The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1920-01-23
WHO IS GETTING THE BENEFIT
OF HIGH PRICES FOR COTTON?
manufacturers Record, Baltimore

parently has IN his office some one
who is supposed to interpret and COM
ment upon editorials. we presume fcl
Mr.. Wizards enlightenment, for we
have received from him or his office
TWO copies of memorandum Of this
kind in which Mr.. NJ. B. Wild, in his
report to Mr.. Willard, informs him
that the Manufacturers Record seems
TO be very we'll balanced on all things
except cotton. In the course of this
memorandum he says:
"The insinuation that the Federal
Reserve Board brought about the re-
cent virtual panic in New York, from
which few rich men suffered and few
professionals. is just the kind of
ammunition the Bolsheviks use in
their endeavor to overthrow social
order
The trouble with Mr.. Wild, and ap-
parently with Mr.. Willard, since in
sending this to the Manufacturers
Record without comment he seems
virtually to have accepted that view,
is that they shut their eyes to facts.
No one has to be very familiar with
tie conditions in New York to know
that the stock market is the football
of many Wall Street gamblers who
use one thing and another to advance
or depress the price of stocks accord
ing to whether they are buyers or
sellers of stocks. These spectators
milk the public or "shear the
lambs" as YOU may care to put 1t.
Money is loaned freely until stocks
are boosted and the insiders sell out; :;
then some plan is devised to tighten
the money market or to advance call
loans, and the public rushes to sell.
The spectators buy in at a low price
the stocks they sold at high figure.
Then money again becomes easy,
stocks are boosted, the public rushes
to buy and the insiders unload. Soon
the money market becomes tight,
stocks tumble and the public sells at
a low price to the insiders, and so
ad infnitum. We have never found
it wise to suppress information, and
Mr.. Wild's suggestion that the publ
cation of such statements is Bolshe
vistic in its tendency is indicative of
the narrowness of his vision. In fur
ther discussion of the views Of the
Manufacturers Record he said:
"The views of this paper on cotton
and cotton prices and the action of
the Federal Reserve Board in rela-
ton to them would be much sounder
if it could show that the genuine cot
ton growers both need and are getting
prices for their product that are from
200 to 800 per cent higher than pre-
war prices. The fact is. however,
that the genuine cotton grower is Sc
curing but small share of these
gigantic price increases and the re-
cent action of the Federal Reserve
Board both as to cotton and all other
commodities had 70 other purpose
than to check the spectators who are
reaping the main benefit from the in
creased prices"
In this statement Mr.. Wild displays
depth of ignorance which cannot be
reached by any plumb line. We hope
Mr.. Willard knows a little more. The
cotton growers are getting the pre-
sent high prices, and they do need
them. The bear spectators who have
gambled for years and leached the
life-blood of the Southern growers
have now been caught III their own
trap, and they are trying to move
Heaven-no. not Heaven, but earth
and hel-to wriggle out Of the steel
trap which is finally closing around
them. They are in a wise, which
daily closes in on them, ard that wise
is the economic law Of supply and
demand which, despite the effort of
the cotton bears to break down, is fix
ing the price of cotton.
The cotton growers for so years
virtually starved, especially the small
growers and the tenant farmers,
white and black The average yield
of cotton on Southern farms was
about six bales per farm. At 10
cents q pound, this meant $500 a
wear as the gross income of farmer
and his wife and children because he
was only able to raise cotton at these
prices by having his wife and chill
dren work in the cotton field. The
wife should have been at home, the
children should have been in school.
The curse of illiteracy has been upon
the South because of the curse of
cotton fastened upon this section by