Durant weekly news. (Durant, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 190?-1944, 1906-02-09
HENRY GRADY
IS QUOTED
HIS Views Upon Question Of Diver
sificatiOn Reproduced.

AAShNNAo oOAA3 Il "a a W. " II Il ~ -
is an important era in the history
of the South, and especially in
} Texas. If we shall succeed in
realizing the hopes of the South
ern Cotton Association it will be
when diversified agriculture shall
have attained its big hest practical
test. don't known Of any Lam
guage so strong and pointed on
this subject of diversification than
the burning words uttered by the
Immortal Henry Grady, at Dallas
nearly eighteen years ago, when
he said; "No one crop will make
a people prosperous. If cotton
held its monopoly under condi-
tions that made other crops inn
possible or under allurements
that made other crops exceptional
Its dominion would be despot-
ism.
Whenever the greed for
a money crop unbalances the
wisdom of husbandy the money
crop is a curse. When it stimu-
lates the general economy of the
farm it is the profiting of farming.
-" The soil that produces cot
ton invites the grains and
grasses, the orchard and the
vine. Glover, corn, cotton, peas,
wheat and barley thrive in the
same inclosure; the peach, the
the apple, the apricot and the
Siberian crab in the same or
chard. Herds and flocks Craze
ten months every year in the
meadows over which winter is
but passing breath, and in
which spring and autumn meet in
summers heat. Sugar cane,
oats, rice and potatoes, are ex-
tremes that come together under
our skies. To raise cotton and
send its princely revenues to the
| West for supplies, and to the
East for usury, would be misfort-
une if soil and climate forced
such curse. When b tn invite
independence, to remain in slav-
cry is crime. To mortgage our
farms in Boston for money with
which to buy meat and bread
from western cribs and smoke
houses is folly unspeakable.
Diversification is the road to pros
Iperity. 1t is the way to manh-
ness and character. When every
farmer in the South shall eat
bread from his own fields and
meat from his own pastures, and
disturbed by no creditor, and en-
slaved by no debt, shall sit amid
teeming gardens and orchards,
and vineyards, and dairies, and
barnyards, pitching his crops in
his own wisdom, AID growing
them in independence, making
cotton his clear suplus, and SELL
ing in his own time, and in his
chosen market, and not at mas
ter's bidding-getting his pay in
cash and not in receipted mort
gage that discharges his debt,
but does not restore his freedom
then shall be breaking the full
ness of our day. Great is King
Cottonl But to lie at his feet
while the usurer and grain raiser
bind us in subsection is to invite
the contempt of man and the re-
Iproach of God. But to stand up
before him and amid the crops
and smokehouses wrest from him
the magma charter OF our inde-
pendence, and to establish in his
name an ample and diversified
agriculture, that shall honor him
while it enriches us-this ID to
carry us far in the way to happi-
ness and independence as the
farmer, working in the fullest
wisdom, ard in the richest field,
can carry any people,"
Let the above extract be copied
in every paper in South, and read
and reread until it shall arouse in
the heart of every Southern man