The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-10-11
CHEAP COTTON.

great men run COSeCner, as may De
evidenced by a reading of the edi-
torial in this paper of Monday last
and the following editorial from the
Manufacturers Record, but to let
the readers OF this paper know just
what one of the most thoughtful
writer's in this country thinks, and
what one of the closest observers
sees, we reproduce what the editor
of the Record says on the above
subject:
Randall N. Durfee, New Eng
land spinner and a prominent men,
Der of the National Cotton Manu-
facturers' Association, has written an
article for the New York Journal of
Commerce almost every paragraph of
which begins with the dictum cotton
should be cheap It should be cheap,
says Nj. Durfee, because it is prime
necessity, because it furnishes cloth
ing for the poor man, because mil
lions of workers are dependent on
it for a livelihood, because only in
times of cheap cotton does the manu-
facturer secure a reasonable profit
on the capital invested etc., etc. We
ought to strive to produce as cheap
ly as possible, says Mr.. Durfee, in
stead of curtailing production. He
thinks that the cotton-producing sec
tions are capable of producing large
enough crops to make cotton cheap.
AS these arguments, however, appear
by themselves to be little too raw
it should be stated that Mr.. Durfee
also contends that by cheap cotton is
not meant a price which does not
show profit to the producer. All
interests handling cotton are entitled
to a reasonable profit, but the pro-
ducer Is not entitled to charge 20
cents for cotton costing 10 cents
any more than the manufacturer is
entitled to charge 81 for the finished
cloth costing so cents"
Perhaps Mr.. Durfee thinks cotton
labor lis inefficient and unprogres-
sive. 1t is. Five-cent cotton had a
way of closing schools, dressing la
Dor in rags, housing it in novels and
prohibiting the construction of
churches. 1t made the slavery of pre-
Lincoln days appear in comparison
as some sorS of heaven. 1t degraded
even the negro. It swelled the death
lists, apotheosized ignorance, pau
perized whole sections. Before the
Civil War there had been negro
slavery in the South. After the Civil
War, the cheap cotton advocates un-
dertook new enslavement of the
whole South, white and black.
"There is and can be no such
thing as cotton production at ten
cents the pound, under boil weevil
conditions, and nobody knows it bet
ter than does Mr.. Durfee. And no
body knows better than he does that
if production of cotton at ten cents
the pound were possible it would be
possible only by sweating blood out
of American citizens and giving them
in return not even a proper food
supply. Mr.. Durfee knows that, c:
ought to know it. Nay, more; he
knows that that a price of twenty
cents for cotton, now, is an infam-
Gus price-havoc-making. To defend
it is equivalent to defending the
march of an invading army throug!
the South, spreading destruction a
every turn.
"The maintenance of American
dominance in cotton production i:
desirable, highly desirable, provided
profit also is maintained, but no
otherwise. Philanthropy is carried t.
an extreme if the Southern farme,
is to go on indefinitely producin,
cotton at loss. None more than th'
farmer laments the necessity TO
acreage reduction, but Mr.. Durfe
knows, or ought to know, that tn
only way in which the boil weev
can be fought at all successfully
by intensive cultivation, and inter
sive cultivation requires concentrs
+;o,, of available labor on smaller