The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-10-25
Established 1877
News Reporter.


Th,, war waged for some four years
mast hv the dark tobacco growers of
kentucky and Tennessee read ds like a
story Of the dark ages. When the
tobacco trust was organized it forced
growers to sell their crops at starva-
tfon prices. Tobacco that before the
trust was organized sold for IL or Is
cents and even higher, had the price
cut down to three cents and if the
farmers refused to deliver to the
trust agents by q certain day, when
necessity forced them to sacrifice, they
were paid two and sometimes as low
as one cent a pound. The trust
specially favored the landowners and
large growers and ii was the small
farmer and cropper who was so
sham elessIy robbed. The growers got
In debt and q virtual state of slavery;
they were nearly starved, their fam
lilies in rags and their children grow
ms up like saVages and in ignorance.
The Governor OF Kentucky, before his
election, was attorney for the tobacco
trust, and used the power and ma
chinery Of his State to oppresS them.
The growers could get no laws passed
for their relief, and when in their
desperation lawleSSneSS was reStor ed
iDC troops We're rushed into the dark
tobacco district, and the Governor Is
sued proclamat ations branding these far
mers as outlaws The trust had the
the tobacco-pFoducing district was
portioned out SO that one set OF bug
erS would not bid on crops grown in
another buyers territory. The trust
had crushed cut all competition am onE
tobacco manufacturers, and the few
eO-calIed 'independeRt companies
we're doniDated by the trust and
which was making millions from the
tobacco Wrested from the starving
farmers OF Kentucky and Tennessee.
The trust was getting on an average
about $50 a pound for tobacco that
cost it three cents and less.
Driven to desperation, these dark
tobacco growers organized, and get
ting no relief from their State, resorted
10 iawlessness and violence, even &c
blOodshed The growers banded them
selves into q secret, oath-bound as
sociation, in which they obligated
themselves TO hold their tobacco and
not sell a pound except for stipulat-
ed price, and one grower could not
Sell without eli the members selling
At first the trust agents ridicuied this
organization. The large growers and
landlords were standing in with the
trust, and it weS boasted that they
could soon StaTVe the small growers
and tenant farmers. who had to work
aud make the tobacco on shares.
The first step taken by the associa-
ton was TO induce every tobacco
grower TO JOIN tlefi III Inc HSh
against the trust The landlords anC
some tenant farmers, too. refused tt
DO this, when coerciTe measures were
resorted, to, and which increased il
violence as resistance was met. The
tobacco farmers with masks on theil
faces rode over the country and warn
cd all growers not to sell their tobacco
10 the trust. Next they reSorted Il
scraping beds or sprinkling them witt
salt; then to burning. barns and th'
Iomes Of obnoxious persons. and ther
TO whipping and assassiHations. 4
vast quantity of tobacco and propert,
went up in smoke and a reign Of terro
prevailed in the dark tobacco belt.
But even the an-pcwerful trust wa
al last forced &c make terms with th'
growers, or at least temporary truc'
was patched up, and the grower
closed out their tobacco at more thar
six times the price paid them by th'
trust before their association wa
formed and those growers are nov
prosperous, Independent and happy:
The following is a brief story 0
that dark tobacco war:
Thanksgiving night in NOVem Der
1905, shortly after the stroke o
twelve. three hundred men rode int
Princeton. Ky, seized the night watch
set guards over the fire department
teiegraphed aud telephone offices, sta
toned men at street crossings to turI
back inQuisltiyo citizens and proceeded
to burn two tobacco warehouses own
ed by the tobacco trust. During thi
performance horsemen deployes
through the streets Of the town ant
threatened with death any person wh'
attempted to extinguiSh the flames. A
- soon aS the warehouses were destroy
ed the Invaders released the watch
- the fire apparatus, the telephone ans
telegraph stations and rode away
Three hundred thousand pounds G
tobacco had been burned and the los
from the nights work aggregated
10000.
It was in the Black Patch that Nigh
Ri3ipo. rre,Ip.n,.ti,n NipE