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i (Hip Sambprg ferali) \ $2.00 Per Year in Advance. BAMBERG, S. C., THURSDAY, JUNE 22,1922. Established in 1891. Tax Commissio \ Increase La > The people of Bamberg county arel < perfectly willing to carry their just : Dortion of the tax burden of South j ( * Carolina; they strenuously object to i * carrying more than their portion of < the load, however. Bamberg county is ] not crying out tor charity at lue hands of the state tax commission. ; but it is protesting against assessing ] r the lands of Bamberg county more < than the lands of neighboring and ad- < joining counties,which, with a few ex- i ceptions, are equally as able to pay | * their taxes as Bamberg. The county ? is askin- only for fair treatment at the hands of the state tax commission. All of these facts, and a great < many more, came out at the meeting < of citizens held at the court house i Friday morning, when two members of the state tax commission, J. P. < \ Derham and J. Frasier Lyon, met j with the people and discussed the in- ? crease of land assessments in this t county an average of 36% over the x assessment of previous recent years, t * J. F. Carter was made chairman of j the meeting and W. D. Rowell and i c R. M. Hitt "were requested to act as r secretaries. Representative J. Carl c Kearse, who called the meetirfg. stat- f * ed in a brief talk the purposes for r which the meeting had been asked, p k and invited those present to state to s the tax commissioners their various | f complaints. The chairman first asked the com- j c missioners present to state the facts t regarding the increase of land as- ^5 sessments in this county right at a ^ time when the county is practically j c bankrupt from the ravages of the | s boll weevil. j s "Mr. Lyon, speaking first, said that i e the commission was in sympathy with j c the farmer, and he realized that the c < people had taxes to pay that some of | q them 'cannot pay. The state puts a , 1 1 first mortgage on your property, he y said. The legislature determines how j a much money to spend. It is the busi- t ness of the commission to endeavor' ^ to collect this money in as equitable j manner as possible. He and Mr. Der- p ham came to Bamberg, he said, with j v open minds. "If you will point out | t a wrong, we are here to right it." he ; (j said. "We all feel bad about the j s situation; you cannot feel it any j p more than we do. We want facts j and figures, so that not only may we "be convinced there has been an er- i tot made, but that we may be able t to show other counties why an excep- i; tion should be made of Bamberg. \ Four years ago the tax commission i t went to work to iron out the assess- 4 ment of lands, and a difficult task it e has been." ^ f Showing the relative increase of; r land assessments in various sections' a ^ of the state, Mr. Lyon said that inj 1 Marlboro land had been increased 1 from $5 to $15; Darlington $6 to1 r $10; Anderson $6 to $12, etc. Not- 1 c withstanding these increases, many ; t counties have continued to pay on 1 ^ smaller assessments than before. If j 1 the commission erred in regard to j r Bamberg four years ago, it is willing i i to review the entire matter with a j v view to adjusting it. The land as-1 1 sessments in South Carolina, he said, j 1 4 are lower than an average in the j C United States. > j Mr. Derham said that while the t people of this section are feeling the ; 1 v effects of the boll weevil acutely, the i entire state, with the exception of a e small area, is feeling the same. In s his own county, Horry, the weevils j a had taken a toll of two-thirds of the 1 a ^ cotton crop. In other counties where j t the devastation has not been as great, r he said, the distress seems to be*i about as acute as in Bamberg. Giv- j a ing the figures in regard to the as- j \ ( sessment system, he said that the ! i commission had valued the land here ! ] ~ ~ n rr r\ f ? 1 ^ 1 " TlOr O PT& 1 1 <x t ail avciasc v*. v^v.av jsv** and had taken-42% of that amount 1 in reaching the assessable value. The 1 land values had been adjusted as best i * they could, using all available in- t formation to arrive at them. This valuation had been arrived at in J 191S. Xo attempt had been made to ! s fix values on the inflated prices of j i later years. The land sales of this \ i county had been inspected for the * years 1913-14-15. U. S. census fig- c ures for 1910 had also been employ- c ed. < < Replying to a question. Mr. Der- J ham said that the land assessment in r Barnwell county is $4.70 per acre: i a Allendale, $4.15; Hampton, $3.60: ! 1 . Colleton. $2.90: Aiken, $4.35; > Orangeburg. $7.45., Mr. Kearse in- i terrupted to say that by paying the I old assessment Bamberg would be ! n Asl^ed Not rid Assessment about on a pa-rity with the counties surrounding Bamberg, excepting Orangeburg. It was brought out that there had not been an increase of assessments this year in any of the surrounding counties. The land valuations, arrived at by an average of land sales, are as follows: Bamberg $26.57: Barnwell, >25.43; Allendale, $25.16; Colleton, oin tt ? <?oi oft +v,/-> >i??.o.3; nampiuu, <p.i-i.o?7, ? > unc mc ralues in two upper Carolina coun:ies are: York, $30.S5; assessment, >7.95, and Anderson $67.37 with an assessment of $12.75. B. W. Aliley interposed with the suggestion that the lands, for the greater part, of Bamberg and Barnwell were the same in value. Mr. Lyon quoted many figures to show that the commission cannot issess in one county the same as the idjoining county, as this would exend all over the state, and thus get lowhere. It was stated at this point hat the commission had ordered the and assessments increased in this :ounty in 1918, but that for some eason not stated in the meeting the >rder had never been made effective, or which, Mr. Lyon said, the comnission was not responsible. The >resent order of the commission limply restores the assessment to the i igure it should have been. S. G. Mayfield stated in a clear and onvincing manner the actual situaion that confronts Bamberg county. fears ago it was the system of Barncell county, before Bamberg was cut iff, to group its townships for assesing the lands. It was realized that ome of the townships were possessid of land far more valuable than ithers. A considerable area of the :ounty is in low lands that are fre[uently inundated and therefore of ess value, although during good ( ears producing fine crops. Taken s a whole he is of the opinion that he lands of Barnwell are more pro:uctiTC than those of Bamberg. The state became drunk with prosperity, said Mr. Mayfield, during the rar period, and we are now paying he price, and for this condition he loes not hold the commission reponsible; on the other hand he sym athizes with the commission in its i-ork in carrying out the law. Everything was getting along fine lere until an uninvited visitor came, he boll weevil. Instead of producng a normal crop of 28,000 to 34,000 >ales of cotton, last year the producion dropped to a little more than :,000 bales. "We had one bale in fight left to us," he said. "Our armers haje not gorgotten how to aise cotton; they work just as hard .s ever. Less than one bale to the >low was made on the Mayfield farms ast year. I would HKe to asK now nanv farmers have made a single lear dollar in two years. We have ried truck, with very little success. Ve are simply wiped out of existence, 'he Ehrhardt and Olar districts made j tothing from excessive rains, and if \ t is possible you can subtract the reevil damage from nothing. The .922 crop promises a repetition of ast year unless we have a dry July. )ur taxes should not be increased." Mr. Mayfield said that many of our >est farmers are unable to pay the 921 taxes. The weevils had eaten ip the crop in spite of government ;xpert advice. Several specific in-' tances of the fearful ravages of the veevil were related, in one instance i farmer producing 56 bales of coton to 105 plows. Years ago the Piednont had petitioned the legislature or relief because of the drought; the ippeal was heard. "We are a hard vnrVincr nonnlo Snnnnso rnttnn STOftS lp; it takes everything to pay expenses, and there is nothing left to ive on. Our people have done their evel best: we cannot be kept down, put I beg that the commission will lot add to our awful burden by furher increasing ou rtaxes." Representative J. Carl Kearse nade the following motion, briefly stated: That this body go on record is being in favor of allowing the assessment of land to remain the same is in recent years. The motion was luly seconded, and after further discussion was unanimously adopted by i rising vote. , Mr. Kearse offered the following easons for this motion: 1. The boll veevils and other conditions over vhich we have no control have devastated the farms: 2. Other counties idjoining Bamberg show valuations ower on an average than this county: >. Sale prices of lands during the Candidate Crop . Is Above Par Columbia. Jnne 19.?A bumper crop of candidates for state offices s makes a rich harvest this year for ( the treasury of the state Democratic i Executive committee. As one ha^ s after another was flung into the ring, t and these fell thick and fast up to 1 2 ? o'clock today, accompanying the sombreros of male candidates and the 1 millinery of women candidates were t checks of $100 and $200 denomina- t tinns. f "A pretty good day's business." re- t marked Edgar A. Brown, the state ] chairman who, hailing from Barn- c well, where he is a candidate for the legislature, is incidentally boss of the t works. c Complaint was heard not very t many days ago that this year there appeared to be little interest in state politics outside of the gubernatorial 1 race, but the last day's gleanings. ^ and it was only half a day at that that, brought the 'biennial crop of V_7 J. ? candidates up to something a little \ more par. Pledges were filed thick < and fast this morning, so thick and so fast that the entire landscape was completely changed. Those political j wiseacres who have heretofore predi- ^ cated their prognostications upon the , line-up as previously existing now ( past few years have materially de- ? creased and are now on a parity with 1 I ffninitioo a rl iti fon t tn Bflmbpr2r! ^ 4. A vast amount of timber has been- * cut and moved leaving these t previously valuable timber lands now practically worthless; 5. * A great portion of the 1 county is composed of swamps, bogs c and low lands that are practically * worthless; 6. Because Bamberg has t has recently annexed a considerable area of Colleton county, whose lands 1 are admittedly less valuable than r those of Bamberg. c Mr. Miley called attention to the 1 fact that census figures are not to be r accepted as accurate. Sales figures c are a good index and Bamoerg and 1 Barnwell counties show little differ- ence in sales prices. The commission may have made an honest mistake in c fixing the assessment in 1918. a Capt. J. B. Guess had sympathy 1 with the commission, but said that this is no time to raise taxes, especi- e ally in a countv where* farmers can-].3 I T not pay expenses. Bamberg lands are not worth more than a third the j ^ value of four years ago. We are not 3 in position to bear any more burden, f he said, and he added that he felt 1 sure there would be no increase. * J. Wesley Crum, Jr., said that a correct census now would show a less land valuation than 1910. By taking an average of the assessments of surrounding counties, we would have c an assessment for Bamberg of about r $4.50 per acre, and by taking an average of land sale prices of these counties, Bamberg would show up ( with an assessment of about the same 1 as has been^enforced heretofore. There ark parts of the county, said Mr. Crum, that cannot secure a land J loan except from the farm loan board on account of being classed as coast al low land. We have already had 1 I greater damage from the boll weevil than upper counties will ever have, for statistics show the further south 1 one travels the greater infestation he ( will find. Another reason our lands should be low assessed is because we have had two years more of infestation than the upper counties, and, i therefore, tnev should be in better 1 condition, whether they are not. The people here made about enough cot- 1 ton last year to pay their taxes. G. W. Goolsby caused a laugh by saying that there had been enough 1 oratory at the meeting to take off i all the taxes, and that too much territorv had been aken in. What we are interested in is Bamberg county. The main point of complaint is, he said, we simply have not the cash to pay i more taxes. W. D. Bennett was the last speaker, i and after discussing the question a J ! few minutes, gave a striking example ! of the deflation of land values; 4 00 i j acres of as good land as there is any- i i where hereabouts had sold for $3,500 : cash. "We can't meet our present j taxes: we haven't the cash. Now is I not a time to raise taxes." | Mr. Carter thanked the commis- ( jsioners for their consideration in comI ing to Bamberg to ascertain the situ| ation here. t i It is presumed the commission will j take the matter under advisement and | announce its decision in regard to s ! rescinding the order increasing the | assessment from $4.69 to $6.40 per 1 | acre in the near future. c Not to Die Says Edmund Bigham Edmund D. Bigham. under death sentence for the murder of his brother. L. Smiley Bigham. does not expect to die in the electric chair and still believes he will lie freed, he told he prison officials "1 never expect to ro to the chair." Bigliam declared. The condemned man lost much of lis spirit when he was denied a new rial at Florence last week. He left lie penitentiary to make the trip eonident that he will be given another rial, telling penitentiary officials that :ie was "certain to get another ?hance." Judgje Shipp refused Bigham a new rial, however, and his attorneys are ippealing to the supreme court from ;he ruling of the circuit judge. Rugby foot ball is a favorite sport ,vith many women and girls in France. Renew your subscription today. :ace the necessity of revising the same because of new entries. Eleventh-Hour Condidates. Eleventh-hour candidates have ather complicated the situation for hose who. until this morning, had ;io opposition. Political aspirants ;ame today from various parts of the >tate. One shudders to think what night have happened to the aspiraions and ambitions of some of these lad their trains been late, or had hey suffered more than one or .two ilowouts on the way. In point of act, Sam T. Carter, state treasurer, s the one state officer who did not Iraw an opponent, a worthy tribute o a faithful and worthy official of 'he state government. There was also one withdrawal*. 3aul .Moore, of Columbia, quit the ace for state superintendent of eduction. In this race, however, are eft six candidates, including two wonen, the first of the feminine sex to )ffer for state offices, Airs. Jt&essie logers Drake, of Marlboro, and .Mrs. Jartha Wallace, of Columbia. For lieutenant governor two new andidates entered the political rena, E. S. Jackson, of Wagener, and )r. E. C. L. Adams, of Columbia. Two candidates for attorney gen>ral also announced, Harold Eubanks :nd D. M. Winters, both of Columbia. ror comptroller general, T. Hagood iooding, of Hampton, announced md two new candidates for governor iled pledges, J. J. Cantey, of Sumnerton, and William Coleman, of ~nion. I. S. Hutto, of Dorchester, J. j. McJahon, of Columbia, and W. F. Stev:nson, of Cheraw, filed their pledges. The complete list of candidates as jompiled after the clock struck the loon hour today, is as follows: For Governor. Cole L. Blease, J. J. Cantey, Wm. Coleman, John T. Duncan, Geo. K. ^anev. Thomas G. McLeod. For Lieutenant Governor. E. C. L. Adams, E. M. Jackson, Tames K. Owens. For Congress. First district?\V. Turner Logan, S. Hutto and J. D. Morrison. Second district?James F. Byrnes. Third district.?S. H. Sherard, Fred H. Dominick and E. F. Mc>avy. Fourth district?J. J. McSwain. Fifth district?W. F. Stevenson. Sixth district?W, R. Barringer, H. Gasque, Jerome T. Pate and P. T. Stoll. Seventh district?A. J. Bethea, H. ?. Fulmer, and J. J. McMahon. For Superintendent Education. Mrs. Bessie Rogers Drake, J. H. dope. 0. D. Seay, C. H. Seigler, J. E. ?\vearingen, Mrs. Martha Wallace. For Adjutant General. Thos. B. Marshall and R. E. Craig. For State Treasurer. S. T. Carter. For Attorney General. Harold Eubanks, D. H. Winter, md S. M. Wolfe. "or Commissioner of Agriculture, Commerce and Industries. B. Harris and George W. Wightnn n For Secretary of State. W. Banks Dove and Jas. C. Dozier. For Comptroller General. Walter E. Duncan and T. Hagood looding. For Solicitor. Third circuit?Frank A. McLeod, md Jno. G. Dinkins. Fifth circut?A. F. Spigner. / Twelth circuit?C. W. Muldrow tnd L. M. Gasque. The big gun o? the campaign will )e fired tomorrow morning at 10 >'clock at Columbia. Letter Explains Regarding Ci W. A. Klauber. president of the! p; Bamberg County Truck Growers as-1 ^ sociation has received a letter from (j Smith & Holden. commission mer- tl chants of Xew York, relative to the situation that has prevailed in regard j to the cucumber crop in Bamberg, ex-1 plaining the reason for the market I going to pieces. Inasmuch as many ei farmers hereabouts are interested in ; ^ this subject, The Herald prints below | e. this letter, excluding some personal a matters, for the information of cu- j n cumber growers and all others in-1 n ' P terested in this matter; the letter be-; v ing signed by P. Willis Holden, mem-1 a ber of the firm above referred to: j S( On June 3rd I sent you a long day j1 letter, in reference to the cucumber j situation here, and advised you that! it was about the worst that I have u ever seen. . I want to confirm this by saying that I have been handling cucumbers here from the south on a consignment basis, for approximately twenty-five s< years, and I do not think that I have ^ ever been placed in as undesirable f position as I was last week, and the early part of this week, when we had ' to refuse approximately 5 car loads 01 cucumbers from your association. ? I want to go further and say that j f 1^ n r? rv /-> f t V> nr-n rtiiOnm n*o f Itiic iciu3iii5 ut uicoc Lucumuci^ wao j in no way caused by poor quality, ! * I grading or packing of the commodity, I jbut rather I want to congratulate you, Z for the efficient manner in which these cukes have been graded and packed, and to say that in all my'experience, I do not think I have ever come across a similar condition, where a station like Bamberg, practically unknown in the cucumber | growing industry to any extent, has : C the first year, with any quantity ship- j k ments come to the front and made t] such a strong showing in the way of . grading and packing. Furthermore, the general reputa-: d tion for cucumbers originating at or j t( very close to Blackville. has been any- . 0 thing but good. I would hardly dare to repeat the remarks that I have w heard in the past ten years, relative n to the "raw" methods pursued by h many or most of the cucumber growers or shippers at Blackville, and to j meet up with Bamberg this year, I practically new in the cucumber c< game, and have grading and packing it up to the standard that your association has done, is very unusual. a- ? J!i C tl l am going to give uie c*reuu itn j - this situation, to you, because I be- ; C lieve that it was your good business ! ^ methods that brought it about. I have had to refuse many shipments of cukes in the past years, ^ about which I did not feel any un- tc usual regret, because of the way that p the goods had been graded and packed, but it did hurt me very much, to ! have to refuse the cars that you en- e: trusted to us. ^ I want to explain to you a condi- * tion that we are up against when glutted periods are on here, in this tl way: If there are 50 carloads of n cukes arrive, of which 10, 15 or 20 It, are in bad condition or of such poor quality or grading that they will not bring freight charges, they are re- ii fused to the transportation company, t< to avoid paying transportation charges. As soon as these cukes are re fused, a sale is effected if possible by the selling agent of the railroad com- o pany, and cukes that might under a normal conditions bring 40 or 50 cents per basket, will be sold at 15 p or 20 cents, or possibly 25 cents per n basket. c A receiver here has three hours, t] from the opening of the market, or at the present time* until 8 a. m. to n file refusals with tire transportation E company. i] It is always our policy to wait until almost the last moment before of- , fering refusals, so as to keep these goods off of the market as long as ^ possible, but the point that I want S to make is, that as soon as the rail- j road selling agent begins to offer 15c, , 2f?c or 25c cukes, the outcome is that receivers with better cukes, that F might have been sold for at least \ freight charges, possibly from 10c to 25c. more, are forced at the last moment to refuse their arrivals to the c transportation company'. n Tiio larorp hnvers of cukes, under Q such conditions, know how the thing ~ works out. and simply refuse to buy ? cukes at 65c or 75c which would show ti the transportation charges, and we v will say the cost of the package, and a wait until the refusals are in. and buy the same cukes, for half or less than half of the price that they could have h been bought for earlier. ti I have not overlooked the fact that ij you have secured graders and packers from Florida for these cukes, and naturally at considerable expense. I s appreciate that you undoubtedly have v a very big interest in the success of j Ci truck growing at Bamberg, and 1 0 have never seen work along that line " ti-.on vnn bave done, and I nunc ucuci uiuu ,-wv! _ T am sure it is no fault of yours, that | the results will be so unsatisfactory. In closing. I must comment to this extent, that the acreage in your state p was undoubtedly over-done. There were two unfortunate conditions, one is that whereas the normal acreage of n cukes in the Blackville district ranges from S00 to 1.0??0 acres the acreage in the middle South Carolina district. say from Bamberg west, and from the Southern railway north and tl south for perhaps 25 or 30 miles in each direction, is reported to have been nearly 3,000 acres. The acreage in the Meggetts or is j Charleston, S. C., district was ap- tl Situation icumber Prices arently normal, and unfortunately as about a week later than usual, taking the shipments from the two Uckcin nnrl rv v> /l r\-r*s> /^4-i 11 ~ A. icu K?,O uc.hiu auu ciiu atLiLaii> cit ie same time. I am frank to say that the cucumer proposition in middle South arolina is not a good one for an inleased acreage over normal. The same conditions were prevalit in Florida on cukes, watermelons, jmatoes and potatoes, and in South arolina on potatoes, but the weathr conditions interfered so that the ctual volume shipped was hardly lore than normal, and in some cases ot even normal, and what I had exected was likely to occur long before our shipping season, did not happen, f nd really your district is the only sction that has received the brunt of ~ lie effect of over-production. Florida is getting the same dose ow on watermelons, but I hope that he watermelon crop in your section ill pull out. The crop of Florida cantaloupes is been unusually large this year, and inch to our surprise, we have had ome 8 or 10 carloads which we have old at quite satisfactory prices, but cannot predict anything very bright or cantaloupes from your district, or I fear that they are going to be ere with the big rush from Califoria. and at present, I am afraid even alifornia is going to make a bad lowing with her cantaloupe crop this ear. letter Times are Ahead For Tobacco Growers More than 50 warehousemen and eld workers of the Tobacco Growers' ooperative association from 38 mareting points of the association in le South Carolina belt met Tuesday 1 Florence, where T, C. Watkins, ? irector of warehouses, said, ''Those )wns which support this movement v f South Carolina tobacco farmers ill fanr\ o rinVi roword and tVlOQA XXI ' 1 tap a 1 IVU 1 VllUiU M4AV4 VMVWW lerchants and bankers who have elped to win new members throughut South Carolina will bring, with le tobacco and the growers which )me to theif towns, a new prospery." Dr. J. Y. Joyner, vice president of le association; A. T. Breedlove, and . B. Cheatham, of the leaf departlent, assured the field workers and arehousemen at Tuesday's .meeting rat the campaign for cooperative )bacco markets markets has been a henominal success to date. Telling how 75 per cent, of growrs in the old belt of Virginia and orth. Carolina were lined up with le cooperative movement and that ie entrance of 3,000 tobacco fariers from eastern North Carolina ind the marketing association during ie past three weeks had developed ito a landslide for the association d push their present majority signp in South Carolina to 75 per cent. Letters will reach 6,200 members f the Tobacco Growers' Cooperative ssociation in this state during the resent week announcing that the lember growers may take their hoice of markets, among which are he following points: Andrews, Ayor, Bamberg, Conway, Darlington, lillon, Georgetown, Hartsville. Hemagway, Johnsonville, Kingstree, ,ake City, Lake View, Lamar, Latta, .oris, Lynchburg, Vanning, Marion, lullins, Nichols, Olanta, Pamplico, umter, Summerville, Timmonsville, lladenboro, Cerro Gordo, Fair Bluff, 'airmont, Lumberton, Proctorville, towland, St. Pauls, Tabor, and Vhiteville. Geo. J. Holliday, of Aynor, Horry ounty, was present at Tuesday's meeting and signed up his crop of 55 cres with the organized tobacco rowers, also renting his warehouse o the association. Mr. Holliday is rell known as a successful merchant nd large farmer in Horry county. Citizens of Florence have given and for the erection of a cooperative obacco warehouse during the comig season. The contract for the sale f this property to the marketing asociation was signed Tuesday and ill make of Florence a marketing enter convenient to most of the 1,00 signers of Florence county. Quite True, Stubbing The English tourist approached 'armer Stubbins. "How charming are those suroundings, sir," she began smilingly. "They be. madam," replied the farier. J * i - a? i.1. ^ "And how sweet ine sung oi uuu irush," she continued. "Aye. madam," returned the son of re soil: "but the song of the thrush i nought compared with the lay of i* 'en." h