The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-01-12

tIltI &iSSSiltoTS
carry out these promises and they
will no doubt be true to the pledges
of the party they represent. The
| legislation should be drawn to reach
the trusts and the House bill OF 1907
IS one that surely will reach the
trusts that have done most to rob the
-armers of North Carolina and de-
| ;troy competition in business.
The partisans of the Tobacco
Trust-and that trust has its tenta-
les that are ~far-reaching and en-
bracing-are seeking to put the to-
| oacco growers to sleep by pointing to
he fact that the prices paid for the
| crop of the sast season are higher
than in former seasons and adding
n a warning whisper better let we'll
enough alone One e%ffectual an
5wer is that the l~aw-abiding farm
1 ers of North Carolina got nine to
| eleven cents while the Night Riders
cot from seventeen to twenty cents.
| two reasons oDerate1 to make the
price better for the last seasons
crop:
/. The passage of Subsection y by
he Last House of Representatives, the
| declaration of the Democratic State
| Convention, and the belief that high
prices one year would put legislation
o sleep SO that next year the price
ould be fixed by the trust SO as to
! recoup itself for the better prices of
he present season.
2. The prosecution Of the trust in
the Federal courts in which the
Judges have declared the Tobacco
Trust to be a criminal corporation.
convicted of violating the antitrust
law. BY paying somewhat better
prices the Trust believes it can Sc
cure such modification of the. Sherman
Antitrust law as will let them con-
-inue to crush competition and fix the
price of tobacco without becoming
amenable to the law.
These are the reasons-(and the
only RESPONSIBILITY the tobacco
growers got more for their tobacco
crop this year han in previous years
I since the trust obtained the power to
fix the price. Even then the trust
paid twice as high for the tobacco
grown by the Night Riders than for
Sio eopdSSo 5IONH ny lie olulI1S
Day Workers. But even with the
letter prices, the price is still very
much lower than it woulN be if there
was the same competition that existed
before the trust was in the saddle. A
gentleman familiar since 1880 with
prices of products in the tobacco
town of oxford calls attention to the
following prices hat he says pre-
vailed in oxford in 1880 and in 1905
In 1880, tobacco averaged on the
Oxford market II to IS cents. Il
pound.
In the year 1880. beef averaged 5
cents per pound; in 1908, seven cents.
In 1880 butter was twenty cents
per pound: in 1908. it was so to 35
cents.
in 1880 chickens sold for 10 to II
cents; in 1908 the price was 20 to 80
cents.
In 1880 cotton sold for 6 to Z cents.
In 1908 it was over eight cents. hav-
nS really averaged about ten cents
or the past half dozen years.
These figures show that everything
that is grown on the farm has gone
un in price, sometimes as much as
one hundred per cent, and yet in this
period the tobacco grown by the
farmer has gone down over 80 per
cent, counting the price paid in the
fall of 1908. and more thar 100 per
cent counting the average price paid
during the last half dozen years.
Why has everything else the farmer
raises gone up and the price of to-
bacco gone down since the Tobacco
trust came into control? There is
but one answer: The Tobacco trust. by
reason of having gained a monopoly
by illegal methods, fixes the price the
farmer gets for his tobacco while
every thing else sold from the farm
has been priced in open competition.
AS long as the Tobacco trust continues
he may expect to see the
TRUST take the product Of their years
labor at its own price. If they per-
nit themselves to be lulled to sleep by
a little better prices for one year
less than half the price their tobacco
is worth-the tobacco w will
find that. when the wind blows over.
the trust viii! take their crop another
season at the bare cost of cultivation
Though buying tobacco from the
farmers at from one-third to three
tifthS less than when competition pre-
vailed, the consumer has gotten no
benefit in the shape of reduction of
prices since the trust was organized,
and it has steadily crushed competition
by destroying independent factories or
swallowing them, and they have gone
about the bushes of securing a virtual
monopoly by the ruthless methods Of
the man whose daily watch-Word is:
Stand and deliver"
In the litigation pending now III
New Jersey between the tobacco Trust
and Mr.. r. y Richardson. a promi-
nen tobaccoulst of Reidsville, Mr.
Richardson swore that the Presiden'
of the Tobacco trust told him. il
substances: I'VE do not give Whar