Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1920-09-24
SOUTH CLAMORING
FOR PROTECTION

Washington, Sept. 21-(Special cor
respondence)-The amazing spectacle
of Argentine corn being sold in the
markets of Illinois has been duplicated
by the sale of Chinese peanuts in the
great peanut producing section of the
South. After the passage of the Will
underwood tariff law in 1913, Ar
gentine farmers were able to ship their
corn, produced ou cheap land by cheap
labor, and sell it in direct competition
with the corn produced in America.
Today, with the same tariff law on the
statute books, the peanut producers of
the South find Chinese peanuts poured
into the peanut oil mills of their terri
tory. A Jacksonville, Florida, dispatch
reports that
Zone thousand tons of Chinese pea
nuts are being discharged at the NUM-
cipal terminals by the japanese steam
err Choyo Maru. The nuts will be
crushed by the peanut mill at Madison,
Florida. This is said to be the first of
many such shipments if the experiment
proves satisfactory"
The peanut mill is, of course. the
cheapest market. Already thousands
of tons of peanuts have found their
way to the American market for the
higher price that can be obtained for
the nut shelled or unshelled for con-
sumption in the whole state. Ship
ments to the mills indicate that the
Chinese producers have an immense
supply seeking a market and that they
are ready to compete with the Ameri-
can producer to the latter's ruin.
The conditions which make it possible
to ship Chinese peanuts to the peanut
producing section of the United States
may be readily understood when it is
known that wages of farm laborers in
China are about three to five cents a
day. Chinese workmen living chiefly
on small quantity of rice, living in
novels and changing their clothing only
when the garments drop off their bod
les in rags. 1t is with such labor the
Democratic party has thrown the Ameri-
can workman into competition. The
interest of the South in the subject is
pointed out by the Manufacturers Re-
cord, paper which caters particularly
to Southern interests. That paper
says:
"The whole country is now confront
ed with the question as to whether it
will be flooded with the agricultural
and industrial products of the Orient
produced at wages which would des-
troy the earning capacity OF American
farmers and mechanics, or whether we
shall protect ourselves against such
disasters.
"At last the farmers of the South are
beginning to realize what it means to
them. Misled by unwise politicians,
fed on economic theories, the people Of
the South were for years made to be-
lieve that protective tariff did not in
terest them, but that they should fight
for free trade, mainly because in FORM
err years il had been the custom of
these politicians to train the South to
believe that anything the North and
West wanted was thing the South
should oppose. But the South is fast
coming to realize that it needs protec-
ton more than any other section"
Yet, in the face of these facts, the lat
est Democratic platform contains a
plain declaration ofsteadfast adherence
to the traditional policy of the party
that a protective tariff is unconstitu-
tional
In view of the changed view i'm the
South, and Mr.. Cox's unqualified en-