Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-02-10
FACING A CRISIS
MCIVef Williamson Discusses COndi.
tiODS In the South.
MEN MUST CHECK EXTRAVAGANCE
South Has Been Going Wrong for
More Than a Hundred Years and
Needs to Get Right Before it Can
Hope to Prosper,

Charleston News and Courier.
To the Editor of The News and
Courier: Not since the slave was freed
and enfranchised has the South faced
a crisis so grave as the crisis which
she faces today.
1t is not what the boil weevil has
done or will do to cotton, for If cotton
has ever been blessing to the South,
where now are it's fruits? Less than
| two years ago the whole South from
Texas to Virginia was selling cotton
for over 40 cents. For we'll over a
year we have made painful search for
this boasted prosperity. Without cot
ton, it would have been impossible for
the curse Of slavery to have fastened
Itself upon the South. And but for
slavery, it is inconceivab'e that this
wonderful South could today be the
poorest part of our nation. Yet when
the boil weevil strikes down our var
nished idol, we feel that the worlds
turned upside down.
From generation to generation, cot
ton has been our sole reliance, its pro-
duction our chief concern. We have
learned no other agriculture; therefore,
the scrapping of this knowledge plus
our much beloved credit system, is to
us a greater event than the scrapping
of all the navies of all the world.
Against our will we have been torn
loosetfrom our ancient anchorage and
have little idea where we are at, or
what to do, for we can no longer judge
1.-THE future by the past. Added to all OF
this, the great debt which cotton has
devised to us with her love and de-
Efection is surely sufficient to create an
awful vacancy. Just here is the dan
ger point, that we lost heart, gave up
and move to town.
1t is not so much what the boil vice.
vii does to cotton, as what we shall
permit him to do to US. That the Dol
weevil has proved q blessing to every
section as well as to every farmer that
has fought him with intelligence is
fact well established, as also is the
fact that the idle and thriftless farmer
win surely be weeded out The one
! thing certain is that the remedy lies
! IN bur own hands, and that no one e'se
Is going to get us out of this trouble.
And that to the farmer who fights with
industry, intelligence and courage Will
come success according to his deeds.
Neither should our apprehension
over the boil weevil cause us to over
look the fact that general readJust-
ment necessarily follows all great ca'a-
mites before normal business can re-
surne, and that until normal business
does resume, we can certainly make no
advance.
Now the high prices which we have
had were & part of the war. We saw
them in the Civil War, nor did We see
them again for fifty years.
The farmer has been resumed all
the time, he is now thoroughly de-
fated. The farmer will get what out
side relief he does get from this de-
flation, in the prices of the things he
has to buy and freights that he has TO
bear. For 1t does not seem that the
word Is in a condition to give us hope
of increase in the consumers price
Of our produce.
That Europe is not able to supply
her needs, much less her wants, is evil
dent when we realize that half OF her
wealth has been wiped out Of existence
as completely as a ship that is burnt
in mid ocean; that 100000 Of her
ablest producers have been slain in
battle; that 100000 more of the
wounded are left further burden up
on her poverty; that the immense
wealth she had accumulatd since the
wars of Napoleon is absolutely des-
troyed.
For when property is burnt up or
blown up or shot up it is forever lost
and the world is just that much poorer
until it is replaced by actual labor and
saved by economy.
In order that we may realize the vast
ness of this property which has been
accommodating for 100 years, and the
disaster which it's sudden destruction
must bring, we mention that outside OF
her fabulous preparation, her economic
and human loss plus the indemnity
which she must yet pay, that Germany
spent on this war eight hundred (SSOO
dollars for every one of her 60,OOO,OOO
people, while we spent $3.50 per capita,
$1,750 for each family, both black and
white, $63O,0OO,OOO for South Carolina,
which is more than her entire state
taxes since Columbus discovered
America.
Therefore, we must not look for re-
lief from a return of the prosperity
which we have had. For large part
of this we got from Europe. Entirely
losing sight of the fact that those who
later became our allies, were then
lighting our battle as truly as their
own: That their defeat would assured
ly have meant our invasion by Ger
many and her allies, reinforced by the
conquered navies of England, Italy and
France, and that we today would have
been in German subsection. Yet our
manufacturers took advantage of this