The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-02-21
THE HIGH PRICE OF COTTON

oI SOA1
Prices are high. We know it. We feel IT. we
tax about II. And write about it. We say it is IN
fair We predict that the country is going to rum.
But is It?
We may rave and rant; we may iterate and relter-
ate But in spite Of high prices, times have never
been so good Particularly in the South
The South not only prosperous 1t is more pros
perous than at any time since the civil war me
agricultural products of the South for 1919 are es-
timated at ten billions of dollars.
The Miami Herald. reproducing letter from d
South Carolina farmer recently published IN the
TAMPA Tribune. makes this interesting and lumi-
mating comment:
1.-The high price of cotton has helped to clear
away the burden and so far as The Herald is con-
cerned if some of us have had to pay what we re-
garded high prices for cotton goods, that farmer
and others like him, able to get so much real
benefit from those high prices this paper is more
than satisfied.
"A paragraph from the letter is worth reading. 1t
says:
| sold my last lot Of cotton in January, and II
brought nearly $4,000. Out of that paid debt
against this place that was contracted before the
close Of the civil to the amount of 5000
which my father owed for money borrowed
to pay the - =. estate for negroes who were freed
before they got home after being purchased. My
father paid interest that debt until the time OF
his death, and for thirty years L have been pay
ing it, until the 23rd of January 1920, when
settled it in full with my check for S510208. That
night for the first time in thirty years slept IN
my house clear of mortgage. Father and to-
gether paid on that old negro slave debt, in in
terest and partial payments, since the year be-
fore the surrender, $4,000.
There are two things about that letter that stamp
it remarkable. The is that debt of long
standing has been liqudated by he fortunate rise in
prices, and the other is that & has worked hon
esty and manfully to pay Of: sixty-yearold debt
incurred by his father, and from which neither he
nor his father gained the slightest advantage or
profit
The original transaction at the time. per-
fecty legitimate The father purchased what was
then regarded property. Before it could be deliv-
cred to him the fortunes Of turned the property
into men, but they were then of no value to the
purchaser who could not receive their labor. Not
this turn of events, the father ac-
knowledged the debt and his has worked all his
life to pay it off, illustration Of good old fash
Toned honor and honesty we'll worth recording.
And this leads to other thought and that is,
that such that there is not the slight
est danger of bolshevism gaining foothold When |
one has worked for years to pay off debt and has
come out from under the burden and has his home |
and his farm from all claims he is not going to let
men who do not know what work is who do not |
know the value of labor persuade him that there is
any system that will protect his interests half as
well as his government has done it all these |
years. He is not going to be willing to divide his
'Nell-earncd and hardly fought for farm. with the
theorists nor is he going TO permit them to gather
the fruits of his toll. Not that South Carolina !
farmer.
And no other farmer in this country class that
will be the manstay Of democracy against bolshe-
vism as long as the threat of bolshevism persists
can ever be counted in the ranks of anarchy"