The Abbeville press and banner. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, February 06, 1920, Image 4
' ' The Press and Banner
W '
ABBEVILLE, S. C.
?
The Press and Banner Company
PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY
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Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
b
> Telephone No. 10.
Entered as second-class mail matter at post office
I. ' . -
in Abbeville, S. C.
\ Ternis of Subscription:
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One year $2.00
&.'/ ' Six months 1 1.00
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Tnree months .50
FRIDAY,. FEBRUARY 6, 1920.
WONDERS WROUGHT BY 40-CENT COTTON.
1;
& ? Under the above caption there appeared in The
Times, Now York, Sunday, the article quoted below.
** ?1 T -- - ? Cnnth Carolina.
written oy coya L?e, a name w
We give the article in full as we believe that Mr.
Lee has told of his trip back home and the "testimony
thereof" just as it would appear to the average
New Yorker, who had seen the South in the
days of L. C. L. and 7-cent cotton, and who had
made another visit this winter: y
"I have just returned from a trip into the South,
home of 40-<5ent cotton, and the wonders I saw
gr;'. there lie heavy upon me; so heavy, indeed, that, like.
I Marco Polo and other travelers into strange lands,
E:.I am moved to give testimony thereof.
"Not that my Journey was into new country. I
was born and reared down, there, like thousands of
others now dwelling in the larger cities, but the
complacency of metropolitan life had warped my
opinion of the "provinces" until I was not prepared
for the tremendous strides which a rich agricultural
section can make under the impetus of good crops
and fair prices. Whereas the rising cost of living
is the chief outward and visible sign in the cities
of the new era caused by the war, everythng touching
ones daily life in the Southeast has been mold'
J ed into fresh shape. Tne effect necessarily is startling.
'"My eyes were opened when I went up to the
? "square" the first Saturday of my visit to my
South Carolina home town, and was nearly run
down by fourteen different negro families in fourteen
automobiles. The combination was new to me.
And those machines were not all "flivvers" by any
means.
"What, the devil," thought I, remembering the
1 1 - r ji j _ i ?
! muies unu v? ttgyn ui my cmiuiiuuu, ? tuupic <j-i
.splint^bottom chairs in each for the women members
of the family, perhaps a gayly hued quilt over
their laps in cold weather. These shiny automobiles
and plush robes were as novel as jinrikshas would
have been. I went over to talk to a merchandising
| frierid about it.
jfoV* " They've got ail the money in the world,' " he
said when he paused in his toil of selling silk'shirts,
$12 shoes, and other fine raiment to people who
were wearing overalls and brogans when I had departed
thence eotne yefirs ago. I don't think he
was talking in fcrpeifeole.
"Yes, Sir, trade is better than ever before," he
continued. "We a^e selling fine goods and the
end is not yet. That suit of clothes, retailing for
$60," he pointed to a window display, "is the
game quality as the line we have bought for Spring
to retail at $80."
"And you expect to sell that stuff?" I exclaimed.
The same store had sold me quite a decent suit
when I was in college for $13.50.
"All we can get," he replied. "Go ask the banks."
i- I took his advice. Or rather I went to a bank.
1 I couldn't gelt close enough to my old friend, the
rV President, to haVe any converse. The lobby was too
crowded with prosperous farmers and equally prosperous
negroes, all of them stowing away money.
The ebony-hued customer at the grille tossed in two
cotton sale checks for a total of $600. I was convinced
without any talk. The Mayor later told me
that the half dozen banks of the town had more
than $11,000,000 deposits.
I stopped many persons on the street.
"You seem to ? we lots of money down here," I
always said, suggestively.
"Doin' pretty well," was the usual reply. "Crops
have been good and prices are good. Everybody is
getting a share, but, of course, the farm people are
getting most of the clear money. They raise everything
they need, and each $200 bale of cotton is
practically velvet."
Up and down every street radiating from the
square the automobiles were parked in solid rows,
ieach representing a family with unprecede
purchasing power. On every vacant corner was
. springing up the ubiquitous filling station, which
with the garage seemed to be putting the old-fashionedi
livery barns out of business. Building was
, evident wherever laborers could be found to do the
work, the scarcity of men sending wages to a
minimum of $35 a week. Motion picture theatres?
for colored as well as white?were doing well. It
was significant that they drew their patronage'during
the week from the county as well as the town.
The automobiles were ^sponsible for that. Farm
dwellers who could afford onlv one or two trim to
town each month behind the family horse or plow
mule, now "motor over" several times a week to
form decisive opinions on the merits of the different
stars.
The general prosperity of the section i.s reflected
ed with existing equipment. Schools for girls esj
peciaily have experienced a great influx of nev/ * j ]
students.
I '
Cotton mills also have emerged from the lean j j
years into a period of great fatness, which they are j
| sharing with their employes. Mills that never paid
i a dividend for a decade have raised wages and are
tiistriuting profits to stockholders. Some have been
j so prosperous, in fact, that like other corporations j
they are cutting down their excess taxes by ex- |
pending great sums in concrete roads and sidewalks, j
until the mill villages, which formerly were dreary
wastes of mud in Winter and dust in Summer, now i
look like fine new suburban additions. Fortunes
have been made by the foresighted in cotton mill L
shocks, bought at 25 cents on the dollar and sold 1
i well above par.
Agitation by the negroes for "social equalitv,''
sporadic in scattered communities under the foster- ;
! ing care of newcomers or ne'er do-wells inspired by
| - imported literature, has not pasted long. Equality
j of opportunity, as reflected in their dealings with
j the banks, has more than offset any false social
I doctrines and kept the minds of the colored citij
zenry on their legitimate business. The real has
vanquished the dream, the pride of achievement
has secured artificial unrest. Florence, who cooked
my breakfasts when I was in grammar school, has
no thought of Bolshevism while her farm is producing
ample potatoes, peas, corn, and chickens for
her own use, and seven bales of cotton to provide
her pin money. Many negroes will clear $3,000.
! "* All of which is one disadvantage of prosperity
I from the tovyn dweller's point of view. The wagons
no longer come to town laden with chickens,
eggs, butter, turnip greens, and pumpkins. Small
i change obtained in the past by the sale of such
! minor nroducts now comes from King Cotton; an
j impecunious sovereign grown suddenly of vast
I wealth. Town people search pleadingly for food
and pay unheard of prices without a murmur.
I saw the changes, and knew in my heart that the
days of old were gone. My regret was buried in
my satisfaction at the prosperity of my friends,
while I privately debated whether I should undertake
to become a farmer or join a labor union, instead
of laboring hopelessly and without profit at a i
newspaper typewriter in the city. One thing I saw,
however, which seemed to say that something remained
to remind of the past. It was a covered
I wagon, like the old prairie schooner, which had
come down from the mountains of the Blue Ridge
j with the sweetest apples in the world. I saved my
I pennies when a lad to buy chestnuts from such wagons,
and once, when, I objected that some of the
nuts seemed to have holes, the canny mountaineer
soothed my fears?and made a sale?by saying
there h?\d been a lot of nails under the trees, and j
undoubtedly some- of the nuts had fallen on them.
Now in the midst of all the changes I spied at a
cross street, the canvas top of a schooner. Surely,
here was something with which I <tould establish
. contact.
"Yes, Sir, we used to get 20 cents a peck for
apples, but we get 75 now," the mountaineer was
saying, "We are 150 miles from home, and gasoline,
you know?"
I passed, sadly on. As I crossed the street I saw
the snub nose of a popular-priced automobile sticking
out in front of the bowed schooner top.."
V THE OPINION OF OTHERS. V
I- . J
THE NOBEL AWARD SCANDAL.
The Nobel Prize Commission has given an award
to a (German chemist, Herr Haber, who was one
j of the developers of poison gas for use in military
operations. Paris dispatches say that this action
will be protested by the chemical societies of the j
j Entente nations. It certainly ought to 'be.
Germany was the first belligerent to employ poi- i
i son gas. It is safe to say that no Allied government
would have thought of adding this new ter
j ror to wariare. it was barred by the Hague con- ; I
ventions regulating the usages of war. It was a
barbarous innovation, representing a return to the
savagery which the belligerents of the eighteenth
| and nineteenth centuries had put behind them. |
It is an offense to the humanitarian spirit to hon- |
j or a man who helped to introduce this illicit weapon?tried
first, with horrifying effects, at the secI
ond battle of Ypres. The Nobel Prize Fund was esI
tablished to encourage humane intellectual effort
and to promote progress in the civilizing arts and
j sciences. It is being misused when it rewards a
1 scientist, whatever his work in other branches of
t his profession, who has aided in spreading death f
and has contributed to the perfection of a weapon
j outlawed by international contracts.
If the Nobel* Fund directors can give Herr Haber : j
a prize for distinguished scientific achievements,
they may next be honoring Herr Rosenberger, the j |
German artillery engineer, who had the largest
i .
share in the construction of the "Big Berthas" j f
which bombarded Paris from a distance of fifty I I
miles nr mnro onr) m+Vi*? ?
?>w. v M?iw MiMuuwvivU 1/11C V?VlOiII^p?;iO 111 a j :
' Paris church on Good Friday, 1918. Rosenberger's
claim is as good as Haber's?perhaps better. For
his secret is still a secret, while Haber's has been
mastered by a.. world and has set all the armed j \
nations to manufacturing poison gas as one of the | !
requisites of the wars of the future.
The decision of the Nobel Board is a scandal of * I I
world-wide proportions. The protest against it
ought to be universal.?New York Tribune. ' ?
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