The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-06-23
GARRIS'S PLATFORM.
His Address to the Voters of the Sec
ond Congressional District.

So far as issues are concerned, we
are all Democrats. Our National
Party two years ago, and recently our
party in the State have delivered US
to doctrine. If the party were in
power it would do those things it
proclaims best for the Government,
through it's platforms. l feel that a
Minority Congressman, while keep
ing in view the doctrines of his party,
should not refuse the benefits of the
system he may oppose, because he
cannot excape its burdens.
The rock upon which our people
divide is the matter of taxation, as
it is levied on imports, commonly
called the tariff Our party stands
for the collection of tariffs in this
way, but in no greater amounts than
are necessary to conduct the govern
ment, admitting that the incidental
benefits of the system to certain in
dustries. Our opponents, the Repub-
lican Party, believe in the collection
of tariffs for the protection of our
industries first, and secondly as a
measure of gathering revenue. Ger
tainly, there can be no question Of
doubt as to the soundness of the
Democratic theory of leaving all but
the necessary money to run our gov
ernment, with the people.
For fifty years, almost, without
interruption, the conduct of this gov
ernment has been in the keeping OF
the Republican Party, the Party of
protection, and that party has pur-
sued it's policy Of extending privilege
to enterprise, and guaranteeing prof.
it's to aggregated investment until
our necessities of life are controlled
by trusts, some now grown so strong
that they defy the government itself.
We of the South have not been re-
sponsible for this. After the war
was over, when our fields lay fallow,
and our cities lay in ashes, and there
was no substance left to sustain US,
we began life over again, not under
a system of our own making, but un-
der one proviued for us. Very early
we exercised our returning strength
to eliminate the negro and alien from
the control of our State, but we have
never been able to eliminate objec-
tionable tariff taxation from the ma
tional government. We could not
stand still in our poverty, and we
made progress under the system pro-
vided for us in spite Of the system it.
self.
Under the system of protection the
manufacturer of cotton has flourish
ed in the United States. Protection
was thrown about this industry for
the special benefit of New England,
but the law-maker built broader than
he knew-the benefits of the law ex-
tended to the. South. And this is
not strange, because the field is the
proper seat of manufacture. Prov1-
dence in decreeing that the Southern
portion of the United states should
clothe the world provided an abun-
dance of cheap water power on the
spot with which to manufacture cot
ton into cloth and to sew it into gar
ments. Since the South is the provi-
dentially designed producer of cot
ton, the South is dependent on cot
ton. 1t is true, we can raise all the
varieties of food crops, and we should
raise them, as matter of economy,
yet cotton is the money crop, and on
the price of this product hangs the
fate of the South.
The cotton farmer who owns fifty
acres and runs one plow may stand
in the midst of his field and make a
mental inventory Of it's possibilities
something like this: ION the price
that 1 receive for this cotton grown
on this field depends the future hap
piness of my home, and the destiny
of my children, if my children amount
to anything socially, Intellectually
or religiously, they must have prepa-
ration ard training, and these cost
money; and this field is the only
source of money to me-" What this
man. says of his field, the South may
we'll say of it's chief resource; for
what we make of cotton, cotton will
make of the South. So that SEN
sible policy for the South can be
none other than one that is willing to
foster the industry from the fields
to the most remote consumer. |
would not, therefore, consent to re-
duce the .ariff on cotton manufac-
turers as long as the cotton producer
and the cotton manufacturer is fore
ed to buy every necessity of the home,
the field and the factory in protect
ed market. Cotton manufacturing in
the United States, now consuming
nearly one-third of our crops Is a
strong factor in maintaining fair
prices for what We call the raw ma
terial, for the reason that the Ameri-
can manufacturer. with forty-five
per cent. tariff backing offers COM
petition to the European buyer that
can never be harmonised, especially
when the supply is normal or below.
The effect of taking the import
duty off of cotton manufacturers, un-
der present conditions would neces-
sarily bring ruin to the American
Industry 1t would throw hundreds
of thousands of the mill help into the
cotton fields to swell our production,
while every home agency Of con-
sumption would be destroyed, and
prices at the mercy of the European
spinner would sink down to the star
vation basis in a few years to come.
l believe there is enough contempla-
ted in the Democratic idea of Incl
dental protection to protect the cot
ton industry to the point that 1t must
continue to flourish, and under the