The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1915-08-27
A VAIN AND FOOLISH THING

kltY .
Hon. H. H. Casteel OF Holmes
county. who was reelected to the
State Senate in the primary on
August third, is reported as hay.
ing announced his purpose to in
troduce q bill at the next session
Of the Legislature. which will be
January, 1916, to prevent the
growing of any cotton whatever
in the State of Mississippi next
year. Senator Casteel NAV be
actuated by the best and purest
motives but his judgment is faulty.
In the first place such a bill would
be clearly unconstitutional and
could not be written in any form
that would pass the test of the
courts. Men have some rights
which cannot be legislated away
from them, and one is to plant
whatever he chooses on his own
premises in pursuit of a livelihood
Tor his family. In the next place
II such a law could be passed il
ought not to be. When the good
Lord made this beautiful South
land and gave il to TIC 70 h.,,.
dominion over it He gave us the
natural monopoly on cotton grow
ing. OF all the vast domain be-.
meath the stars this one section
can grow cotton with success and
profit, says the Ripley Sentinel
Now then, the world needs III
cotton. Humanity must have il
or suffer for it. Then is it not orr
duty to grow cotton? If Missis.
slppl alone should put a legal ban
upon the production of cotton il
would serve only to increase the
price for others. while we lose the
profits. If all the Southern states
should join in and no cotton be
raised it would cause a panic and
perchance a substitute might be
found somewhere and we might
be permanently hurt as cotton
farmers.
Now as a matter of course
farmers ought to have sense
enough to raise their own living
at home and quit having corn,
meat, lard, hay and canned goods
shipped in here by the trainload,
Then we ought to have sense
enough to organize ourselves into
a society for self-preservation. II
ought to be an organization Of
every walk of life and every in.
terest in the foundation of all
commercial life and prosperity
in the South. We ought to pool
our interest, organize a warehouse
system and finance our own af.
fairs and hold our cotton until q
fair price is paid us for it. That
would be a dead easy thing to do
If all our people of all ayocations
and professions would 90 into il
and stand side by side until we
won the fight. Such an organi-
zation would not be a MONOPOLY
In restraint of trade, but would be
a cooperative plan by which we
could force the world to pay us a
reasonable price for our great
staple crop. If the farmer, banker,
the merchant, lawyer, doctor,
preacher and all other classes of
professions would come together
and stand foursquare to each
other for two years this great
fight would be won and we could
name the price of our own COM
modify and in twenty years, under
a system of this sort, the South
would be the richest agricultural
people in all the world. What
we need is not to quit growing
Gotten, but to get a fair price for
what we do grow, and quit hold
ing out our hands and begging
people of other sections to buy a
bale and keep us from starvation.
That plea for charity, the beggar's
whine, did more to hurt the South
in a business way than anything
else that has ever been done. 1t
made the money sharks of the
East believe that we were on the:
verge of starvation and bank
where they want us
and now, whenever they want
RI opprocS TIC fhov will Sir,I,y