cotton been bound and gag ged. ..,,F Fl And because of Nthls circumstance cotton in the last year reached the greatest. the most wonderful price m |. the history of mankind. In the last year of the war. the winter of 1864 cotton was selling for q dollar and ninety cents a pound. Cotton will nev- CT reach such a figure as that again. It is to be hoped that it will not. The story of that record breaking price is the story of the South's dependence lupon King Cotton. The story of that record breaking price is the story of the bread riots in England-the story of the hunger and the suffering of the South.
 In the knowledge of the south's agri- cultural serYitude to cotton. there Is one ameliorating conditiou--t has an absolute monarchy Of its riches. No country, no, nation, can ever wFest from lit this advantage. They grow some cot ton in India, but not much. They raise some cotton in Egypt and good cot ton, too, But compared to the crop Of the South it is only a trifle. Year af- after year Germany, France and Eng land have sought to raise cotton m their African colonies Theoretically 1t could easily he done. Infinite patience and infinite money have been spent In inc endeavor. but there is not enough lcotton raised in Africa. south of Egypt, to pay a fraction of the great expense of the unsuccessful efforts to intro duce it's culture.
 Alabama a Cotton Grower. q An allwise Providence seems to have set aside as the chosen spot~fors the growing of that product on the soil which clothes more human beings than any other article known to man, the Southern States of America. Alabama ishn' the heart of the cotton producing region The warm breezes which make possible that warm and luxuriant ellis mate, the balminess of which insures mankind its clothing. first blesses the valleys and plains of Alabama. The lohosen section has no finer cotton fields than those of Alabama, For ts territory, no Southerns State eKcels in lcotton production, Texas, which Is half A dozen times as large as an average { state of course, islcredited withsa larg- CT crop. Georgia, only of the normal sized states eEceis Alabama In the humber of bales produced. and Georgia has considerably more territory. than Moreover. to dlgress for gthe. m qnenti neither Georgia, nor Texas begins to produce the great crops of coal and iron which Alabama each year ; gives to the world And this is one of the circumstances which gives the well informed Aiabamian the complete confdence he has that his State Is the richest in the Union, in the bare raw gifts which Mdtherg Eafth 4makes to her children #. @
 But cotton is the tfue text now, and it is improper to- leave!it In the year lof 1906r that is the cotton year which ended Septembers i, 1908. the state of .I Alabama produced 1,3Ss,00 bales of cotton. Georgia had fin the same year |. 900. GOO, being the only nor nal State that excelled the figures Euf eAlabama. Now Toxas and the Indian Terfitorv, which are bracketed together in the leotton. statistics. produced the cnor- nous total of 3,O26QO0 bales of cotton. This, howevr. was a way over half the cotton grown west of the Mississippi River
 Years Item Ia S7O!O0O,00O, l Perhaps. the average Aiabamisu whi may. know in a general way that cot { ion means a great deal to the Indus ltrlal welfare of the State. does not ful 7, Inv appreciate the financial value of tho lState's cotton crop. He may be fully Iable to comprehend it when he Is told the single item of cotton in Alabama for last year amounted tn actual mon c,, to more than $1o oOo0.O00 If Aluba- Inla had nothing else but cotton. lt could make or Alabama a rich State Rut the same Nature that has given 1t such Ia heneficent climate ltas been more generous in its gifts ot mineral rich les.
 So far ss the state of Alabama was | nn~ |. maN