Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1919-05-04


been the backbone of Southern life
during all the past, would ordinarily
DE counted as Strue frineds of the
South" But, according to this oracle,
none of these people are "true
friends of the South" if they seek to
bring about a reduction in cotton
acreage for the purpose of maintain
ing higher prices for cotton. Refer
ring to this work, the circular-l letter
saws:
at is short-sighted policy, and if
continued will threaten the suprema-
cy of this country as the great
source Of cotton supply. We are en-
tering upon new era in world de-
velopment, and the South is going to
have competition which it never be-
fore had to face if prices are kept at
a level that offers inducements for
the opening up of new fields"
This argument is just about one
hundred years old, and with age has
grown steadily weaker. 1t is hoary
and gray-headed. 1t did service in the
British parliament hundred years
ago and has been doing service ever
since. But there are few points
which should be considered.
There is no divine command rest
ing upon the South to raise cotton,
either for the purpose of maintaining
the supremacy of this country in cot
ton trade or for clothing of the world.
There is no divine command which
says that the Western farmer who
can make more money in raising corn
shall be compelled to raise wheat for
the purpose of feeding the world. No
moral responsibility whatsoever rests
upon the farmer to raise any crop
except that which pays him best. If
the South can raise corn and other
crops to greater profit than it can
raise cotton, he would be fool in
deed who would insist that the South
owed it to the world to raise cotton.
There may be some people
in the world whose minds
are thus flabby, but no intelligent
man could for moment take that
ground.
There is no obligation upon the
South to raise cotton merely to main
tain the supremacy of this country
in the cotton trade of the world. If
other countries can raise cotton, by
means of the cheap labor in China and
India or Egypt, at lower cost than
the South can raise it, there is no
earthly reason which compels the
South to sacrifice its people in order
to produce cotton at the starvation
wages which are paid to the cotton
growers of India and Egypt and
China. So long as the South can raise
cotton profitably to itself, after hav-
ing paid a good living rate of wages
to every cotton laborer, and after
having banished from the cotton field
every woman who should be at home
and every child who should be at
school, whatever they be white or
black, then it can profitably and wise
ly keep on growing cotton. But if the
people of the South can find more
profitable employment in doing
something else than in raising cotton,
then it is their bounden duty to do the
work which pays the largest profit
and gives them the best living condi-
lions.
If the world cannot get it's cotton
except from the South then it is
absolutely necessary for the world to
paw the price (which will bring pros
perity to the cotton grower and lift
the rate of wages in the South IN the
cotton fields and from that on to
the factory and into every avenue of
work to a parity of wages in other
sections.
The statements quoted from this
banking circular are indicative OF the
density of ignorance which pre-
prevails in other sections about cotton
growing in the South. For one hudred
wears the South has been misrepres-
ented by the cotton spectators and
the cotton handlers of the world. 1t
has been misrepresented by officials
of the United States government and
in former years by officials of the
British government, and probably by
the officials of every other Euro
mean government The whole theory
of the cotton buyers OF the world has
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
slavery of the blacE man prior TO
1860.
At that time the Abolitionists OF
| the North and of Europe were bitter
" assailing 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 des-
troyed 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 a large extent ever since been
forging with all their power thu
chains Of more damning slavery @
the negro and of the white man II
the efforts to keep cotton ct = price
which would hold in desperate pov
u =