The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-05
MRS. MIA THIS OF ALABAMA

bankers of Alabama got together, voted a sum of money to Mrs. Mathis and asked her to visit every part of Alabama
 She accepted the invitation, conscious that she could help lift her native state out of distress She went to the cities, to the towns, and to the crossroads. Everywhere the people Hooked to hear her-men and women in every walk, from the big plantation owner down to his humble negro tenant. Never had any po- litical orator-and there have been some noted and notorious political orators in Alabama-never had one of them in the heat of a campaign been received with such enthusiasm and earnestness as greeted Mrs. Mathis everywhere she went.
 we must feed ourselves was the phrase on thousands of tongues and the resolve in thousands of hearts.
 Mrs. Mathis not only gave the inspira- tion but she outlined the methods that must be followed by landlords and ten ants. Here, there and everywhere she induced landlords to give up the old plan of renting so much land for so much cotton, and to take personal supervision of their plantations and rent the land on the crop sharing basis, the tenant to get two-thirds and the owner one-third. She persuaded the landlords to supervise tho planting and the cultivation of forage crops as well as cotton. Her own method was that of pure socialism in an abso- lute monarchy The land owner was mas ter of the system itself, but the system provided for complete partnership in the work and the fairest division of the re- suits of the years labor. She told the landlords that they owed it to the south. to themselves and to their tenants to plan and supervist the work of the ten- ants and yet make the tenants full part ners. She showed what this system had done on her farm and how 1t would make a new south if carried out on even half the plantations in the south.
 The landlords in debt for foodstuffs already bought and consumed by tenants. were in desperate situation. They took Mrs. Mathis at her word and went to work to feed themselves'' and help the south feed itself
 The people of Mississippi and of Arkan- sas sent for Mrs. Mathis to "come over into Macedonia and help us. She went. Messages for help came from other parts of the south, and this Alabama woman answered them in person. She touched the economic heart of the south and 1t throbbed with new life and with deter imitation to win through new methods making our cotton the surplus money crop"
 Mrs. Mathis brought more live stock into the south. She brought the planting of legumes, for building up the soil that constant cotton culture had drained of fences and increased acreage in oats and corn. She heralded the beginning of the south-the south that will make cotton it's money crop and produce the necessi- ties of life as well foodstuffs for it's own use and for other parts of the coun- try, too.
 The east sent for Mrs. Mathis. For several weeks she was in Philadelphia, New York and other eastern centers upon invitation to help the east meet the ris- ing cost of living by telling how the south had met it. And to the east she has given rock bottom truths. You cam not continue the way you are going. The ice Is thin, and it is bound to crack. Your cities and their wages have drawn labor from your farms within two years to such an extent that the farms have ceased to produce enough to feed your cities at reasonable cost. Three or four states in the central west cannot feed you and England also. You must eat less, waste less, and produce more How are you to do these things? Tho methods of bringing them about should be better known to you than to me. But the city and suburban garden is one way out All-the-year around gardening in the south has been ono of the main factors in our feeding ourselves
 You have no cheap labor, as we have in the south. You haven't the low priced lands that we in the south have, nor -Four mild winters. You have the big cities, But do know that unless you bring home to your people the realization that they must somehow, somewhere, raise with l their own hands more of the food they eat you will have serious trouble at the end of the war. You will still have the high cost of living without the high l wages to meet it. Your wages now are | to your people what 12-cent cotton was to our people before the European war.
 Our high-priced cotton blinded us to the disaster that low-priced cotton was bound
 to bring. High wages now are blindtng l the east to the inevitable disaster that
 will follow the end of the war. The only
 difference is that we learned our lesson 1 first. We learned it when the war started. you will learn 1t with the wars close"
 Mrs. Mathis is now urging the south to follow up it's work of feeding ourselves and making cotton the surplus money crop by making live stock an even big ger money crop than cotton. She sees ahead for the south such production in
 live stock as will not only make millions for the southern people with the coming
 higher prices for beef and pork but such as will build up soil fertility to increase production of other crops.
 1 Mrs. Matthias work. as revolutionary | and as successful as 1t has been is only starting in the south. She Is the south's new agricultural and economic leader who has pointed out the sure route to travel and the south Is on this route today. Sht 1 Is telling the south and showing the south how it can really come into it's own, moi 1 through politics, but through work; not by electing a President of the United States, but by believing in and worlSin1
 for old General Diversification and htl
 running mate, General Prosperity.