The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1910-06-22
lHf INDUSTRIAL DELE[OPFMFNT
OF SOUTH CAROLINA REVIEWED
Mir w. W. Ball Tells of Changes, Political and Other.
wise, That Have Come to Pass in the State
in Last Quarter of Century.

read by w. w. Ball of the staff of
The State, on The Relation of the
Press to Industrial Development of
South Carolina" at the meeting of
the South Carolina Press association
at Glenn Springs. Mr.. Ball said by
way of preface that his paper con-
sisted of two parts remotely related,
the first being devoted to brief con
sideration of the press itself as an
industry and the second bearing more
directly on the theme assigned him.
1t is the second part that is here
given.
y. \ Glance in Retrospect.
Z" One might enlarge on the hints
that have flung out but my purpose
Is to discuss a wholly different phase
OF the topic that your committee has
assigned to mel am going to read
a political, though in no sense par
tisan, paper.
Not since 1884, the year before
Capt. Tillman unbosomed himself at
Bennettsville, has the political tenn
perature been so low in South Caro-
INA. In that year the stagnation of
deSpni rwas the characteristic. In
1910 the political sea is becalmed:
the people having embarked on an
other sea. Earnestly, diligently, joy
ouSly they are busy-maiing money.
lhey have no time for politics; they
40 not seek help from politicians.
They do not need it.
IN 1884 half a mill increase in the
tax levy maddened the people. They
We're poor Many of them could not
make buckle and tongue meet. no
matter how they sweated and strove.
and with the price OF cotton going
down and the price of money at the
bank staying up, they began to gropc
bliNdiy and strike blindly i'm all dircc-
Nions. The condition was not peculiar
20 South Carolina, it marked all the
agricultural States and so. when n
politician offered any remedy. they
Snat2hed hungrily at it. They were
in no temper to weigh accusations
and explanations and examine them
under the miscroscOpe. Anything that
was labeled legislative medicine they
swallowed without ;rrimace and then
Smac&ed their l''a. In State after
Sta;e, Whoever ran about crying a
hosnAm was hailed gladly and paid
hand' ome'T from the only monies
th"t ne D"Ople had-the scant Supplv
in 'h public treasury, the rascal
cor IS wrung from the hard hands
~ ne taXgatherer
Not II True Revolution.
But, we had no political revolution
in this or any other American com
mon~ealth. We had change of
oihcl&ls, tagged somewhat differently,
but they were men OF the same race,
stakes in the community and the same
fundamental habits and motives as
Their predecessors. Consequently. no
constitutional change followed: ir
rev years the furry passed and
the people took u2 again their ae-
custOmed modes OF thinking and
do.n& The division of the people
N"a Aaru and accompanied with
cruel laceration but it was not deep-
1t was only skin deep. The tough lig-
aments that held the people together
could not be sundered by "declama-
tory flourisiies."
The movement that for the time
turned things topsy-turvy i'm the early
nineties, and this | would especially
insist upon. was not a laboring mans
movement 1t was Agrarian. If was
The uprising. in the main. of the dis
heA tencd but land-owning farmer
NOT of his wage earning tenant or
hired man. The land owner was SO
poor ana distressed that he forgot
th&t he was a capitalist-that his
BUSINESS was one of buying labor at
the lowest possible price and selling
IahoCS product at the highest possible
price
HE Land Owner II Capitalist Always.
Ihat the farmer tills his land with
mis- own hands does not change his
nature as capitalist if he own the
land' but in those days he was so
poor so weary Of hand and sick of
spirit that he imagined himself i'm
precisely the same plight as the
hlred man was who had nothing save
TABOR to sell. Wages being low. the
latter had everything to gain and
nothing to lose by alliance with the