The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1909-11-25
FARMING THEN AND NOW.


Making Cotton at Four and Five
Cents, While New They Get Poorer
When 1t Brings Three or Four Times
as nuch-What Is the Difference
Under the Circumstances? - Capt.
Smith Asks for an Answer.
Editor GOLD LEAF: How is it and
why is it, that the same acre of ground
here in North Carolina that in 1850
produced only a quarter bale OF cot
ton that sold for four and five cents,
and our fathers got rich at it and
threw away the seed, today produces
five hundred pounds that sell for ten
and twelve cents and the farmegs
can't live at that price, and sell the
seed for enough to pay for the pro-
ductiOn? Where does the failure come
in?
Our fathers worked with the crud
est kind Of implements made by hand
out there at the barn-half wooden
concerns often unwieldy and awkward
II they used any fertilizer it was Pc
ruvian guano that cost forty dollars
or more a ton, the same as family
-four cent for cent, pound for pound.
In addition to this they made their
own clothes from the raw material
to the garments upon their backs
picking the seed out of the cotton
with their fingers at night to be
carded and spun the next day by the
fireside and woven the day after into
cloth by the hand loom for family
use, white and black. Yet these so
called farmers on the same ground
with all modern improvements and
labor saving machinery cannot make
a living at twice the price and four
times the product our fathers got
for theirs-with cost of production
paid in the seed.
The farmers OF today are realizing
about eight dollars for what they got
one for. They got rich while you are
getting poorer. Stand up there,
some of you hoary headed sons OF
toll, and tell me, where does the diff
ference between you and your prede-
cessors come in. Are you not on
the same ground, with the same
environment, the same sky above
you, the same seasons, the same mar
kets with better communication than
they had?
In 1850, (sixty years ago. Henry
Clay with his nursing bottle of high
tariff for infant industries was teach
ing and preaching protection for
manufacturers and industries that
could not live without outside as
sistance. Two generations have
come and gone, but these weaklings,
unable to stand alone, have been
nurtured into uncircumcized giants OF
the Philistines by your support, that
stand over you now with a master
hand, owning and controlling you
and all that you bring forth, pricing
your labor-when and where you
shall sell and buy and for what prices.
You cannot sit under your own vine
and press the fruit that falls into
your lap into wine, drink or sell it
without paying your Goliath, the
trust, for the privilege, and this trust
is child OF your own adoption if not
begetting. You fathered it at the
ballot box and ''Papt" it ever since
with the protection Of tariff that
left you less than a 1.-THE of what
you could produce-gave it the 60
cart OF the law and now supporting
it with both hands, all your heart
and piece of your liver. Don't you
think he's big enough and old enough
to wean, walk alone and sleep by
himself? What will he be in at the
gin house door, that does not be-
long to you? The first lein upon
it is that of your Goliath the trust
who had nothing in the world to
do with it's production while his
pages, the bankers, are shooting
craps for it down on Wall street
and you standing there with your
hands in your pockets looking like
fool yelped up and shot at with a
repeating breech loader, and the
goods you brought into existence by
the sweat of your brow, passing be-
fore you in the whirl of trade while
you have no voice or direction in the
matter. In some of your big farm
er" meetings stand up and tell me-
You, the grand children of parents
who got rich on four cent cotton
while you can't live on fifteen cent
cotton in the same house, on the
same ground and the same markets.
| call for the answer.
O. r. SMITH.