The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-05-01

been to hold the cotton growers in
economic slavery, caring far less as
to the poverty and the illiteracy en-
tailed upon the South by low-priced
cotton than they cared for the slay-
cry of the black man prior to 1860.
At that time the Abolitionists of
the North and of Europe were bitter
ly assailins slavery in the South. The
moral forces of the world were
against slavery. and very wisely, for
the benefit of the world and for the
South especially, slavery was de-
stroyed so far as physical slavery to
the black man was concerned; but
the very same forces which then
broke the chains of physical slavery
have to large extent ever since been
forging with all their power the
chains of more damning slavery of
the negro and of the white man in the
effort to keep cotton at price which
would hold in desperate poverty in
every Sense the cotton laborers and
the cotton growers of the South.
Holding monopoly of this great
staple, the South should have be-
come enormously wealthy, and its
cotton growers and workers should
have been the richest agricultural
people in the world, but low-priced
cotton has kept them under the pail
Of poverty.
The Importance of cotton to the
world is very clearly stated in an ar
ticle by Mr.. William Whittam, for
merly special agent in Great Britain
of the United States Department of
Commerce and long intimately ac-
quainted with the cotton trade, pub
lished in the New York Tribune. In
the course of his article dealing with
the question of cotton and it's rela-
tion to world affairs, and especially
as to whether Germany shall be al
lowed to have cotton or not, Mr..
Whittam said:
''The world has now to face the
} task of getting back to normal
again, and in that enterprise cotton
wilr be one of the raw materials of
major Importance. Few realize the
significance of cotton in the sphere
of human activities. 1t concerns ev-
cry human being. It meets man at
the cradle and goes with him to the
grave. The fibre also forms the scan.
ity clothing of hundreds of millions
of the poorest people-of the world.
Cotton is vital TO industry. There
is no substitute for it. And Ameri-
cans should remember that the Unit
ed States produces the larger part of
the worlds supply.
with the single exception of food
stuffs, no other product of the soil is
so necessary to civilized human ex-
istence. It's use in the everyday life
/ of mankind may be measured by the
fact that year or two before the
war, taking into account the COM
modities handled in international
trade, exports and imports from all
countries, cotton ranked first with a
value of $1,127, 100000, wheat COM
ing second, with a value Of STA 4,OOO,-
000."
These statements of Mr.. Whittam
as to the value of cotton to the world
are trite sayings, fully understood
by the business men of the world.
They know that cotton is a product
which cannot be supplanted by any
other fibre. They know that our
commerce depends upon cotton; that
Great Britains vast manufacturing
interests are largely dependent upon
cotton for their existence. They
know that the wealth of New Eng
land was largely created by the man
ufacture of Southern-raised cotton.
Wealth untold for the benefit of
the world has been created by the
South's cotton, but the South has not
secured that wealth. The South has
simply been the "hewer of wood and
the drawer of water in the worlds
cotton trade.
The world will require an ever
increasing supply of cotton. Much
of the world is almost bare of cotton
goods, as it is of foodstuffs. Long
before the war there had been a
rapid annual increase in the worlds
demand for cotton. This will go on
at an accelerating rate just as soon
as the world gets back to normal
business conditions. At that time
the South should be able to produce
at a profit to itself the amount of
cotton sufficient to meet the worlds
increasing needs. But it cannot DO
this, it should not do it, and it will
not do it, nor ever try to do it, ex-
cept on a basis of profit which will
bring to the agricultural interests OF
the South a prosperity equally as
great as the prosperity of the grain