The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-10-25
THE PRICE OF COTTON.


That is for the farmer to hold it and
refuse to sell for cent less than a
fair price. So long as cotton may be
forced on the market at whatever
price it will bring, so long as the man
who buys the cotton dictates the price
cotton will not bring what it is worth:
When the farmer is able to finance
himself and to carry his cotton for a
year, when he is willing to carry it
for a year and to plant none until a
certain price is paid, he will be mas
ter of the situation. It is the duty of
the farmer to put himself, in that po-
sition. It. is the duty of the Southern
banker to help him to get in that con-
dition. To that end we should begin
to look. .~ = -.
But the question is about the pres
ent crop. We say the same about this
crop. But a great deal more depends
on the banker than on the farmer
Just now. The question now is, how
long will the banker carry the far
mer, because the farmer has not the
money to carry himself. He has in
vested the money he has made in re-
cent years in riotous living, and finds
himself now without ready money,
the thing essential to fight the people
who would buy his cotton for less
than it is worth. -,....... =.
If the banker is willing to suffer
with the farmer, and if. the banker
can arrange to carry the accounts of
the farmer into next spring, and the
farmer will curtail in reality, and not
by word of mouth, the price of this
: years cotton crop may be forced to a
value which will not mean industrial
slavery to the women and children of
the South.
Z: Cotton cannot be produced at
twenty cents per pound except by
working children in the fields who
ought to be at school and by working
women in the fieldswho ought to be
in the homes. The people who fought
to free the negroes, many of them,
are content to see both the negroes
and the whites slaves to the cotton
buying world. They are unwilling
that the Southern farmer and the
Southern farm hand should receive
reasonable wages. They talk about
reducing the price of this and the
\other article, but they are always
careful to say that wages are not to
be reduced. That is, the wages of or
ganized labor is not to, be reduced
because organized labor votes ac-
cording to it's interest in the coming
elections. But the cotton farmers
have performed their labor. They are
unorganized, cotton buyers, believe,
they do not vote in body, they are
in a section where they are of no
practical force in elections anyway,
and therefore after they, have per-
formed their labor, they are denied
the just wages to which they are en-
titled.
But we do not acquit the farmer
of his contribution to his own condi-
ton. If he were wise like other men
, and prepared against the day of trou-
BILE, he might have money in the
banks, and money with which to fin
ance his own crop. But he hasn't
done these things, and for that rea-
son he finds himself now in the hands
Of the banker. The banker, if he can,
will probably carry him for awhile at
least. He will be- disposed to help all
he can but the banker is without the
= necessary capital to garry the, !yl whole
crop because the farmer, instead of
: putting his money in the bank, has
spent it for things he might have done
without.
But so far the people are showing
better spirit and more determined
spirit than ever before. Not more
than one-third, probably not more
than one-fourth Of the cotton raised
in this immediate vicinity has been
sold. Less and less is being sold every
day. At nearby towns the same thing
is true. The news comes to US from
Troy that only eleven bales of cotton
have been sold out of about fifteen