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ESTABLISHED 1844 The Press ?nd Banner ABBEVILLE, S. C. Wm. P. GREECE, Editor. The Press and Banner Co. Published Every Tuesday and Friday Telephone No. 10. Entered as second-class mail matter at post office in Abbeville, S. C. Terms of Subscription: One year $2.00 Six months 1.00 Three months .50 Payable invariably in advancp. TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 25, 1919. =! THE PROPER WAY. . | The Press and Banner finds itself in thorough accord with those whodesire to make the South commerci-l ally independent. It finds itself in accord with those who desire to help the farmers of the state and of the1 county towards prosperity. It is in :accord with those who 'believe that| the fanners of Abbeville County, of/ the state and of the South, should, ^ whefre they may, produce on the i farms all the essentials of living and -?????> -fai-mc nnri in that Ui tanjitiig u? ? way discourage the planting of cotton only, and the purchasing of. all supplies and of all farm necessities from other sections of the country. But the Press and'Banner believes! that before prosperity comes some; other things, and among other things, j the right of every man to run his own business. If we desire to plant cot-1 ton, we deny the right of a few in- j dividuals, or of many individuals, to! band themselves together and to undertake to coerce us into doing something which does not appeal to our; judgment. The people of the South j will not be driven, nor will theyi stand to be published as recreant to! a trust because perhaps the interest of one group of the people of the' county runs contrary to the interestj of another group. The Press and Banner is asked to support in its editorial columns a movement to take pledges from farmers to hold all cotton now on hands for thirty-five cents, to take pledges from farmers to plant thirty-three and a third per cent less cotton than last year, and to use fifty per cent, less fertilizers, UNLESS THEY ARE ABLE TO PAY FOR WHAT THEY BUY (Please keep that in mind.) The Press and Banner cannot do go. We believe that the people of j the South should have sold cotton as' long as it was bringing thirty cents per pound. We do not believe that the farmers in the South who sold bneir cutiun at uuriy ten is pei pound, (many of them selling for this price in order to pay pressing debts, while many sold because they ffere satisfied with the price, and de sired to buy government securities and help the country), should now be called on to cut their throats in a commercial way in order to help people wh<K did' not sell at least some of thei?., cotton when it was thirty, thirty-two, or even thirtyfire cents per pound. If these people jrho are holding cotton, desire to hold it for either thirty-five cents, or on* dollar and eighty-nine cents, then we say that they have a right to go to it. But when it is proposed to get the names of the people who will not subscribe to the proposed pledge, tb publish the names as,.a qoercive measure, to call on the banks of the state not to help those people whose interest conflicts with cotton-holders, and otherwise to make slaves of a portion of the people of the state in order to help the holders of cotton, we demur. The man with a hundred bales of cotton, or two hundred bales of cotton or even a smaller amount, would no doubt make a great deal of money, if the scheme proposed to be put throjigh would materialize, because a man who is able to hold this amount of cotton will be able to get money from the banks, if he has not already money laid aside. He may call in some from his neighbors which is loaned out, and which they might V otherwise use to purchase fertilizers for cash. Having the money on hands, he is not called on to cT5t his fertilizer bill, oh, no! not he; but he will buy fertilizers and plant cotton on his fr.rm as heretofore. In order i / to keep within the letter of the pledge, he may buy an extra mule or two and work the same land with more stock, thus cutting the acreage to each mule, but working the same land, with the same, or more fertilizers, with his additional horse-power, and more help perhaps than last year, and he will make the same amount or more cotton. That is not the man who will have his crop cut. There are others, however, who are to be considered. Perhaps half the lands in this county are worked by small farmers, who have bought their homes on credit, and by renters. These people, in order to get guano with which to grow crops, and to get supplies for making the crop, will buy this year on a, credit, they will be forced to go to j the bank this year again for money with which to farm, and in every other respect they must proceed as in previous years. Now what is to become of these men if they are to be coerced into using only one-half the fertilizers formerly used, and into planting only two-thirds of the amount of cotton formerly planted? Everybody knWs that there are lands in this section which will not make cotton without fertilizers, and which will not make corn with fertilizers. A great many people look to these lands for the rent upon which they are forced to live. A great many people on the farms, white and black alike, cannot live upon the farms unless they grow a full crop, under the most favorable circumstances. The living expenses of these poorer | farmers will be the same as hereto-j fore. If they use one half of the fertilizers which their cotton lands; demand, and plant one two-thirds of; the c<5tton they have . heretofore' planted, they will make less than half the cotton they have previously, made. They must pay the rent they have already contracted to pay, or the. interest and principal which will be due and which will btf demanded, and if the cottQn crop is cut and the price does go up, they will find themselves holding the bag and paying the expenses of putting cotton up for the benefit of those people who are more fortunate, who havej produced as much cotton, as hereto- 't fore, fertilized as heretofore, and. worked more carefully perhaps with the intention of making a big crop.' There is nothing to be gained for these people in advising them to throw away a year's labor for the benefit of ^ few people who are now able to hold cotton for tihrty-five cents. Calamity Howler* and Politicians. We take no stock in all this talk about the South being ruined by the present price of Cotton. Any man on the farm who cannot make money rit the present price of cotton, with the prices of other things remaining j as they are at present, should be j " bored for,the simples," as the ex-| pression goes. He is no farmer., AI man who produces on the farm the things which he should produce, (and we favor encouraging not only the farm-owner to do this, but co? Vi flifl tonant rlass to! updating yiiun vuv WUWM. enable them to do the same thing,) may produce cotton as a surplus crop and make inoney on the farm at much less than the present price of cotton. The past demonstrates that to us beyond question? We have seen it done. It is stated that all other sections are prospering, while the South is being enslaved by a few designing people who are hammering our products. The people who buy our cotton are business men and quite naturally buy as cheaply as they may. And if these people who desire to buy our cotton organize to buy it as cheaply as they may, are they doing less than the farmers are undertaking to do when they organize to obtain all /?an inr flip nroHuct. A feW "*** > X years ago the farmers of this sec-j tion, believing that bagging was sell-1 ing too high organized for the pur-| pose of fighting the "jute trust," asj it was called. They had a right to | do this as long as they followed legit-! imate lines. Now all people do jfiotj produce cotton. The great majority! of the people in the world buy cot-1 ton pi*oducts, but produce no cotton. If they believe that cotton is, now at too high a price, and decide not to buy in order to force the price down, are they more blame-worthy i than we are when we undertook by | co-operation, or banding together to do the same thing. As long as cot-j ton is produced for sale, the pro-1 ducer will obtain all he can for his product and the buyer will buy as cheaply as he can unless he is a fool, which we do not believe ?he is. If the price of cotton is being forced down by means which are illegal, then some of the politicians and office-holders who are in late years always on the cotton platform, should take measures to put all criminals behind the bars, and to see that they are kept there. Illegal methods should be stopped by the heavy hand of the law. The South Not Poor. ? But the South is not poor. The South is prosperous., There are in the Abbeville Warehouse some five thousand bales of cotton. There are in the sheds, barns, outhouses and lying in the open, in this immediate neighborhood, five thousand more bales of cotton, which at present prices would bring into this money market one million, four , hundred thousand dollars?a sufficient amount of money to pay off every debt due in the three banks of the city of Abbeville, and leave in them nearly a half millions dollars beside. Should this cotton be sold tomorrow, and the money be so applied, the banks* would find themselves with no loans whatever, with the present deposit^ of about a million and a quarter dollars and an additional one-half million dollars in their vaults. Some people may believe that under these facts, the country is "broke," but we refuse to so believe. / It is true that other sections;of the country have reaped ri<jh rewards during the war, because in other sections the people are engaged in manufacturing enterprises, and have on that account been able to take over war contracts at big profits, and have made money. But this is at an end now. And instead of these people being so prosperous as is stated, our information is to the contrary. No doubt some few people of large affairs have accumulated big amounts on money and are now riding around in Packards, on "good roads," but from reading the papers we gather that the laboring people of these sections are fast losing their jobs, and many of them are already out of employment and many more are likely to be. Already we know of some who went to other sections, and who remained there during the harvest time, wno are aiming DacK to tne farms of this section, jobless and moneyless. But if all had gotten rich, it is no more than any man in the South on the farm might have done in the last year. We know a man who has about thirty acres of land, peVhaps less, which he turned over to a sharecropper last year to be farmed. We do not know how much corn, nor how much peas he made, but our information is that he made twenty bales of cotton on the farm. The seed from the ten bales going to the landowner would pay all the expenses which he was put to, and if he sold his part of the cotton at thirty cents, he would have received from that crop fifteen hundred dollars?the equivalent of the interest on more than twenty thousand dol lars at seven per cent, whil? the land at most would not sell for more than three thousand dpllars. We know a negro man who bought a farm on a credit for fifteen hundred dollars in January of last year. He produced on this farm with the assistance of his family twelve bales of cotton, and enough corn, meat and other products to run the farm another year. The cotton and cotton seed, if sold as they were gathered, brought enough to pay for the farm, the interest on the money invested, and left enough to buy another farm half the size for cash. From t)eing a renter, without anything, he was transformed within a brief twelve months into a land-owner, with his farm paid for, and with plenty about mm. These may be extreme examples of what has been taking place in the last few years, but either of these men might have made half the crops stated, and yet have been tenfold more prosperous than they have been in the years that have passed. The many mortgages which have been paid and satisfied, the number of acres of land already sold, and still being sold, which is being paid for, the comforts and conveniences which the people in the country arc having, as compared with twenty years ago, assure us that the South is not nearing a condition of want and star vation. There is no place for the calamity howler in this section. There is no danger that the man who is holding his cotton will go to the poor house if he sells as long as the price is reasonable, nor is there any reason, so far as the public is concerned, why he should sell if he does not desire to do so. He should risk his own judgment. . But he cannot hold cotton, make money, pile up riches, and then make the people believe that the country is in bad financial plight. What Should We Do? But the question will be asked, i What should we do under the call J which has been made? Some people, and a great many people think we should take some action. We believe so too. We believe that the representatives of the people, when they met on next Friday, should adopt a resolution to the effect that the best results on the farms in this country are to be obtained by diversified crops, whenever possible, and in order to bring about the planting of less cotton, all farmers should be encouraged to plant corn, grow hogs and cattle on the farms, and i in this way to make the farms as far. as possible independent. We believe that the farmers of the county should resolve among themselves to do something along constructive i lines to assist the less fortunate of J the farmers of the county, who are, | in fact, in the % majority when it j comes to numbers. All the writing and speech-making which can be emj ployed will not help them. They : must be shown. We may reduce the acreage plai^ ed in cotton, if we assist these peo-l pie at tne same time in proper ways, . but we cannot do so by cutting down the productive power of these people without providing an equivalent. | They cannot be asked to curtail at their own expense, without some | other means being provided for them to earn an income. j How may the farmers and landlords bring this about? j They may do this by financing their own farms, loaning their tenLADIES . ! ; | 'gB6aMM We have tabled for Boots and Shoes, whii prices. The sizes are $8.C 5.( ' ' 4, 3.( 2.1 V * rk z. 4.( | SILKS : We are also offering Voiles, Ginghams and i ????i | ALL WINTER RI J J. M. ^ J Two Stores ' i ants money, and by agreeing in advance with them that they are to grow corn, small grain, peas and other crops in addition to cotton, and by taking care of the tenants in the fall, instead of turning these tenants over to merchants who want more cotton raised, and who rush it on the market as it comes in. They may encourage the tenants on their farms to raise their own meat.. Encouragement is not enough; they should assist them financially in doing so. They may buy hogs, and turn them over to these tenants to be grown on shares, or they may sell them on a credit, and take pay in meat at current prices. The tenant in this way will be encouraged to plant crops of corn, cane, peas and other products with which to feed these hogs, and to raise them for the market, if he has more than he desires to keep. They may encourage and assist the tenant class to raise cattle and poultry, to produce milk and butter and to grow vegetables for the market, but it is manifest that if this is to be done a market musit be provided for what is produced. When these people are shown a way to produce these things more easily than they may produce cotton, and a good market where they may sell them at a profit, and learn that they make more by doing these things than by planting all cotton, they will cut the acreage and look to other things. They may be encouraged to grow hay, 09 clovers, or other crops by receiving proper assistance and by being shown that 'these crops will VULCA HAVE your tires are ruined. 1 \ time often doubles th no risk. All work g J.W. MARTIN, I ' SHOES.... 'quick disposal about fifi 3h we are offering a t from 3 to 5 1-2?and tl >0 Shoes, at ,......$5,9! )0 Sh6es. at 2.91 ? - / >0 Shoes, at 2.7! >0 Shoes, at 2.3! )0 Shoes, at . 1.9! >0 Shoes, at 1.61 25 Shoes, at 1.5! )0 Shoes, at 2.5< VOILES : ( ? some big values in R I Outings. ? AD Y-TO- WE AR AND HALF PRICE. lNDERSGP At bring in good returns to those who produce them. The people may be induced to cufc the acreage in cotton, when it is totheir interest to do so, but it is not to their interest as long as they areasked to throw away their labor on half crops, with half fertilizers, and with nothing promised or assured in the place of the crops they have been planting. The farmers of this county, of this state, and of the South are willing to be shown, but they will not be forced into anything. The country will not live half free and half slave. AMERICANS IN BERLIN. London, Feb. 21?American troops have arrived in Berlin and been quartered in different hotels, says a I dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph and Copenhagen quoting The Extra Bladet's Berlin correspondent. The troops are said to belong to the "One Hundred and Thirteenth New York Regiment," and their duty will' be the protection of expected transports of food. Washington, Feb. 21.?War department officials tonight were unable to. identify the American troops ^ reported in Copenhagen dispatches via London have arrived in Ber lin. The designation of the troops as the "One Hundred a^d Thirteenth New York Regiment" puzzled officials as there is no such unit of New York troops in the army. t. B,?T . , i NIZING I repaired before they \ casing repaired in e mileage. You take uaranteed. at City Garage. / f fig (8 ty pairs of Ladies' jig remarkably low S9 le low cost to you? || H Ml 5 1m * . ! ? it * ' * * > , 5 9 I ??L??? JINGHAMS emnants of Silks, i MILLINERY AT iS iT "111 1 \AJ. || ?bevil!e, S. C. Ijfj