The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1922-01-05
Mr.. Jackson Grows Cotton

Inc disease OF COtLOu udu SoI 1uII
their blood and they could not break
it's hold. The cotton state of mind
had caught their imagination and
they could find no way out. They
were as much a part of cotton as the
cotton boil itself. 1t was their very
life. It was all they talked about, all
they thought about, all they dreamed
about.
Mr.. Derieaux, the governors Sec
retary, who accompanied me, talked
a minute or two with the head of the
family; than we shook hands, stepped
into our car, and started off.
'sPitiful!" I remarked. "The boil
boil weevil has left them hopeless"
Yes, but the odd part of it is that
this same boil weevil that has crept
up into their fields for the first time
and sucked the life out of their cot
ton, will prove the greatest godsend
this district has ever had" my friend
Derieaux declared. ''The boil weeVil
makes the farmer of the south farm
right. Terrible as it is, it's a bless
ing in disguise. 1t will break the
hold of cotton-the disease of cotton.
It's terribly strong medicine but moth
ing else will do it,
And this was the diagnosis made
and the hope held out that heard
reiterated again and again, pretty
much over this part Of the south.
There is a real future ahead for Mr..
Will Jackson and the hundreds of
thousands of small farmers of his
kind-fine, honest American farmers
who have for generations been suf-
fering from this disease of cotton.
And Jackson is going to break the
chains that bind him and his wife and
his children to the uncertainty of a
one-crop harvest and a vicious credit
system, poverty and disease. And
those children will get the schooling
they hope for and there will be bet
ter food and better homes, better
churches and better roads and in the
end great new prosperous south.
Three things will break the hold Of
cotton: first, the boil weevfl that will
break the spell that cotton has cast
over his country, second, the great
cooperative cotton-growing and cot
ton-selling organizations that will
change the evils of the present system
of growing and disposing of the crop;
and third, the gradual revival Of Eu-
ropean trade and the ultimate open
ing Of the great half-closed countries
of the world that some day will clam
or and pay well for this semi-monopo-
ly that the south holds on the cotton
supply Of the world.
Already the boil weevil has taught
it's expensive lesson to the major por-
ton Of the cotton-growing south.
Like a great, slow tidal wave it has
swept across from Mexico across
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala
bama, Georgia and then, curVing
northward again, slowly but surely
overwhelmed southern and central
South Carolina; and now it marches
farther northward.
Since 1892, when it first crossed
the border into Texas, it has advanced
at rate of approximately fifty miles
a year-inexorably, pitilessly, un-
quenchingly, as certain as the stealth
full creeping of death.
So deep-settled was this disease OF
cotton that nothing short Of a catas-
.trophe could break it's hold. Its
sweep brought absolutely disaster
and then out OF the hopelessness and
ruin came the knowledge that not
only enabled each particular district
To Offset the ravages of the pest but
to lift itself out of the slough OF cot
ton tradition that has kept the south
backward for half a century-"Mr.
Boil Weevil teaches the farmer to
farm right"
Down in Enterprise, Alabama, in
the heart Of the business section OF
the little city, is a beautiful bronze
fountain that bears this inscription:
= In Profound Appreciation
of the Boil Weevil
= And What it Has Done as the Her =
aid of Prosperity
= This Monument Is Erected
BY the Citizens of
Enterprise, Coffee County, Ala. :"
It is a monument to the enemy
to the enemy that conquered and then
pointed the way towards new pros
perity and new hopes. Let one or
the leading farmers of this Alabama