The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-02-27
Orator Addresses Members of State
 Legislature.
Enemy of Staple is Not Buyer at Low Prices, Declares Speaker, But Man Who sells His
 Crop.

Hon. B. D. Smith of South Carolina, the well-known orator of the Soutnern Cotton Association, yesterday addressed a joint session of the two houses or the Alabama Legislature in opposition to bucket shops, and in support or the work of the Cotton Association. <
 Introduced by Hon. W. H. Seymour, President of the Alabama Division or the Association, as a speaker who had won the sobriquiet of the "gattling gun orator of South Carolina" MT. smith made good the claims of his friends to distinction as an orator. He caught the attention of his hearers as soon as he described the State from which he came as 'the Hatspur State of the country, first up in evere devilment and. the last down."
 MT. Smiths address was an able and eloquent exposition of the work and principles of the Southern cotton asso- citation, with a brief review of it's ac- comphshments. He argued that cot ton was king of flores, without rival in the world, and that the paramount duty of the South was to unite to se- cure the benefits of the God-given monopoly.
 MT. Smith said he and the Associa- tion were not enemies of the New York Exchange or the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, and they favored legiti- mate cotton exchange. He described legitimate cotton exchange as a place to which a man could carry samples of , his cotton and leave them with his legalized agent with instructions to sell it at a certain price which would pay him a profit for his labor and his trouble.
 T am fighting the man who sells my cotton at his own price before I have made it," said MT. Smith.
 In his eloquent introduction of the speaker to the joint session, President Seymour alluded to the great economi- cal struggle through the years to re- move the burdens from the rural and production class. A continuation of that great struggle was embodied in the patriotic work of the Southern Cot ton Association. There was an errone- ous impression that the issue was a farmers question, said President Sey- mour. It was not a farmers question, but it was question in which every business, every business man and every institution of the South is vitally in- terested.
 Speaks Duty to Staple.
 MT. Smith told his hearers that sit- ting as the lawmakers of Alabama, they should realize that no law ever emanated from a human brain; that the laws they were writing came out of the workings of Great Providence, and that the duty of the law-makers was to write and place those laws in the proper relation to other laws In the Divine scheme of things. He reminded the lawmakers of their duty towards the'protection of the great staple of the South. He said within the ties of a bale of cotton there were bound up every college, every school, every store every bank and every church. Every hope of the South was based on a cot ton bale, and It's destiny was enwrap- ped in the destiny of cotton bale.
 He denounced any economical scheme which would permit five pr six Wall Street gamblers who would not know a cotton stalk from a jimpson weed, to arbitrarily fix the price of the great product of the South. Incidentally and for the information of the legislators. MT. Smith discussed the dispensary question and the recent decision of the South Carolina Legislature upon it.
 The great question, the great issue, which was being fought out in the South now was:
 "Who shall fix the price of cotton, the men who make 1t, or the men on Wall Street who bet 1t will go up or down?" {
 He reviewed the accomplishments of the Southern Cotton Association and described to his hearers the situation in Wall Street last fall, when spot cotton was selling for more than 10 cents, while futures were selling at less than 10 cents, there being a diff ference of more than half cent in the price. This had been brought about by the refusal of the members of the Cotton Association to sell their cotton except at their own brace.
 "The man who offers me or cents Is not my enemy" said MT. Smith. My enemy is the man who, having the same interest as have, sells his cotton for or 5 cents" J-."
 Injustice from Congress.
 MT. Smith reviewed the unfair and unjust legislation to which the indus- try of cotton growing had been sub jected throughout the years. Congress. on the one hand, had built up a tariff wall for the protection of the cotton