The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1920-04-22
THE COTTON JUBILEE.
What a Northern Magazine Writer
Found in the South.


Found in the South.
The following are extracts from
an article on Jubilee Cotton,
which appeared in the Country Gen
tleman a few weeks ago:
For several weeks I have been
coursing through the Cotton States,
absorbing the color and feeling the
vibration of this jubilee. 1t gets
you after a while, laughs away all
your economic broodings over acre
age, consumption, purchasing power
of European mills and everything.
The South today is spending with
lavish hand; wherever there is mon
ey there is feasting. In many cases,
of course, the free and easy life is
not a novelty, but in just as many
cases 1t is. Men have been lifted
overnight from drudgery and pen
ury to ease and opulence though it
may last but short season.
A farmer who had grown his en-
tire cotton crop with the labor of his
wife, children and himself, drew up
at a little town in South Carolina
with three bales Of long staple load
ed on his wagon. Buyers swarmed
out to meet him and one dragged him
to- his office. This buyer .planked
down over $1400 in cracking new
bank notes.
The grower waited patiently new
er so much as glancing at this sud
"Wsn,S said the buyer, that's
the. highest market price,"
Don't fool with me-" said the
grower. 1--WE. got three bales out
there on my wagon an that's all Pm
offerin' YOU"
'But that's for the three bales,
mani" - -
I was told that this grower stag
gered out. bought the first automo-
bile he saw, paid somebody five dol
lars to drive his team home and in
three days had nothing to show for
his s1400 but a junked car
The cut-loose spirit of spending
which has seized upon class of cot
ton growers in the South may be
condemned by long range economists
and moralizers. and as matter of
fact it is being condemned by the con-
servative class of business men and
planters in the South itself who look
ahead and seed the possibility of a vi
cious reflex action. But it is just as
natural for the South to spend wild
ly in good cotton year as it is for
all the rest Of the world to go on a
holiday after the rigors of wartime
saving and scrimping has passed -
just as it is doing!
The Southern banks are bursting
with money, but precious. little, of it
seems to be recirculating in the
South. Rather it is being shipped to
New York to finance Wall Street op-
erations, where call money has been
bid up to twenty five and even thirty
The October clearings for the Co.
lumbia, South Carolina, banks for ex
ample, broke all records-$19,000,-
900 as against little over s10,000,-
900 in 1917.
But If jubilee, cotton finds tumul-
tuous expression in the spending of
the rank and file of growers, it reach
es to the heights of an orgy among
the negroes. Let 1t be remembered
that the estate of the Southern negro
has been radically changed within the
last few years. BY and large he is
prosperous to preposterous degree
1t is safe to say that the smallest
fraction of the 1919 cotton crop was
raised under the old system of plan
tation labor; the bulk was produced
by white families working in\ the
fields and by negro cash renters and
share troopers. The negro in the
Cotton Belt today is not for hire -
that. is, for what any sane planter
could afford to pay him.
'If cotton had to compete with
industry for labor this year, grow
.er said to me, "it would cost us five
cents pound to pick it,"
The negro's standard of living does
not levy a heavy tax On his earnings.
Consequently when in years like
this he comes into possession OF
enough money to settle all back
debts. pay his land rent and the like,
the surplus remaining in his hand
,is going to be scatter like the red
hot money it is.
From a piano dealer with a repu-
tation for variety comes the story OF
the negro share cropper who this
fall entered the store and bought
for cash the best player piano in
stock. A few days later he came
back again
"Boss," he said to the dealer. "is
dat pianner you sold me de best you
got?"
.It certainly is, George said the
dealer. Wasn't it all right?"
"Yassuh, yassuh, amt nothin'
wrog wifi hit. But you send me
another jis' lax hit - heah's de
money. 1 got two gals at home an
dey been rafsin' sech a ruckus bout
who gwine play On dat thing Use jes-
boun' to settle de 'sturbance."