The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1911-08-17
FARMERS UNION BUREAU.
From Whitner Reid, Secretary South
Carolina State Farmers Union.

" LlIS al chAlo <hiA SAAN hSSAAA>S~'
Interests That Are Affected by the
Price of Cotton
The Sumter County Farmers
Union at it's last meeting unanimous
" directed us as committee to call
your attention to the serious condi-
ton that confronts US in the outlook
for low prices for this crop of cot
ton. Thirty or forty days ago cotton
sold in Sumter for Isl cents tspot.
To-day holder who would not then
sell was glad to get -! cents. These
are actual sales. What has brought
about such a slump in this short
time after cotton has held steady for
S or 10 months at IA to 10 cents!
They say it is because there is a
prospect of over 100000 bales.
Is it not more because the world,
judging from the past, thinks 1t can
stampede the farmers and the mer-
chants and buy this crop for any old
price? We hear it said that cotton
will sell below 10c before Christmas.
The men who are predicting such
prices are working with might and
main to bring about 10c cotton by
telling their farmer friends that the
crop is the largest on record. You
ought to sell as fast as you can, for
cotton is bound to go lower" ap-
parently not knowing that this is
the very way to bring about lower
level of prices,
Now, we have no quarrel with the
Northern or foreign spinner who
wants low-priced cotton. 1t is only a
part Of his business to get his raw
material at the lowest possible price,
and it is also a part of his business
to sell his finished product at the
highest possible price. But how any
Southern men, even owners of mill
stocks, can wish to see low prices for
cotton, or can in any way give aid
and encouragement to the enemy by
joining in the hue and cry that
prices are bound to 60 lower is
past our comprehension. Every busi-
ness man and every cotton mill in
the South is inevitably bound up in
the general prosperityof this section.
If Southern mills would seek out
new markets for the manufactured
goods, and learn from the successes
of foreign mills to cater to the de-
mands of the worlds trade in the
fabrics the world wants, put up m
the kind of packages the world
wants, they could join hands with all
the business interests of the South
and fix and maintain the highest pos
sible price tor cotton and cotton
goods.
That the mills will not do this is
abundantly proven by the history of
recent years when our own mills
kept out of the market, while the
farmer was falling over himself to
sell his cotton, and later paid more
for their stocks than the foreigners,
with freight and other charges add
ed. We may expect the same thing
to happen this fall. Hence we leave
the Southern spinners out of the
count.
But we do call on every merchant
and every fertilizer manufacturer
and every banker and every railroad
man to join with the Farmers Union
in urging every farmer to hold back
his cotton until the world is willing
to pay living price for it. Such a
course can hurt no one and it will
help every one; the merchant by
giving him cash customers for his
goods; the fertilizer plants by in
creased use of their goods; the banks
by larger deposits; the railroads by
larger freights on more imported
goods that our people will have the
money to buy, and every profession
and calling by the increase in the
circulating medium brought about
by the larger flow of foreign gold in
all the arteries of commerce.
There can be no question that this