Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1917-07-20
Damned II I Do; Damned If /
Don't.

Louis who, persuaded by prom
lses of high wages and short hours
by men who rank among the bust
ness leaders of the country, had
fOcked to that city in order to Sc
cure work, has called forth crit.
cisms and suggestions Of many
kinds from newspaper in the East
and West largely against the
South.
Some of them denounce the
South because it has not paid ne
gro laborers wages sufficiently high
to keep them from emigrating
North and West.
Some of them have denounced
the South from other points of
view, seeking in many cases to
cover up the disgrace which has
come to Illiuois by trying to raise
& smoke in the South.
Tt has come to be true of the
South, as the old saying has it,
that it is 'Damned if do, and
and damned ifI don't"
If the South raises cotton, it is
criticized for not raising corn.
If it lessons its cotton acreage,
at the demand of the United States
Department of Agriculture, in or,
der to raise more corn, it is crit,
cized for reducing its cotton crop
and starving the world for cotton.
If, after nearly starving its cot,
ton growers for the last half cen
tury, it succeeds, by virtue of
present economic conditions, in
getting a full price for cotton, tis
denounced as Selfish" and sun
patriotic
If negro labOrers on Southern
cotton plantations were paid suf
Iiciently high wages to match the
factory wages paid them IN the
North. and West, as some of the
Hsesfii7s Cfftics claim should be
done, then cotton would have to
command not % cents a pound,
but very much more than that TO
enable the South to raise it and
live. But if, year in and year out,
the South had to receive more than
25 cents for its cotton in order to
pay adequate wages to its farm
hands, there would be a howl on
the part of the critics of the South,
who would berate this section for
demanding such prices for a world
needed product.
This paper viii be glad to see
the average rate Of wages in the
South steadily advance until on a
parity with wages in other sec
tions, the cost of living being
taken into account, and thus give
to employees Of all kinds on the
farm and in the factory wages
which would bring the opportnni-
ty Of better living conditions and
the steady advance of this sec.
lions prosperity. But when such
wages have to be paid by the
farmers Of the South, the country
must be prepared to pay perma-
nently not less than % cents a
pound for its cotton,
Every man who is fighting
against the present price of cotton,
or a permanently high price for
cotton as compared with former
prices, is directly fighting to keep
the wages of negroes and of other
farm employees down to the low
basis which has held in the past,
and is the only possible basis un.
der which cotton can be produced
Ind sold at a profit at the figures
which have ruled during the last
twenty-five years,
viii the critics Of the South
stand up for higher wages for
cotton field workers in the light of
the necessity of higher prices for
cotton when these wages prevail7
Here is a chance to show wheth.
er these critics are moved by an
honest desire to benefit the labor
ing people or whether they are
simply seeking an opportunity to
fight the South.
1t is now about time for the peo-
pie of the country to forget the
sectional lines of the past and rec
ognize that the South, as the
greatest asset of the nation, has a
right to earn a fair profit on its
farms and in its factories without
being criticized and continually
prodded, sometimes by genuine
South -haters, sometimes by men
who simply follow a custom with.
out knowing why, and sometimes
by people who are literally too
Ignorant to know the facts and are
too Indifferent to care to investi
gate them. .-Mannlaetnrnrs Ren.-