The daily sentinel., 1908-03-16

Inc ITONoCdtIOn NrreaC.
while Kentuckians fear the nigh
riders-or, to put 1t in another way
the spread of the night rider move
ment-their sympathies are largely
with these lawless bands. They de
preciate the acts of violence the night
rider commits, but realizing that the
| provocatfon is great mos of them
decide in favor of the night riders as
against the American Tobacco com.
pany every time. This feeling the
writer has found in every section OF
the state very recently traversed."
Beginning of Oppression.
| The beginning of the oppression
of the growers by the trust is told
of by well known Kentucky rider
as follows:
1T was about 1895 that the finesse
| and 'shrewd business acumen' of the
trust. as President Duke might call
| 1t, began to be noticeable in Ken
lucky Previous to that time, any
body could buy tobacco in fair com
petition, the price being governed
by the law of supply and demand,
regulated, of course, by quality and
general farm values.
Those Good Old Times.
There was no such thing as the
take-it-or-leave-it principle as appli-
eu W price on TOBACCO.
( Buyers went about the tobacco
lands as they pleased, bought as they
could and took their own chances
on selling the tobacco on the
breaks, as the wholesale warehouse
markets are called.
Cincinnati was the general mar
ket for Northern Kentucky tobacco
in those days. Bidding on the
breaks was spirited, particularly on
finer grades, and buyers rarely lost
money. With these conditions the
grower was satisfied, for he always
received a price high enough to pay
him for raising crop.
Hand of the Trust.
Gradually, however, the charac-
ter of the markets changed, and in
this case one fact, and the manner in
which it was accomplished, is the
genesis of the Night Rider
Sudden reversions in value were
noted; indeed. became the rule. One
year. with all the conditions appar-
emily in their favor, the buyers sold
their holdings on the Cincinnati mar
ket at loss. They were amazed
They could not understand where
they had failed. There was no good
reason In the world why they should
lose money. Nothing in the retail
market war-a nted the slump, and for
year they puzslal over the problem
without solving r.
"Remembeli. 3 The old saying,
Once bit. twice shy" they determ-
ined not to be caught again and the
next year they went into the field
and offered lower prices. Then the
growers began to wonder. Neverthe-
less they sold, and. as usual, tobacco
went on the breaks
Greatly to the amazement of the
buyers, they were stung again.
Running the Farmers.
Tobacco went to a lower notch
than the year before, and then began
a relentless depression of prices
which eventually ruined scores of
Kentucky farmers; male all tobacco
growers desperate; caused the organ
ization of the American Society of
Equity which now holds many mil
lion pounds of tobacco in pool which
cannot be touched by the trust until
it comes up with the price; and last,
though by no means least. resulted
in the organization of the Night
Riders, the most active band of reg
ulators since the Indiana White Caps.
THE sins of the American To-
bacco company, which are many,
have not gone according to the Bible,
but have been visited with a venge-
ance upon kentucky"
Is 1t Revolution?
On February 18th, some of the
features of the Kentucky tobacco
war were described as follows by a
special writer for the Pennsylvania
Grit:
rs Kentucky on the verge of a
revolution?
This question is asked in all seri-
business by many of the best men of
the state, particularly in what are
known as the White Burley and Dark
tobacco sections, the former, in the
north, having Lexington as it's CEN
ter, and the latter, locally called the
| Black Patch lying in the south
western part of Kentucky, where the
night riders first appeared.
Two Glasses of Growers.
There are two classes of tobacco
growers in Kentucky. one of which
Is large and the other comparatively
small. Members of the former class
belong to the American Society of
Equity, an organization of the best
growers of the state banded together
to force higher prices for tobacco
the second class includes the so-called
independents who refuse to Join
the Equity Society. This class is
subdivided into the might haulers,
men who convey their tobacco to
trust or independent warehouses un-
der cover of darkness, so that their
ncighbors may not know they are
marketing their tobacco; and a bet
ter section of growers who honestly