The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-01-10
Manufacturers Record.

Manufacturers Record.
Even with all of its best customers
at war, the South is beginning to
catch the prosperity which was nee
essarily first; felt by the farmers Of
the West when last year Europe be-
gan to absorb the great wheat crop
of that region / at steadily rising
prices, and the prosperity which a
little later came in such abundant
measure to the Eastern iron and steel
makers and the munition producers.
Two years ago politicians, seeking
the clamor Of public approval, and
rank pessimists who knew not the
inherent strength of the South's bus
mess structure, were predicting dire
disaster. They filled the land with
their tales of woe and the downfall
of the South's business. They said
that this section would be hopelessly
bankrupt unless battleships carried
our cotton to Europe and dared the
navies of the Allies to keep it out of
Germany. They said that unless
the whole country came to the res
cue and. everybody bought "bale
of cotton to help the South" utter
ruin would cover this fair land.
They posed this section before the
world as q land Of beggars without
courage or backbone, and financially
sick unto death. In nearly every
leading hotel in the North and West
and in big business houses, there
were placards, for which they were
responsible, which begged every
body to ''buy bale of cotton to
help the South" and they widely
throughout the land that
President Wilson had been 30 i'm
pressed with the situation that he
had bought a bale ito help the
-
These politicians and pessimists'
were q far greater injury to the
South than the actual stagnation and
loss in cotton due to the war.
: That was the condition in which
the South was made to think Of it.
self and which the rest Of the coun-
try was made to think about the
South two years ago. =;
Then cotton was almost unstable
even at 5 to 6 cents a pound The
iron trade, the. lumber trade, the
naval stores interests, and the phos-
phate export business were all worse
off then than cotton. There was gen.
eral staghation and poverty, but the
South was not bankrupt as predicted
by the pessimists and the politicians.
This. section caught. Its second wind
and took fresh hold. It adjusted it
self to hard times and In the very
adjustment learned lessons of infinite
value. ljf&
: Today cotton is selling around zoe.
q pound, with fluctuations from day
to day, of course, which some days
carry considerably below that figure,
but which sooner or later will prob
ably carry it considerably above it.
Sea-island cotton has sold as high as
SO cents pound, and while there are
some parts of the South where the
boll-weevI or. the floods destroyed
the crops, leaving those limited re-
gions at a serious disadvantage, there
are other parts where the crop was
fairly good and where the prices that
have prevailed during the last few
months brought greater profit from
cotton than ever before received In
the last half century.
The cotton crop this year, includ-
ing seed, will bring Southern farmers
over 81, ,300, ,0O0, ,O00.:. There were
about 3,O00,000 bales brought over
from previous crop, which will add
to this years income from cotton
about 3O0,00D,000, making total
of $1,000, 100000. Southern cotton
mills will this year costume nearly