The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1914-07-14

rom the peHitentiary 10 the county
! chain@angs. TO rk rne roads ana
yet in each OF these instances the
newspapers had leralded his action as
pardon or parole. He asked tie
farmers whether they would rather
rave these prisoners in the penitent-
iary or on the State ia. MS in COM
petition With them, and was greeted
with shouts Of approval.
He said that he understood that
something had been said about t1e
color red. 1T may be the sign Of tAe
anarchist, ruffian, and hoodlum, but,
thank God, the men who are wearing
it today are either themselves the
men or the sons of the men who wore
| that same color of red and followed
Wade Hampton in '76, and kicked tie
negroes out of Office in South Carolina
If it was anarchy to wear it in '16
am proud you wore it; if it is anar-
c.ay to wear it today, am proud you
wear it,
The governor said that he saw some
people going around wearing cotton
blooms and that they ought to be
ashamed Of it, because every tine you
! put on a cotton bloom you are rob-
bing some poor man out OF that mucn
cotton to put in a bale
| Referring to the prediction on the
part of some that if he was elected
governor the State woul be ruined,
he said that the State was in better
condition during the three and half
years he had been governor than 1t
had been before, and that more money
had been invested by Northern cap
italists in South Carolina than for
five or six years previous, and that
the figures would show that the State
was in the most prosperous condi-
ton in which it had ever been.
He took up mis- fight for the country
schools, showing his advocacy Of the
one-mill tax for tAe country schools
which had been levied by the last
legislature, "and the result of it is
today, and the result will be in the
hereafter" he said, "that South Car
olina will have better schools, bet
ter school houses, more convenient
and more comfortable school houses,
and pay her teachers bitter salaries
than have even been paid in the past"
Referring to what ne had done for
the laboring people, he cited his St.
Matthews address, quoting the resolu-
tions of the labor unions, one of which
stated that he bad done more good for
organized labor than all the other
governors in the last 25 years.
Governor Blease then went into a
discussion of the 1ill mergers, citing
the record OF mis- fight against these
mergers. "Tney took men, he said,
'who were working for them, and said
to those men, we find you have in the
bank so many hundred or so many
t1ousand dollars to your credit, and
you are drawing $4,000 year out OF
our mill, and you have made this
money out Of our mill; to another, you
kare drawing six dollars day and
you have made this money out OF our
mill; now we want you, in fact, we
demand that you take the money you
have made and put it in this mill
merger as an investment" TIE gov
ernor said that the result had been
that those cotton mill people by in
vesting in this manner had lost it,
that stock had gone down to seven
dollars share and lower, and that the
other day a man had gone to bank
to borrow money and when he pre-
sented his cotton mill stock as secur-
ity, at the same bank at which he had
been borrowing for years the bank
cashier had pushed it back and said,
You can't barrow On that any longer,
it is no good The governor said ne
had tried to get the legislature to
save the people in this particular, but
| the legislature had refused. AS re-
| suit, there were now lockouts in South
Carolina-two mills he knew of locked
down. What is the purpose?' Tne
reason for tae new rules by those who
made them, he said, watch he cnar-
| acterized as dirty, scurrilous, negro
loving thievery,'' was to deprive the
laboring man of his vote He said he
had warned them of this before the
rules were adopted, and had predict
ed these lock-outs and others which
were coming in his opening speech,