The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1918-02-23
Mciaurin Protests Against Price
Fixing, for Cation.

Your correspondent called on Sen
ator Mci.ourin today TO SEQ il he hat.
any political announcement to make
lie said no, that his position Wa
made clear by his recent pubic
statement and he had nothing to ad.l
to or subtract from them" l ASKED
him TO give me an interview on the
cotton situation, as he probably comes
us near voicing the sentiments Of the
Planters us any man in the South.
The establishment of the State ware
hcuse system and his knowledge Of
finance makes him recognized au-
thority in the cotton world. AS to cot
ton he said:
IF you could tel me when the war
viii end. l could answer you def
nitely. I am sure that the end of the
war will find the world facing a cot
ton famine. and that for several years
cotton will be relatively much higher
IN price than food. for the reason that
1000 is of world wide production and
cotton is restricted by soil and cl-
mate to certain limited areas. Cot
ton has increased about 100 per cent
in price. while iron, steel. wheat and
other standard products have in
creased around 200 per cent 1t is
evident that cotton must go higher in
order to maintain its proper CONNER
c!al relation to these other articles"
Senator. what about price nxing?"
interested persons are determined,
Ii possible. 10 have the government
thwart by price fixing this natural CT
Tort on the part OF cotton. Thny even
advocate a price below 20 cents a
pound, which is an absurdity, be-
cause. under present conditions, cot
ton will cost over 20 cents to produce
in 1918. The cost of merely feeding
mules has nearly doubled since this
war, and where we paid so cents per
hundred for picking, il is now 81.
Fertilizer is practically double in
price and Of inferior grade. do not
think this price fixing movement is
engineered by the spinners, but by
spectators who formed a pool i'm
September to put the price of cotton
back to 10 cents, buy it up and reap q
huge profit as they did in 1916. l wac
In Chicago in September with w. ID.
Grist and we were In one Of the larg-
est brokerage houses in the United
States. 1 talked very bearish to draw
them out, and the head of the firm
told us that they expected cotton to
go down to cents pound. What do
you think OF that? A most determined
effort was made. Millions OF bales
were sold short and huge crop esti-
mates broadcastcd all over the land.
The mills bought their cotton ahead.
and these greedy gamblers are now
bcSging the government to fix the
price and let them out of the hole
that their avarice dug for them. 1t
whine some Of their
papers put up about the patriotism of
the South. / am glad the mills bought
their cotton from the greedy gam
blers who conflscated our crop OF
1914. The high price is not affecting
mills. which bought ahead. nor the
public. 1t is being paid largely from
the i'll gotten gains of 1915. We wen:
to Washington in 1914 to beg the gov
eminent for help. and what how
these men raised. The government let
us alone then and we want them TO
treat cotton gamblers the same way
they did cotton planters i'm 1914. This
crowd estimated last October that
this crop would total 100000 bales
and sold millions of bales knOwiag
their statement was a lie. The pur-
pose was to gobblc UP the spots Gu
people refused to lie stampeded, and
when the mills call for cotton these
sanders have TO pay The losses Cot
ton rs not as high as the other arti-
cles IT. is the cry OF the busted
gambler seeking to evade the result
OF his own cupidity and recklessness."
/ asked him what he wanted the
government to do. He replied:
1T let cotton alone in 1914, and we
lost s400. 900. 1 want it let alone
now. want this 100000. 900 back
with compound interest. also want
some mental anguish damages. an!
the financial scalp OF every one Of
the buccaneers OF 1914"
What do YOU think of the pricr
fixing next fall?' He said:
Here is the situation. The hi