The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1921-05-12
TELLS OBJECTION TO MONEY
CROPS.
Continued from Page One)

| "e thS Oduh. ne HlaQe at nome
the stuff he lived on and what the
rest OF us lived on, and he traded
butter and eggs for his sugar and
coffee and a load Of wood or a bushel
or two of beets or peaches to
the shoe maker for mending his
shoes, and his money he salted down
against the day when taxes were
due, or he wanted to buy a new wag-
on or grain drill or paint for his
big red barn, or something of that
kind, and by and by send the boy or
girl to the Allegheny College or the
Friendship University.
They had good roads out in the
township. and they had a preacher at
their church every Sunday, morning
and evening and good schools all
over their district. and we didn't have
poor house in the county. But
they had no money crop. They had
good houses and big red barns, filled
to the roof with everything, and
spring houses with milk and butter
and cellars with plunder that made
the table Of the county home look
good. Some times an old farmer
would come into the office who did
not take our paper. If he told me
he mad no money when advised him
to subscribe 1 always told him that
made no difference to me. 1 would
send him the paper and if he never
got the money to pay 1 would forget
all about 1T and never ask him for it.
and if he got the money some day
he could come in and pay when he
felt like it That always tickled them,
and many a man l put on the roll that
way, but / do not recall that sin
gle one failed TO pay. We never ask
ed any man to pay in advance, and
some Of them did and some did not.
But they all paid before their ac-
counts had run very long, for they
all had some money. These farmers
never had Very much. If they got a
little wad saved up they probably
bought some more land or a register
led bull, or stump puller, or a set
of hair cloth furniture for the sitting
room, for we did not have parlors In
the country yet at that time, and
hair cloth furniture was still the cli-
max of luxurious furnishing.
One OF those old farmers sent one
or his boys to Cornell University, and
he was later governor of Idaho. An
other boy from one Of the farms was
state auditor of the state of Wash
ington and for three years mayor of
Seattle. Another is one Of the big oil
men OF the neighborhood oil region
TWO of the young chaps now grown
gray, Were in California with their
wives on pleasure jaunt when 1
was up that way last summer look
Ing around a bit. One of the girls
knew years ago told me her cream
check the previous month was over
$50 at the ice cream factory where
she sells it. Things are easier now
tran in the earlier day. But still
trey have no money crop.
You might say how much better
1t would be if they had. But I
think not. For it looks to me as If
money crop makes everybody a
slave to that crop, and that results
III neglect Of the crops my old time
farmer neighbors made for their own
subsistence, and of which they made
enough to satisfy their own wants
with some to sell to the stores and
to the neighbors. And after each far
mer had supplied himself it did not
take much of a money crop to allow
HIM to have all the money his house
hold needed and to put some away
for the rainy day that makes the pro-
verb work right. The old farmer up
my way had no tenants, he had no
time-merchants to deal with, and
never knew what time merchant is
until 1 came to North Carolina. He
had his boys and girls when they
were big enough to help, and he
probably had farm hand and a
hired girl" to help about the house
work if conditions were such that
he needed one and could pay her.
But the family did most OF the work,
and 1t was not the same slavish work
that money crop makes. They did
not have as much money as crop
OF cotton brings when cotton brings
anything, but they did not need it to
pay the cost OF making the cotton.
And have notion that If we had
less rigid rule by the money crop In
this state we would be better off.
Livery man VINO makes money crop
makes it in competition with all the
others who are making that same
crop. so every farm hand is working
In competition with the cheap labor
that is in many places the mainstay
of the money crop, and the money
crop pays only what 1t must pay
cheap labor to make the money crop,
and all farmers working on that
money crop are working for that
same low wage which Is the basis of
the production of the money crop.