The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1921-10-27
Cooperative Marketing.


territory to sign up South Carolina
tobacco growers in the Tri-State To-
bacco Growers Cooperative Market
ing association, Mr.. 7. Benton Young,
, of Florence, secretary of the South
Carolina Tobacco Association, an
nourced this afternoon. A corps Of
workers will open up first in Darling
ton county, and will be moved success
sively to Florence, Williamsburg, and
Marion counties as the work is COM
pleted in each of them.
At II o'clock on Wednesday morn
ing, at the courthouse in Darlington,
the opening gun Of the campaign will
be fired for this belt. 1t will be a
great mass meeting OF tobacco grow
ers. Right there the canvassing for
! pledges will be started and continued
till the goal is reached. The chief
business of the mass meeting will be
to hear the presentation and explana-
ton of the cooperative contract.
Members of the organization corps
will have preliminary conference
in Darlington Saturday morning.
Some of the most experienced talent
used in the campaign in Virginia and
North Carolina, where the movement
is reported to have been 4 tremen-
dous success, has been procured for
the organization work in South Caro-
Ina. F. V. Shelton is heading the
active organization.
Approximately 3,5O0,OOO pounds of
tobacco must be signed up in Darling
ton county according to the percent
age basis set for the tobacco belt,
based on the 1920 crop. At least
half of the crop is desired signed up
under this plan.
Regarding the campaign, as it has
progressed in Virginia and North
Carolina and its approach in South
Carolina, the following statement has
been issued:
The unorganized tobacco farmers
of South Carolina sold their crop at
an average of 71a cents pound, in
July, while the organized farmers of
Virginia where 60 per cent of the
growers have joined the Marketing
association are now averaging from
2 to 25 cents on their markets.
Whether thousands of tobacco grow
ers in South Carolina begin an era
of prosperity within the next two
years, or sink again into debt ridden
bondage to the present system of mar
kets which is now safe for buyers,
dealers and spectators, but perilous
or ruinous for growers depends upon
whether the growers of South Caro-
lima sign the marketing contract which
10000 North Carolinians, Kentuck-
ians and Virginians. have signed.
The men who sign the marketing
agreement will either stand among
those who control the worlds best
tobacco belt-or because those who
hesitate have lost the chance of bet
ter days for all-among those who must
again face the evils of the present
speculative system.
No individual signer of the con-
tract of the Growers Marketing AS
sociation will be sacrificed by the
ignorance or cowardice of those who
fail to sign, because no contract will
be binding until half of all the to-
bacco of Virginia and the Carolinas
have been signed over to the growers
association.
All profits from tobacco sales will
be divided among the association in
proportion to the quantity and quail
ty of their tobacco. Present ware
houses and warehousemen will be
used whenever possible, but expert
graders to fix fair values for all to-
bacco sold by farmers will take the
place of the buyers and spectators
who thrive under the present system
of price fluctuations.
Only tobacco growers can be men,
bers of the association, and each men,
Der will be paid the same price for
the same grade and type of tobacco
as every other member.
The signer who pays $500 entrance
fee and sells hundred pounds Of
tobacco has the same vote as the
grower who sells . hundred thousand
pounds-no less, no more.
The contract, known as the Tobac-
CO Growers Cooperative Agreement
is the purest and most successful
form of democracy known in America.
If tobacco farmers refuse now to
sign their Declaration of Independ-
ence, which has changed poverty to
prosperity for the farmers Of the
west, they will let the men who now