The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1907-05-10
Tobacco Planters Uniting For
Se1f-PrOtectiOn.

L
Self-PrOtectiOn.
A thousand tobacco planters net i'll
Danville, Va, the other day to consider
subjects of interest to them, and more
especially the storage and sale of their
product. For many y ears it has been the
custom at Danville and other markets in
Southern Virginia for the planters to
sell their tobacco at public auction. The
tobacco of that part of Virginia and the
adjacent counties of North Carolina was
in demand and there was active COM
petitive bidding for it. Then came the
Tobacco Trpst with the result that there
was but single real aud bonatide bidder,
and that bidder, the trust, fixed its own
planters conld no longer make a decent
living from the cultivation of his only
money crop. One of the speakers at the
Danville meeting declared that many
planters in his section of the State made
bare subsistence by working their wives
and daughters in the fields and that the
planters are not half as we'll off as they
were 20 years ago.
Some time ago the planters, as coun-
ter stroke to the trust, determined to hold
their tobacco until the needs Of the manu-
facturers for raw material to keep their
factories employed should force them to
offer better prices. In order to compel
the planters to sell, however, it was stat
ed at the time that the Tobacco Trust
use it's influence with the factories from
which many planters obtained the ferti
lizer which is necessary to the production
of fair crops to shorten the credit and so
force the collection of notes and thus
compel the planters to sell their tobacco
for what it would bring in order to pay
these pressing debts.
The next effort of the planters for self
preservation was to form an association,
which built a large storage warehouse
where tobacco could be stored and held
for higher prices or for the price designat
ed by special committee. At W ednesdays
meeting resolution was passed by the
Tobacco Growers Association that
fund should be raised out of which money
can be advanced to those planters whose
crops are stored and who cannot afford
to wait for favorable sale.
The tobacco planters of Maryland
would do we'll to ponder these things.
They, like the Virginia planters, are
suffering from a lack of competitive bid
ders. Those who use Maryland tobacco
are few that they can readily fix the
price, so that in buying tobacco it does
not take two to make a bargain. But the
Maryland planters had an advantage
over the Virginia planters. They already
had what is the equivalent of an associa-
ton warehouse which their fathers paid
for long ago. This is the State tobacco
warehouse, in which the planter can store
his crop free of storage charges. They
should be especially watchful at this time
lest they be deprived of the advantage
which has been theirs. More than ever
houses important to the Maryland plan
tiers. Two have deem destroyed by fire,
one partially demolished for the widen
ing of Light street and the other two are
without the modern appliances which all
warehouses should possess and are not
f1reproof. The fund which came from
warehouses that were burned and from
the one sold to the city belongs of right
and justice to the planters. They paid
it into the treasury aud it represents a
warehouse for the free storage of their
crops But certain interests have under
taken to deny them that right The Legis
lature appropriated the money to rebuild
a warehouse. But certain persons seem
deeply grieved at the proposition to build
proper freproof warehouse, which
would not only aid the tobacco planters,
but would be an addition to the city. We
are told that to build warehouse would
be wicked waste of money; that to form
an unpaid commission to build it, after
the manner that all public buildings
in Maryland are built, was shameful, and
the law was taken to conrt and declared
invalid because of a technical defect
Notwithstand ng all these things. it seems
to be the plain duty of the Legislature to
re- enact the law of 1906 in such form as
to be free from the defect which caused
the Court to declare it lnvalid.-Balti-
more Sun.