Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-02-03

own efforts to provide these neces-
 sary articles. This breaking away i from the mother country left them free to produce what they would, and I to market il where they chose rho decline in the culture of tobacco at about this time, due to depletion of tthe soil by successive cropping with out rotation, led the colonists to the cultivation of cotton on more exten- sive scale. Then, with the end of the war, came immigrants from Europe, who settled mostly in the South, and who. though they first turned to rais- ing wheat and Indian corn, later took rp the cultivation of cotton.
 Meanwhile great changes had been taking place in Great Britain in the methods of marketing the cotton. There grew up a class of merchants who undertook to supply the spinners and wcavers with the raw materials and to find a market for the finished product. These traders were the fore runners of our modern shippers and converters. Similar changes took place upon this side of the water. and it was this development that lOI Jttu l1lC VI llIV DualICoo i machine of the modern cotton indus 1 try. 5t.-n
 Whitney Greatest BentfactOr. Then followed in quick succession in England the invention of the spin ming jenney, the water frame, the sell-acting mule and the power loom, which were soon duplicated on this side of the water from plans that were sent over By far the greatest mechanical achievement in the whole history of this industry was the in vention of the sawgin by Eli Whit ncv. Before it's invention one insur- mountable obstacle had remained that of separating the seed from tho fiber cheaply and efficiently. Here was a machine that would do the work of fifty people, and do it better. There are many types of gins in use today, but they are almost without exception adaptations or improve ments of this first contrivance by Whitney.
 From this point forward events moved quickly in the development of this infant industry The factory sys- tenn was established. under which the home manufacturer became an oper- ative in the factory, and there follow ed as an inevitable result the special izing Of operations. In l1S9 Samuel Slater. the father of American cot ton manufacture an Englishman. arrived in this country and entered into contract with William Almy and Smith Brown, of Providence Rhode Island. to construct cotton spinning machinery after the latest English models. In 1790 Slater start ed in the same state a mill. Wlth three carding machines and seventy two spindles, which was virtually the beginning of cotton manufacture Ill this country. About this time, also, the introduction of sea-island or long, staple cotton stimulated the manufacture of fine fabrics, in which long silky staple was an essential. This variety, which had been rropa- gated from seed brought from Rarba- dos found friendly climate in the islands that skirt the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
 Tariff Aided Cotton throwing.
 English manufacturers at this tlmc were quick to recognize the possibil- ities of growth of the American mar k,ets and quickly invaded this new country with Englsh-mado cotton goods. In 17S9. under the Influence of Hamlton's plea for protection, the first cotton tariff was levied and a duty of three cents a pound imposed on all imported Cottons. Along with the growing competition with English manufacturers came the dawning re- alzation that slave labor would solve the problem of cheap production ot the raw material. So we find the es- tablishment of extensive plantations owned in large part by absentee Eng fish landowners and operated almost wholly by slaves. Cotton was not re- sponsible for the institution of slavery in this country, as slave labor had been a prominent feature of the in dustrial life of the American colonies for one hundred and fifty years be-