Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-12-10
WHY OPTIMISM SHOULD REIGN THROUGHOUT The SOUTH
ManufhctuEets' Record


aggregate capital invested in manu-
featuring in the South is today great
err than the total manufacturing cap
ital of the United States in 1890. Ev.
cry pessim site word, every blue
devil" is a reflection upon the peO-
pie of the South. The men who, % OF
80 years ago, led the South out OF
poverty; the men who between 1885,
and 1901, when cotton was selling at
from five to seven and eight cents i
! pound, and when all business was de-
I pressed and almost stagnant unceas-
ingly, with never-failing courage
worked for the upbuilding Of the
South, never showed the VIII te feath-
er. Shall anybody in the South show
it today? Have we less self-reliauce,
less backbone, less energy than the
South then had?
If We win to stop the southwark
trend Of men and money if we want
to herald broadly throughout the
world that the South cannot meet and
overcome such a temporary disad-
vantage as a small price for cotton
by reason of too large a crop, if we
want to advertise the South as a land
where men lack the backbone and the
strength to meet difficulties and face
them with a smile and with unflinch-
ing courage, then We need only to
continue to agitate through confer
ences and conventions, with unbus-
iness-like and impracticable schemes
about financing cotton with $4,000
Geo, and $75,00O,OOO pools, and about
the great injury to the South because
of lower-price cotton than we had last
year.
Cotton is too cheap-much too
cheap and many foreign spinners
are said to realize this to such an eX-
tent as to be buying a two-years' sup
ply; but it is too cheap because We
raised too much, and that's our own
fault, or shall We blame Providence
for giving US such perfect growing
weather as to intensity our folly in
planting so big an acreage? But even
though cotton is much too cheap, and
though the farmer may lose, there is
some consolation to be had from the
fact that the Southern spinners will
gain. For several years the cotton
mills, one of the most important in
dustries of this section, and upon the
prosperity, of which depends much of
the South's prosperity. have had a
hard time financially, as have he
m lis of New England, because the
price of goods did not keep pace with
the advance in the raw staple. Now,
with the lower price of cotton, they
will have the opportunity of recoup-
ing their issues. With increased pros
perity, by reason of the fact that they
can now make goods at profit, the
mills should again become a large
factor in aiding the prosperity OF
every other interest.
And then, if the object-lesson which
the South has received of the econ
omic blunder of raising too large i
crop shall drive the farmers of this
section to producing at home the
grain and provisions which they now
buy from the West at cost of hun
dreds of millions of dollars a year, II
will be we'll worth the cost of the loss
due to the temporary decline in cot
ton. The newspapers may preach
and the agricultural colleges MAJ
teach of the possibilities of diyersi
fed farming and of the broader gen
eral prosperity which Will be sure t
come to this section when it raises al
home all that it needs to consume, anG
makes OF cotton by-product or
surplus cash crop, but these preach
ings and teachings will be in vail
without some object-lesson as South
ern farmers are this year getting.
Let the South, therefore, look no
upon the dark side of the picture
and only few years ago this darl
side, so far as the price of cotton il
concerned, would have been regardeI
bright s'de-but let it look upon tn,
Astounding evidences OF increasin.
prosperity, of the worlds recognition
of its advantages, of natures demon
stration of the South's ability to pro
duce any amount of cotton which tn
world may need, and then foreve
sing a paean of praise for the bless
ings which have been vouchsafed (,
it as to no other land under the sun
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