The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-01-18

cost us our self-respect. and brought us
to view with apprehension the approach
of high prices, lest the people go mad In
their prosperity and spend their profits
for some of the comforts of life Instead
of for bacon and corn bread | have heard
men declare, with all the assurance OF
sage, that 10 cents as permanent thing
would be a calamity. Why? Because
labor would become too rich and ndepen-
dent. Too rich for what? Too rich TO pay
70 cents for cent bacon; too rich to
work for 50 cents a day; too rich to be
content to live on four pounds of meat
and peck of meal week, bought at JOG
per cent profit and paid for with cotton
at pauper producing prices.
This is what we know has been the
cost of cotton in the past-loss of man
hood, loss of self-respect, loss of financial
freedom, loss of brotherly love-loss of all
that goes to upbuild, upllft and elevate
a people.
Against 1oc Cotton.
In conversation with one of our largest
planters few days ago he urged against
10 cent cotton the objection referred
to above-that the labor would get too
rich and independent. With much conf
denee he narrated the fact that negro
tenant of his had been sick most of the
year, that he had done a good deal of
the work in his crop for him. charging
him at cost for it; that the negro's wife
worked diligently all the year, that the
man reganed his health in time to pick
the eight bales which his crop yielded.
The result was that this negro, sick and
out of his crop most of the year, cleared
in money on the windup nearly 500. With
much citation my planter friend cited this
as a proof of the case with which money
could be made raising cotton. | called
ott To aOalyciG Of
ter The negro cleared $100. He was away
at the hospital most of the year. at no
expense for food or anything. The work
necessary in his crop was done by his
boss and charged for at actual cost.
whereas. had the negro been there, he
would have been at the expense OF liV-
ing and having some clothes, even when
the weather might have prevented his
being at work. Farther had he not put
foot on that plantation till the crop was
made, and had then gone there and picked
that eight bales for some one else. he
would have received at so cents per 100
pounds, $64, of the 800 he did receive.
thus leaving only S36 to pay his wife for
her labor during the making of the crop.
This but illustrates my contention that
we have come to look upon the clearing
of little money at the end of the year
as an indication of prosperity, forgetting
the hardships, the self-denials necessary
during the year, In order that TINS Nttle
clear money may be forthcoming at the
end. As we'll might we commend the
msers policy of self-denail in order that
gold may jingle in his pockets. 1t is not
the accumulation of money, or the reel
ing of independence that is depicting the
farm not only of Its laborers and ten
ants hut of its sons and daughters and
crowding of them into the towns and
cities 1t Is the lack of this wealth.
lack of confidence in a continuance of
the comparative good times, and de-
sire to get away from the uncertainty of
farm life, while the chains of financial
bondage are temporarily broken. Let the
high prices come. let the producer be-
come independent. let him accumulate
surplus, let him feel able to provide his
family with even a modlcum of the COM
forts of life. and we will see not only
cessation of the exodus from farm to
town, but a steady outflow from town
to farm
What to Do With Money.
mot long since in conversation with
q party of eastern capitalists, who hon
ored Shreveport with a stop-over visit,
they were wondering what the southern
people would do with their money out
of the 1906 crop, with the good prices
be produced at 6 cents pound, and
was selling at 10 cents, the plethora of
money would doubtless be stupendous.
I asked them what they thought laborers
would do with their money under these
eircrmstanees--their actual needs were
30 cents per day. they were working for
10 cents per day. but only allowed to
draw one-half at the end of each week.
their humane employers retaining the bal