The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1920-11-26
WE'RE LIVING in CLOVER
AND DON'T REALIZE IT
If You Want To Be Glad You Live in The Eliza
beth City Territory, Just Take Trip
Way Down South
BY w. o. SAUNDERS

North Carolina territory is busy,
prosperous and secure against
panic, compared with other sec
tions of the country right at this
time. I have just returned from
a trip to Atlanta, Ga, the great
financial, commercial and indus
trial center of the south. I did
mt go to investigate conditions
prevailing in the south. One
doesn't have to. One with eyes
can see that the south is bank
rupt. From the windows of a
railroad car on any southern road
one can see thousands of acres
Of cotton unpicked and know that
back of the railroads are millions
of other unpicked acres.
And the cotton that has been
picked and ginned and baled is
not stored in warehouses, but
living out in the yards exposed to
the weather, because the cotton
farmers farther south have few
shelters. One sees little else but
cotton in the south and one used
to the black lands of northeast
ern North Carolina wonders how
they can even raise cotton on the
red clay soil of Georgia and
South Carolina.
Every day looks like Sunday
in the southern country to-day,
The stores are neither buying
nor selling goods and no one is
paying bills. The south has de-
pended upon cotton and cotton
has again wrecked its hopes
The rank and file who prospered
temporarily when prices were
high last year have spent all the
easy money they made last year
expecting easier money this tall.
They bought silk shirts and au-
tonobiles while the going was
good. To-day they whine for
credit for corn meal and SOW
belly. and the repair man is
swearing he won't work on their
,,,+o,,,obi1es for less than cash.
The southern markets are glutt-
ed with second hand automobiles
for sale at any price.
There are not hundreds or
thousands, but millions Of human
beings in the south to-day with
nothing but cotton to realize on
And they can't sell their cotton; !;
they can't eat it; they can't even
patch their rags with it until the
mills spin it into yarn and weave
it into cloth. And thousands OF
mills are not spinning or weaV-
ing. More than half a million
textile workers are out of en-
ployment.
That is the woeful picture OF
the south to-day. It is duplicat-
ed in the tobacco growing re-
gions of eastern and central
North Carolina.
In the big industrial centers
up north, millions are out Of en-
ployment and facing hard Win
ter with only a Republican plat
form promise of prosperity to
mock them.
How different things are here
in this little God favored corner
of North Carolina. We are not
wholly dependent. upon any one
thing under the. sun. If cotton
fails US, we have our peas and
corn and hogs. The ginner may
not want our cotton, the miller
may not want Our corn; Dut
thank God we cleaned up on po-
tatoes earlier in the season and
haven't spent it all yet. Money
may be a little tight and the
bankers reluctant to lend; but
still one legitimate1y in need may
borrow enough to scrape along
Oh. We may have to postpone
the purchase of new automobiles
and the building of new homes
but with Our garden truck, our
poultry, our eggs, Our pigs. our
cattle, our fish, our lumber and
'1t'@r resources we can scrape