Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-01-26
ATTACKING The WAREHOUSE
Would xiii Promising System In the
BOrning.
COLUMBIA INTERESTS MAKE ASSAULT

COLUMBIA INTERESTS MAKE ASSAULT
Unable to Advance Argument OF Facts
Newspaper Organ Makes Resorts ts
Effort to Diseredit tho Warehouse
Commissioner and Create Prejudie'
|. Generally.
, Editorial.
Columbia Record, Friday, January %
"There's Nothing In It."
We have before us the report Of
State Warehouse Commissioner Johr
L. McI.aurin to the general assembly.
The report is a pamphlet of some
eleven pages Of printed matter, prin-
cipally devoted to disquestion or
the handling, financing and exporting
of cotton, and setting forth the muni-
ficent results the commissioner could
achieve If he were granted all the
money and power necessary for the
purpose at the hands Of the legislature
but nowhere Is there any reference
Il
operations of the warehouse system
with which he Is charged and which 1t
is presumed the general assembly
would particularly desire to know
about in this connection.
The commissioner says he will file
supplemental report in which he
will include" las directed by the act
a list of the warehouses; locations,
names of managers, amount Of cotton
on storage and such other details as
may be necessary for your (the gener-
al assembly's) full information" but
when he will do so is not specified.
He does inform the body that I'VE
have twenty eight warehouses, with
an aggregate capacity Of $4,000 bales. -
but as to whether the storage capacity
has been utilized and to what extent
we are not told.
But these are apparently minor and
| disconsidered details in Commissioner
! McLaurins scheme Of things.
He dreams Of bigger things.
tions Of the potentialities that inhere
in the simple title Of sales agent" for
South Carolina Of her cotton crops.
Think Of it! The factor for an entire
state-for one and a half million peo-
Pile! The proposer and disposer Of one
million and a half bales Of cotton each
year.
1t is a dream worthy Of the dream
er.
Aladdin's wonderful lamp never
disclosed such heaps Of boarded yell
low gold, rubbed he it ever so indus
| triously
He would build congresses; he
would do away with middlemen of
| every description; he would float
ships; he would deal directly with
Germany where 25 cents Is being
| quoted for cotton and bring home
| the bacon"-that Is to say, some
trifiing hundreds Of thousands profits
| for each cargo, being the difference
between s cents and 25 cents on the
other side
Harken to our South Carolina Col
onel Mulberry Sellers:
IF the state had one plant, as a be-
ginning, located in Columbia, with a
compress. just at this time, the sale of
a single cargo Of cotton in Europe at
rs cents pound, which is being paid
there, would have a tremendous ef-
feet in advancing the price Of cot
ton"
He gives an illustration Of a Sa-
vannah pool that "f1oated bonds for a
half million dollars to purchase several
vessels, in which cargoes of cotton
were shipped to Germany" and sold
there, those gentlemen stated to my
informant at net profit Of thirteen
cents a pound.
If any argument were needed, this
mere statement should be enough.
Here Is one man producing a bale Of
cotton at a loss Of $780, here is another
making $40 clear for finding a mark
et."
The trifling circumstance Of floating
half million dollars bonds to buy
ships-the taking the risk Of finding
market by navigating seas sewed
with floating mines and searched by
belligerent war ships looking for con-
traband and all the chances by flood
and field Of the "Strumpet Fortune"
cuts no figure in the calculations of
Mulberry Sellers McLaurin. The diff
ference between and 20 or 25 cent
cotton safely landed in Germany is
all met profit"
D. W. Kemper Of the Galveston cot
ton exchange, was quoted in an AS
ISOLATED Press dispatch printed in this
newspaper yesterday, as saying that
1T costs $3.50 per bale to secure an
American vessel to carry a bale Of cot
ton from Galveston to Rotterdam,
which is but two days journey from
Liverpool"
What excuse has a government for
existence which cannot correct such
gross inequalities in the distribution
of wealth." exclaims Mr. McLaurin
and our Mulberry Sellers would at a
mere wave Of the wand Of his imagi-
nation sweep out Of our path all the
obstacles and difficulties that lie be-
tween cents cotton in South Carolina
and 25 cents cotton in Germany, which
have engaged and taxed the powers of
logic Of the virile and acute mentality
Of a Woodrow Wilson-which have
given rise to an international issue
between Great Britain and the United
States that has not had it's equal in
gravity since the Eagle and the Lion
clawed and clashed with each other
one hundred and more years ago over
the pernicious interference Of the lat
ter with our sailors and merchant
ships on the high seas, even now
straining to the breaking point the
friendly. blood relationship and identi-
ty of interests of the two powers to
bridge over amicably-which have
caused the Democratic president to
bring in the most extraordinary meas
ure providing for the purchase Of