Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1922-11-01
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i. KETING CASE AT i.
j. NASHVILLE. !.
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A Special Message for AL Farmers
Who Have Signed or Have
Not Signed.

A Special Message for All Farmers
Who Have Signed or Have
Not Signed.
Editorial by DR.. Clarence Poe, in
Progressive Farmer.)
TO Every Progressive Farmer Read
or in North Carolina, South Caro-
lima and Virginia.
Dear Friends: am just back from
the hearing at Nashville, n. c., where
the first great onslaught on the CO.
operative marketing movement was
made by the interests that will II
heaven and earth to crush it., This
was the first suit in the Carolfhas or
Virginia in which the cooperative
marketing association has brought
an injunction to compel a signer to
deliver his crop, to pay a penalty OF
five cents a pound for each pound he
had sold outside the association and
to pay The expenses OF the association
in prosecuting him, all Of which
things are called for by the contract.
And in spite Of all that attorneys,
warehousomen and dealers fighting
cooperative marketing could. do,
farmers backed the contract.
Whether you have signed or have
mol signed the cooperative market
ing contract, Mr.. Farmer | wish you
could have stood with mo and with
the others in the multitude that
thrOnged the court house OF Nash
county. If you have signed the CO.
operative marketing contract you
would have had your faith strength
cncd. II you have not signed, | be-
licvc you would have had it borne
into your very soul that the cooper
ating farmers have enlisted in a
great battle for freedom, and that it
is your duty and the duty Of every
other farmer to get into this great
battle and fight shoulder TO shoulder
with your comrades until the victory
ComcH--or until You die and pass tho
fight on to your children and chill
drcn'S children.
For freedoms battle once begun,
BcqueathcI from bleeding sire to
son,
Though banlcd OFT, is ever won."
| say all this because there in
Nashville, as never before, was re-
vealcd with brazen .shamelesaness
the Nue inwardness Of all the bitter
and determined fight that special i'll
terests have made and will continue
to make against the effort of the far
mer to free himself from such special
interests, and instead to "Make HIM
self master Of his own industry"
Wherever opponents Of co-opera-
tive marketing have found farmer
they thought they might fool these
last two years, what havo they told
him? Haven't they told him that CO.
operative marketing was a weak and
futile thing that could never amount
to much? Haven't they told him that
cooperative marketing offered no
special benefits nor special advant-
ages to the farmer, and that he might
as we'll let it alone?
But at Nashville last Thursday,
thank God, the opponents of cooper
ative marketing threw off their
Sleeps clothing. They unmasked
themselves. Here they were not try
Ing to fool some poor uncducated
man with spurious falsehoods-
at all. On the contrary. they we're
going before distinguished Judge,
who could not be misled by mere
1y, facing Judge Daniels in Nashville
court, tho opponents of cooperative
marketing gave utterancc at last to
their real fcars--thc terrible fears
tina. Eavo oppressed and haunted
them ever since The farmers or
America began to show signs of
wanting something 10 say about tho
sale OF products made IN the sweat
OF the farmers own face
Speaking under the solemn aus
DiccS OF great court trial, intended
to break up cooperative marketing,
what did these distinguished attor-
ncyS say Did they say tLat cD-opcra-
i've marketing is futile thing, a
thing that can never amount to
much. no matter how many farmers
so into 1t? Did they say that coop
crativc marketing promised the far
mcr no special benefits, no special
advantages?
Not within thousand miles OF
such 4 thing.
These distinguished attorneys, in
their solemn attidavits. appealed to
tho courts to break up cooperative
marketing for two great reasons, and
two great reasons only
First. they said that cooperative
marketing will give the farmer such
tremendous power that If it goes on
unchecked, then farmers will soon be
able to dictate the prices Of all their
great staple products, and that man
utacturcrs and buyers and the whole
commercial and consuming world
VIII be at tho mercy OF the farmer
Second, they said that the coop
crativc marketing law gives the far
mcr the producer OF agricultural