The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1908-12-10
REMARKABLE
TESTIMONY
Given Before the Ways
and Means Committee
From the South.

SOUTH pROSpERS
UNDER PROTECTION
Congressman, Prominent Business
Men, Farmers, and Laboring Men
From, Southern States Want Pre-
sent Conditions Continued-They
are Against the Denver Platform
A Most Interesting and Signifi-
cant situation-Why They did not
Vote for What They want-A
Great Change is Coming and the
Republican Patronage Machine
Methods in the South Must Go.
Special to The Caucasian.l
Washington. d. c., Dec. THE
past week has been red letter day
in the hearing before the ways and
means committee on the revision of
the tariff law. Congressman, promi-
nent business men and farmers and
laborers from the South have been
before the committee pleading elo-
| guently for protection for the raw
materials and manufactured pro-
ducts Of that section.
The development has aroused
great interest and has caused many
to ask:-''is the South really for pro-
lection and If so why did it not vote
for it?"
Indeed the whole thing is most
significant, and it has been the talk
Of Washington for week.
When Grover Cleveland went over,
body and breeches, to Robert Mills
of Texas, then chairman of the Com
mittee on Ways and Means, and in
| augurated his great free trade cam
paign, which resulted in defeat to
the Democratic party after the splen-
did victory of 1884, there were few
industries in the south. The absence
of industries" means free trade, for
stagnation and free-trade go hand in
hand; no industries, no protection.
An epitome of the situation, then
and now, in the south, is aptly illus
trated by North Carolina witness
who says: "In 1894, between Char
lesion, S. c., and Norfolk, Va, dis
tance of four hundred miles, there
were but two mills. For the last
five years, under the new conditions,
two thousand three hundred mills,
| employing on hundred and fifteen
| work
What is true of lumber is true of
| many other industries, including the
production of raw materials, as in
the case of citrous fruits and cotton.
| The California fruit grower strikes
| hands across the continent with the
| producer of citrous fruits in Florida,
The beet sugar producer of the long
and sunny days of the far north, in
| the middle west, meets in convention
| and discusses the mutual interests of
the sugar producer, with the planter
| of Alabama and louisiana The to-
| baccO grower of Connecticut is in
like interest with the tobacco pro-
ducer in the states south of the
Mason and Dixon line.
The boys from the farms or plan
tations, whether north or south, were
not sent to fight the battles of the
government of the United States in
recent war with Spain in response to
a mere sentiment, or in the expec-
tation of fostering sentiment which
| would place the producer of the Phil
| ippines Islands or some outlying
province, in a position of equal ad-
| vantage with like industry in
America. While the different sched-
ule of a protective tariff, low or local
in their application, yet protection
as principle is not local but nation.
al, and wherever in the nation indus
tries thrive and prosperity exists
there protection will be in greater
favor.
The common experience of the far
| mer with market at his door Incl
dent to the foctering of industries
is within the experience of every til
Ter of the soil who is so fortunatel.
situated as to be within the zone o.
such industries. For these reason:
) the south has changed its politica
principles, and change of its vot,
will essentially follow this great eco
, nomic question which so MATERIAL.
! affects the prosperity of the who'll
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