The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-12-12
TIE DARK TOBACCO BEL The Night Riders Are at It Once Again in Old
 Kentucky. ARE FIGHTING THE TRUST A Situation Which Is Neither Pleasant Nor Prom
 ising.

The night riders are at it again in the dark tobacco belt in Kentucky. Four hundred of them descended on one of the little cities, in the early morning hours of Saturday, locked up the police force in the station house. took charge of the telegraph and tele- phone offices and proceeded to burn up the warehouses and stock of some of the tobacco owners who have in- cured the dislike of the growers who are banded against the trust. Nos all the property of the na-sd interests was destroyed; but the personal repre- sentative of one of those exc npt was taken from his house and beaten There was window smashing in the bank buildings and the chice of tn. local newspaper that nas denounced the night-riding activities # the growers.
 Hopklnsville, the city rai.led, is a county seat, situated in southwestern Kentucky about dozen miles from 1 the Tennessee border. A great part of the business of markating the cr5p of the ''Black Patch" comprising some thirty counties in the two States is done through Hopkinsvllle This is not the flrst time that the city has Isuffered visit from the night SIlers last summer they were particularly active in and about that section. They burned up the tobacco barns and stock of many farmers, and sought to ee- stroy warehouses in the towns where the tobacco is assembled for shipment. They devastated the plant beds by lsprinkling them with salt and whip ped the. growers who stood out against lsuch militant methods of arousing public spirit to defy the trust. Natur- ally, the growers association has been isomewhat recruited by coercion. Less than a couple of months ago it was announced that the war was about to be fought on the less forcible and more legitimate line of holding the crop away from the trust buyers and lrefraining from planting a new crop. Apparently this change in the plan of campaign has not met with entire success, and so Hopldnsville has suf- fered another raid The difficulty Iprobably was that the warehouses were already full and the old crop un- sold, when the independent growers Temporarily put their horses out to I 1pasture and hung up their shotguns.
 The Black Patch of Kentucky raises 8 quality and kind of dark tobacco" that is said to be unequalled in any part of t..e world for body, color and texture It is in great demand In Ievery tobacco market, especially in foreign countries, where it is used as basis to make lower grades salable Despite this the growers complain that they do not get fair prices from the trust. Before the trust was organized, the farmers used to deliver their crops at the town warehouses where it would be offered at public auction to competitive buyers. The trust divided the Black Patch into districts to en- able the constituent companies to buy in their respectively allotted fields at their own prices Moreover buyers were sent to the farms to bargain for the tobacco as it hung loose in the barns The farmers took kindly to this latter arrangement at first, since 1t saved them the trouble of putting the tobacco in hogsheads and deliver- ing it to the public warehouses. But the price soon began to go down. The trust had every individual buyer un- der its thumb and growers began to complain that they were forced to sell their crops at less than it cost to raise them.
 Three years ago the farmers organ ized They chose a sales committee They undertook to hold themselves to an iron-clad pledge to regulate the available crop by curtailing the acre. age or storing it. The whole Black Patch was fired with enthusiasm over the project to fight the trust with its own weapons But the trust inauSu- rated new style of campaign. It offered satisfactory prices to the far mers who were not in the organiza- ton and these prices induced much back-slidfng from the pledge More over, the trust refused to deal with the organizations sales representa- tives until the otherwise available supply was exhausted. Even then relatively lower prices were compell- ed Called by these proceedings and helpless to market their crops at the expected prices, the organization de- lveloped the night riders. Fer more than year there has been much de- struction of trust warehouses Trust l,buyers have been warned from tle district on peril of their lives ard the organization farmers have saffaf- led the destruction of their crops There has been anarchy in the dark tobacco belt, and the end is n)t get i-providsnce Journal.