The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1914-04-07
SMITH DISUSSES
COTTON GRADING BILL
staCles Overcome i'm His Fight
For Its Passage.

Florence Special to Io'Im1ia
State April 4-Se lator T.. D. Smith
who was i'm Florence yesterday, in
discussing the unanimous passage
Of his cotton grading bill by the
senate said that he felt that he had
reason to be proud that he had been
privileged to see these results of pa
tient labor and abiding faith. He
realized that he had been obliged to
overcome stupCndous obstacle,
existing not only in the fact that he
and those who lahOred with him i'm
those early days had to learn them
selves of the difficulties that lay i'm
the way of securing a square deal for
the farmer, and teach others to
recognize their handicaps and follow
ir the work of removing them. but i'm
one diWculty infinitely broader. i'm
the fact that the very men who
ought to have been Giding i'm the
work were open TO the arguments of
men whose fortunes had been made
i'm the old world as we'll as i'm the
new and had been made by practices
which squeezed the producer merci-
lcssly i'm both the selling of his own
products and i'm the buving of his
necessary supplies from the produc-
tions of others. probably as unfortu-
nate as himself. 1t was a double
task
These steps towards reform had
come through an enlightened under
standing Of conditions. The reform in
the tariff was the first step by which
the consumer, particularly OF the
South, was enabled to save for him
self the difference between the cost
of production of the article bought
q
Gle under the false system created
for the advantage Of the manufac-
turer of America. The second step
was in the reform Of the currency
which took away from the controll-
ing clique of financiers who owned
the gold and controlled the money
supply of the country that power and
recognized the wealth Of the country
as the proper basis of credit In this
matter he had successfully carried
through his fight for a longer term
loan for an agricultural paper since
the crop had to be made before the
wealth IL stood for could he produced
and the Southern rarmer now has.
under the new bill twice as long
time as any business recognized In
It,
This cotton grading by the govern
ment shows that there has been great
imposition on the cotton grower. that
as a material for fabric. low middling
instead OF being worth less than mid
ding. is really better, that the diff
ference between middlinE, fair and
good ordinary was about sc a bale
instead OF $25 a bale, as had been
made, and most farmers make a low
er grade OF cotton than middling.
These reform would not have been
possible except for the remarkable
manner in which the Democrats have
won the confidence OF the nation and
OF the world. and that was due to
their splendid team work which, IL
they keep up, will insure them an
indefinite lease OF power in the ma
tion. This will be not so much be-
cause IL is team work but because
thCy will deserve to be kept I'm power
for their work was for the real bene-
1T of the people.
The impossible" has become a
realized vision, because OF abiding
faith, well coupled with patient work
With definite aim which was never
lost sight Of, and taking advantage Of
each situation to press II further to
the front The results are shown by
the fact that the New York exchange
seeing the handwriting on the val
has not waited for the time fixed by
the law for the adoption of the new
standards, but has already adopted
them.