The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1945-06-15
Equal Freight Rates For Dixie

Unfair freight rates, high tariffs and the one-crop sys-
TEN have worked together for many decades to prevent the
growth Of the Souths economic life, and to keep us poorer
than the rest of the nation when actually our region has been
one of abundant natural resources, good climate and favor
able geographic features.
Why this should have happened to us is one of the most
complex and bitter stories in American history. Scholars
have spent their whole lives tracing the rise and growth
Of American tariff policies, and the rivalry between Northern
industry and Southern plantations, and the influence of one
economic practice on the workings of another. Indeed the
average man without any special economic training beyond
the needs of his job or small business, has usually turned away
from the complex issues OF the rates and tariffs and agricul-
tural controversies.
But the fact that these things working together
unfair freight rates. unfair tariffs, and an obsolete cotton
strangled agricultural sYstem-kept the South from pros
pering as did the east and middle west was a result simple
enough to be understood by all of us. In one way or
another this fact affected US all. 1t affected the indie
pendent manufacturer and the business man who was
always at disadvantage when he tried to compete with
the eastern industrialist. 1t affected the poor one-horse
farmer. too. who could only get supplies and credit on
cultivation of cotton. exhausting his soil and requiring in
creasing quantities of fertilizer. And 1t affected the la
borinu man of the South by preventing the Growth of a
full and prospering industry which could compete on fair
terms with Northern producers and pay equal wage rates.
And these things affected us in other ways. too. affected
our social institutions. our ways of thinking. Because we
knew we were being cheated by these Northern economic
practices. we became resentful. and proudly defensive of
our ways and practices: and unfortunately. very often
blindlY resistant to any change, even when 1t might have
been to our welfare.
How was it that this deep economic and cultural division
between the North and South came about? In brief outline
ii had its roots back in those early years of our republic when
the invention OF the cotton gin made cotton an exciting new
money crop, and sent the value of fertile Southern farm
lands soaring very much as the discovery of an oil field does
today. The cultivation needed a tremendous amount of Ia
Dor, and slavery became the practice of the day. But slavery
did not pay well in the North where cotton could not be
grown, and therefore the institution never took hold there
The North became an industrial and manufacturing section
The South became a land of plantations and slavery. AL
though there were some home industries on the Southern
farms, such as the weaving of cloth, and the making of shoes
the South on the whole was required to buy its finished
products from the North and from England, it shoes, tools
furniture, books, stoves, and even great quantities of its hay
and feed and dairy products.
National politics for the forty years before the Civil war
became a struggle between the Northern industrialists and
the Southern planters, and almost every congressional bat.
tie was clearly divided on these lines. The Northerners
wanted to impose high tariffs on the goods imported from
ducers and enable the New England manufacturers to raise
their prices and gather fat profits. But largely this was al
the expense of the Southern agricultural consumers, who
were forced to pay the higher prices for all the countless
manufactured articles that they were required to purchase
from the North and abroad. 1t was the struggle between these
two systems which was one of the causes of the Civil war.
And of course we lost the war. which was inevitable
In any contest between an agricultural section with a
small population and a teeming industrial section with
heavy ordnance centers. arsensls. and a navy LARGE
enough to blockade Southern ports.
That was the unacceptable decision of destiny; and
even many a Confederate leader expressed the belief
In later years that IT was right in the long run. for 1t
kept America a united nation. and only a united nation
could defend itself in world politics.
But it was not the military defeat itself that hurt the
south the most what hurt even worse was the fact that
though the plantation system had been ruined and broken
by the abolition of slavery. it was nevertheless left to dom
mate Southern life as strongly as before the war. Two forces
worked tOgether mere: our southern planters and their poiiti-
cal spokesmen did everything possible to hold political lead
ership; and the northern industriaists and capitalists did
everything possible to prevent the growth of industrialism
in the South. The North wanted to continue to use the South
as a supply for cheap raw materials and commodities. such
as minerals, lumber and cotton. But it did not want the great
manufacturing and spinning and railroad centers shiftinf
from the North or %springing up in the South in competition
to the North. A Northern industrialist could get relatively
cheap credit from Wall Street to start a factory, but in gen
eral the Southerners could get credit only on a cotton crop.
TIE Republican politicians worked tirelessly in behalf
OF nigh tariffs, as before the Civil war. Wall Street exertec
tremendous power in the Republican party, which was ther
IN power, and the big Northern and Eastern railroad holders
We're able to establish a system of discriminatory freight rate.
which dd much to prevent the growth of Southern industry