Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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The%, are Good! Buy this Cigaret TOBACCO MARKETING Open Forum for Expres sions for or Against Co operative Marketing Editor, The Manning Times: In last week's issue of your paper you opened a department for discus sion of the Tobacco Growers Co operative Association, and while it is apparent to every one that The Times is tooth and nail against the Associa tion, I will take advantage of your implied invitation to publish some facts in regard to the tobacco market that may possibly be enlightening not only to the tobacco farmers of Clar endon but to the merchants and other business men of Manning as well. In the beginning permit me to say that it has been a matter of great surprise and profound regret to the older readers of The Times, who re member how ably and fearlessly its former editor and owner championed the cause of the farmer and of the Democratic party, to find the paper now arrayed against the farmers in their fight to better their condition, and only fifty per cent Democratic. 'The members of the Tobacco Grow ers Co-operative Association, in their campaign for new members, have re lied principally on the advantages to be gained by co-operative marketing and they have not stressed the evils which have grown up around the old warehouse system. These are many, but I will only call attention to a few of them, as this letter is written prin cipally to bring to the attention of our merchants and other business men the local situation at Manning. The cost of selling tobacco under the old warehouse system is excessive. Under this system, it costs the to bacco farmer about seventy-five cents tine wri One hbeautiful summer' dayl rily ahout, smnging wi th joy as if Soon an Aiit pasused thatd wa fort a la rge erumbn of bread he ha ".\My friend, wait a while,"' sa chat with me. What is the use< mnight he enjoying you rselft in thi "am storing up) fool for thu "'You had better be doing the samn ''Oh, I'll worry abhout wVinter foolish G rasshopper, ''there is an sent."' flu the Aniit (0ontinued or A tter a whlile winter ame nie soon( begani to suffer' the Ians ants lad accumulaitd grIea3it store'( share their stores with him, but I MAKE THIS Home Bank CHARLTON Dii T. M. WELLS, 4 cigarettes te and Save Money per 100 pounds for warehouse charges which is charged to him directly and deducted from the gross price. It costs him one dollar per hundred pounds for the man who buys his tobacco, but this charge is taken off in the price paid him and does not appear on the bill. These two items of cost alone in an average year will amount to about $14.00 per acre for every acre of tobacco planted. It is not unusual for a tobacco buyer even on a small market like this one, to make in commissions alone $3000.00 to $6000.00 clear during the six weeks the South Carolina markets are open. What they make in speculation no one knows. For this $14.00 per acre the tobacco farmer pays, he gets the privilege of placing his tobacco on a warehouse floor for the inspection of the buyers, and of listening to a near vaudeville performance put on for his benefit by the warehouse with the aid of the buyers and a high priced auctioneer. Only this and nothing more. The warehouseman does not hell) him any in getting a better price for his tobacco. He is a tobacco speculator himself and is dependent on these same buyers to buy his to bacco; therefore, he is anxious that they should be so weil pleased with their other purchases on his floor that they can well afford to pay him a good profit on his own purchases. I have been told, and I believe it is true, that in~ some instances, the warehouseman will even resort to the subterfuge of employing an outside buyer to buy for him on his own floor. This is done to keel) the farm er from knowing how much of his tobacco the warehouseman is selling to himself for speculation. How wide spread this practice is, I do not know. We on the outside know very little about the it ner workings of a tobacco market. These details are handled by their so-called "Boards of Trade" which hold secret meetings all during the marketing season and whose mem bership is strictly limited to ware housemen, regular buyers and pin hookers. These are just a few of tin' a, Grsshopper was hopping mier he had( not ai carec in the world. d, drgging along with great ef d found b~y the wayside. id the Grasshopper, "stop) and >f working all the time when you sun ? winter,"' repl ied the t hifty Ant. when it comes,"' laughed the abundl~ance of food here at pre I its way to the niest. md the thoughtless Grasshopper >f hunger. I Ie recalled that the of food and called upon them to hey would not listen. YOUR BANK '& Trust Co. RANT, President ~anatir. our grievances againsttheold system. I could probably fill several columns with specific instances of inefficiency, injustice and worse,. but ip is not necessary. The rejnainder of this letter is ad dressed particularly to the merchants and other business men of Manning. The situation here, gentlemen, is just this: The Tobacco Co-operative Association now has three hundred and sixty members in Clarendon County who wil. deliver to the Asso ciation this summer and fall more than two million pounds of tobacco which is about forty per cent, of the crop grown in the - County. This is smallest percentage of the crop that has been signed up in any county in the state except possibly in Horry county. We expect to -put on a cam paign for new members during the next sixty days which we believe will increase very largely the amount already signed up. So far, the work of getting ihembers has been done by 'the County Agent assisted by the to bacco growers themselves and three or four business men in Manning. As far as I have been able to' find out, not a merchant and only one banker has done any actual work for the as sociation. The association has not yet been able to secure any warehouse facili ties at Manning for handling the to bacco which they have under contract in Clarendon County, and two of our warehousemen are waging a relentless fight against it. In this fight, they are aided and backed by The Manning Times, which does most of the ware house printing in this state, and, I believe, enjoys the further distinction of being the only paper in the state that is fighting the association. The two other. important points in the state where the association has not yet secured warehouse facilities are Florence and Lake City. At Lake City the business men of the town have taken it .on themselves to pro vide the necessary facilities and have already been able to assure the asso ciation that they will get all the warehouse room they may need at that point. In Florence the business men have given the same assurance and only last week appointed twenty five committees to make a house to house canvass of Florence County for new members. Every warehouse at Kingstree has been turned over to the association and one-half of the houses at Timmonsville. In Williamsburg County, more than two-thirds of the tobacco has already been signed up by the association, but last week every bank in the town closed up for one (lay and all their officers and em ployees joined with merchants and other business men in a canvass of the County for additional members. Now, gentlemen, I know that the association would like to assemble most of the tobacco which they have under contract in this County at Manning, but they are not obliged to do so; and, in my opinion, they will not do so unless they get more help and co-operation from the business men of this town than they have got ten so far. About two-thirds of the tobacco grown in this County is sold outside the County anyway, so it will not be a very great hardship on these members to continue to haul to out side points. Olanta, Timmonsville, Lake City and Kingstree can very well take care of the tobacco in the Northern and Eastern sections of the County and there would. probably be no trouble in securing the warehouse at Summerton for that portion grown in the Western section. This would .leave a little tobacco in the immediate vicinity of Manning that would have to be assembled here, but this amount would be so small that it could be easily taken care of. This is one side of the picture. Let me call your attention to the other side. Manning is ond of the oldest tobacco markets in the State.' It is situated in the center of a county that grows about 5,000,000 pounds of tobacco annually. It has good roadls leading to all sections of the County, and yet, with all these natural ad vantages, and a fter more than twenty years of effort, the market sold last year oinly 1 ,527,877 pounds of tobacco, wvhich is less than one-thirdl of onr prIoduction. This market, for some reason, has never been popular wvith the tobacco growvers of the county and for the past few years its sales have been con fined almost entirely to to bamcco grown with in eight or ten miles of the town. Last year we lost a good part of th is nearby tobacco and it was actually huled through the town to other ma rkets. Not only that, but s pecula toris bought tobacco on our watrehouse floors and hauled it to Kingstree for re-sale. What is the reason for this? The farmers say that this is a poor1 mar ket and that they sell here only on ac'count of the greater dlistances they have to travel to get to other mar kets. Th e wareh ousemen contend that this is as good market as any of them, and that the reason they (10 not ge't more toh~acco) is because the busi ness men of the towvn (do not co operate with them andi hellp them to ge't tobacco here as they (do at other markets. I will give you some figures that I think will enable you to find out wvho is correct. I Our chief conmpetit iv~e markets for Clarendon County tobacco are King stree, Lake City and Timmionsvi lle. Itelow, you will find the average price per I (0 pounds paid for all to bacco, sold on each of these markets for the years 1920 and 1921: Ycar 1920 1921 Lake City--_-- ..$24.95 $13.28 TPimmnonsville ... .. 25.45 11.35 Kingstree-...-........22.21 9.33. Manning---...----19.11 7.52 These averages are made from the housemeni to the Departmeill of Agr- - culture at Columbia ahd ca~u be e imily verified by any one who :all take the troule to wi ite to '.'. Department for' the information. I, like other tobacco farmers, have coimplla ined to the wa rehiousemene about the low prices paidi oni this market, but I lhad no idea it was1 as bad as the above figures prove it to he. It is not reasonable to suppose that the tobmacco companlies plaid any more for tobacco on the Lake City market than it was worth, and that being the ease, those of us who p)at-I ronizied the Mie.ning market lost an. average of 95.7 r/ann 100 pounds on all ' the tobacco we sold here last year, on the 1,527,87' pounds that the market sold for farmers last. year, we lost, therefore $88005.71. They paid-'Us only $11 ,901.5. Now, frankly, Mr. Merchant and Business man of Manning, don't you think,It will pay you to line up with the association and the men who are trying to make - Manning a real to bacco market and at the sme time help the tobacco farmer to rid himself of this incubus he has been carrying for all these years. As an open mar ket, Manning is dead and the ware housemen have killed it. It has been run on hot air a good long time, but the bubble has been punctured; and when the tobacco farmers of this county find out how much they have lost by selling their tobacco here, it is not probable that they will ever patronize it again. If Manning ever amounts to anything again as a to bacco market, it will be as a co-opera tive market. Kingstree has seen tbe handwriting on the wall and they are not going to attempt to run an open market at all. If you care to take any action in this matter, those of us who have been working for the association will wel come your help. We are anxious to help the town as well as the tobacco planter; but it is a settled fact that we cannot do anything for the town in the face of the organized opposi tion of the local newspaper and the local warehousemen, unless you are willing to come in with us and put in some real work as- is being done elsewhere. And, by the way, what do you think of a marketing system for an important farm crop that permits a variation in price for the whole sea son of nearly six cents per pound in two markets less than forty miles apart. C. R. SPROTT, Manniiig, S. C., May 1st, 1922. The above far-fetched letter of C. R. Sprott injecting politics into btai ness. and accusing us of being against the farmer is absurd. We are running The Manning Times for the benefit of all classes, trying to give to the pub lic all information we can (regardless of what Mr. Sprott thinks). When the tobacco marketing association was being started we published all letters sent us by those interested, we' also printed matter coming from the other side, but not one time have we com mented editorially on. the situation. It has been a riatter of news on our part, giving our readers a chance to see both sides of the question. We are sure our farmer and business friends are not as .narrow as Mr. Sprott, but ai'ter getting all the information, they will then be able to judge for them selves. We have conducted our news paper for a great many years and have, we think been successful, and hope to continue in business, regard less of the boll weevil, whether our columns suit the appetite of Mr. Sprott or not. But he might bear this in mind, that we will always give to our readers all the enlightenment we can. We want the farmer to get all that is possible for his tobacco and other produce, and we hope the association will be a suce'ess, but who knows whether the association is bet ter than the old system until it is tried. We have our farmer friends at heart, and have always and will always (1o our uttermost to help them. For when we help them they help us; But to publish one side of a question only, it would do them an injustice. Therefore we have tried to be per fectly fair to all parties concerned, allowing them to judge for themselves the best way. And I think they are just as able and competent to do this as Mr. C. R. Sprott. I. I. APPELT, Editor The Manning Times. GROWERS APPOINT OFFICERS Perfecting of the Plains of the To b~aco Growers' Co-operative Associa tion to market the majority of the to bacco in South Carolina through the many Association Warehouses in this state resulted in the iapplointment of several new officials this wveek. According to announcement from leadlquarter's of the Association ati Raleigh, N. C.; W. E. Lea of Flor-! mece hats become Field Service Rep esentiative for South Carolina. Mr. 1 Lea's valuable work in the whirlwvind ~ampaign which resulted in gaining Sou th Carolina its mini mum sign-up n recordl time assures continued sue ~ess in the present effort of the As o~ciaation to attain a 75 per cent state! vide membership of South Carolina 1 ?irowers. Among the most important appoint nuents announced by Raleigh heaid 'uarters this week was that of W.< Wesley Singleterry, Manager of - CYPRESS , SASH~ DOORS BLINDS MOULDINGS AND MILL WORIC .F. ARE YOU ON THE LINE? If you are, "Lsten," and you wll hear many favorable comments about the Spring Suits' we are selling at $18.00 to $22.50 $21.00 to $25.00 Mohair, Palm Beach and two-piece Worsted Suits, in every desirable pattern, reasonably priced at $12.50 to $18.00. Men's Oxfords, in the Popular Lasts Priced to meet the size of your purse If you are fishing for values, try our bait satisfaction and service. The ODOul D1r 6ood Co. Sg SUMTER, S. C. Warehouses for Lake City. Other and have the grower represented." ippointments for South Carolina are As evidence of the willingness of F. F. Lane, Manager of warehouses la ,ge banking firms to back the Co for Bamberg, J. F. Bethea, manager >f the warehouse at Latta, W. K. Mc- operative Association for Markcting [ntosh, Warehouse Manager at King- tobacco Mr. Sands referred the North: ;tree and G. T. Reaves as Manager of Carolina bankers to Chas. N. Evans he Association warehouse at Con- representative of the Fifty-third Na vay. Mr. Reaves was formerly with !he. -Independent warehouse at South tin a of Ciinn ti wh n Boston, Va., but returns to aii his bank had made a ninety clay loan ield in South Carolina. of a half million dollars to the or Oliver J. Sands general manager of nte ;he Tobacco Growecrs' Co-operative adta hyhdpi tbc ih Association addressing the state con- i ot as iention of North Carolina Bankers ast week at Pinehurst, N. C. said "No vonder that no great economist, no ' tr'eat thinker, no great editor, no man levoted to the common wecal any *here, has been found who opplose he Co-operative principile." Mr. sandls said "The Co-operative Mar- ATRE ceting Associations lhave conme to mild and not destroy. They exist for he benefit of all the people and not or any particulair nungber." According to the official leader of '0,000 organ ized tobacco growers, vho is recognized as one of the south s' outstanading bankers "The >nking business wvould go to smash f the borrower always fixed the rate mdabteythtgv >f interest and the conditions under yo atngstsfcin w'hich money is loaned. The mer'- plnyopweadcr. hant could not long continue in busi- freevi.Thnecha less if the buyer alwvays fixed the yogtenxi. iriees. Exactly this happens with the ownadW drf armer. The growver and the producer ans been without a representative in umron .C he marketing of his producf,. The andyte rpse ocaneti have__thegrower__represented."_ 9 3.8As evidencel ofd the wilinges of - olarg e nking fis toffback tho ~g' * ~ superive bocat io for sh arkoebtig teoacco Mronds refrd he orth Coarinai blnges to hs N.oEvs repod resentative of the-hrNa rtena banofur ircinnai and con fhlbid the bcta It s eing ehat hCina bankhd mare apurey daygeoan ver. h arrailin dolrs the or-ach ghuaied Kenntuk Bule Grwers ath at they' hadupid itbakwih It em w a ond1o~ mobtery thtiess poi l;Met ou erand care frel s ervoine Then weiltha fmeoyo get an Ettle. * Ietusinf~dSummpterton to fee o w yterooeus toy chanigoige. this, wbnRet heumatici l ee 4 ismYr stre 6n0oaie.Te 9.6.6 dolt It IM bnl4 io fferg enstue forar eooibut