Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1909-02-16

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cords. In 1907, though we professed
to be restricting acreage, we grew
full crop Of poor tobacco. Then our
officials went wild-and while night
riding, in its most hideous hellish-
ness was in the saddle, booted and
spurred and winked at by many of
our best citizens, condoling threats,
dynamiting, arson, murCe err, assassin
ation-the executive committee
made a price list of the 1907 crop of
tobacco, commencing at 81 for trash
Jugs and going to S25 for fancy
wrappers, and swore and bedamned
that the trust should pay it. Well,
we "boys in the burrows" thought
that the millennium had surely come,
that we would beat that Trust Bus
ter at Washington, and you can inn
agine our chagrin when we found
out that the whole face of the earth
was planting tobacco. They had
heard about our cutting out crop,
that Jugs were to sell for z to II
cents and that they could get into
the game and without being handi-
capped by any association. The re-
suit was that they competed with US
so thick and fast that Spain. who
usually takes 10000 hogsheads of
our lowest grades, on account of
these prohibitive prices, went around
us to the Island of Java and bought
1900 hogsheRds and left us with the
bag to hold. Bremen, who is one of
our most desirable customers, and
really the only open European mar
ket we have, was very shy about
buying at these high prices, but be-
ing doubly assured by the associa-
tion that the list Of prices should not
be varied from, came in and bought
freely at from 9 to Ia cents. When
she had been pretty we'll loaded up,
our association saw we had still too
large stock on hand. that the year
was passing rapidly and our farmers
were getting more and NOSE insist
ent to sell. That something had to
be done, they had said the prices
should not be cut. then the only
thing they could do was to lower the
grades. Nov you see it and now
you DON'T" six of one and half doz.
en- of the other. So down went the
grades, and now a few competitors
of Bremen and Italy who had bought
very sparingly up TO this time came
in. The association looks over the
regarding, sell tobacco that had cost
Bremen from to IA at an average
of So 25. She throws out hundreds
of hogsheads that she accepted in
1905 at $685. and it is regarded and
sold to the American Snuff Co. at
SIPS. Splendid good tobacco. Amer
icpn Snuff Co. sees It's time for her
to come in and last week she took
over $50 hogsheads half leaf and half
Tugs, and this tobacco to be deliver
ed from Hopkinsville and my little
town Pembroke, at $5.75, breaking
the camel's back and putting out of
business the old has been" who al
ways harks back to 1908.
Never since there has been a to-
bacco market in the "Black Patch"
have the monopolies, Trust and Re-
gle contractors, bought tobacco as
cheap, or as satisfactorily, as they
are now doing from the Dark To-
bacco Growers Association. This
private system of selling tobacco, is
the most pernicious that could be
adopted. Why should a man furnish
the labor and money to produce a
crop and turn it over to anybody to
sell without his knowledge as to
time, price or its condition. Why
put the temptation before any man
to take out the bargains from lot
of samples and turn them over to a
confederate. Why select lot of
farmers to grade tobacco who do
not know anything about types or
markets or demands? Why make
poor man borrow money in order
that a rich one may have an associa-
ton? Why have the poor man deny
his family the necessities of life, his
children an education, (this is being