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THE NEIGHBORS WE NEED.
The wisest statesmen of the south
since the Civil war have felt that for
eign immigration would not be help
ful to this section during a generation
long effort of our people to read
just their civilization and industries
to the new order following the war.
The chiefest problem that confront
ed the southern men of 1865 was the
negro problem —the first evil effects
of negro emancipation of government
paternalism and providence for the
freedmen, and the struggle to steer
the channel between the rocks of po
litical negro domination on the one
side and the negro free-labor prob
lem on the other side.
Amid such circumstances the south
ern leaders believed it extremely un
wise to import into our states any con
siderable numbers of people who would
be strangers to our future policies and
friendly to the extremest ideas of ra
cial and political equalities.
It is very questionable with many
who have lived through the half cen
tury past whether we have yet come
to the place where we can safely go
out to seek and translate into our
southern communities those foreign
ers especially to whom our history is
strange, our laws and language are
mysteries, and our customs restrict
ive and burdensome.
The negro problem still oppresses
and the presence of a large element
of foreigners to whom Saxon-African
antagonisms are unknown and too of
ten unappreciated will tend to compli
cate our wisest and final solution of
the so-called Afro-American race is
sue.
It is not yet ascertained that we
want to grow more cotton than we can
now produce, or that foreign immi
grants could cause such production on
profitable terms.
Our factories may need skilled
and cheap labor, but whatever factory
operatives are found coming to Amer
ica are coming from cheap labor and
hunting the high wages of the factories
east and west.
We may imagine we need more pop
ulation, and perhaps we do, but can
we not get our share still, as we have
been doing for years, from the moving
Americans who are leaving high-priced
lands and cruel climatic conditions to
find cheaper lands and more comforta
ble living in the south and southwest?
We gained 200,000 such interstate im
migrant to the south in 1906. The
same efforts we are asked to put forth
in Europe would, if expended north
of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, bring
into the south a million good, help
ful American fellow-citizens every
year. Let us go north for neighbors—
not to Norway, Russia and Italy.
s. w. s.
TO EXTEND AMERICA’S COTTON
TRADE.
On Tuesday of this week the Nation
al Association of Cotton Manufactur
ers, the Southern Cotton Association,
the American Cotton Manufacturers’
Association and the Farmers’ Union
agreed to hold an international confer
ence of cotton growers, manufacturers
and dealers at Atlanta, Ga., on Octo
ber 7, 8 and 9.
Invitations are to be extended to
many American and foreign associa
tions.
The growing movement to extend
America’s cotton goods trade abroad is
made necessary by this country’s virtu
al fiasco as an exporter of cotton man
ufactures.
The only market worth considering
in our national totals has been the Chi
nese Empire. Our export trade with
Europe is too insignificant to enum
erate. Switzerland alone, which raises
WATSON’S WELkMR ILL FERSONIAN
THE UPLIFTER
Vy SAM W. SMALL
Once only in a cycle do we see,
(So runs the rede) the slow acacia bloom,
Then regal in the air it spreads its plume
And holds our eyes in wond’ring ecstasy.
Once in a hundred years all things agree
To pedestal some regnant leader whom
The world acclaims, and gives him ample room
To work redemptions for Humanity.
Yet seemeth now that in these latter times
A cycle’s but a generation long.
Invention speeds Time’s wheels events
move swift,
And from the ruck of tyrannies and crimes
God seeks and finds a Son, inspir’d and strong,
To draw his age with Christ-like upward
lift!
no cotton and mines no coal to oper
ate its mills, and which, moreover, has
not an inch of sea frontage or a sin
gle ship, exports more cotton goods
to the United States than we sell to
all of the nations of Europe combined.
And now America’s cotton trade with
China is threatened. In 1906 the val
ue of cotton cloths sold to that nation
was $16,704,000. In 1905 their value
was $33,514,000.
Our exports, however, of raw cotton
continue to increase. Last year they
amounted to no less than $413,000,000.
In the year before the value of this
raw product shipped abroad was $392,-
000,000.
RURAL DELIVERY ENDANGERED.
(The Cedartown Standard.)
Do our country people really ap
preciate the value of the rural free
delivery service?
Many of them do, w’e know, and
consider it one of the greatest conven
iences ever placed within their reach.
We are only sorry that every resident
of the rural regions does not feel the
same.
The government has instituted this
great service at tremendous expense,
and is more than willing to maintain
it wherever appreciated. When there
is any considerable proportion of the
people along any route who do not
appreciate it, the service Is being dis
continued. Two routes in Fulton coun
ty have been cut out recently for this
reason, and it behooves our country
people to do all in their power to see
that every one in reach of a route
becomes a patron. Instead of paying
45 to 75 cents rent quarterly for a box,
as people in town have to do, a ru
ral route patron has only to buy a
box at a cost of about $1 and that is
all there is to it. Certainly this re
quirement is reasonable enough, and
the price low enough to be within the
reach of all. Everybody within reach
of a rural route should patronize it
and do all In their power to build it
up. It Is the one specially good thing
the government has done for the farm
ers, and we hope to see the service
extended more and more every year.
CENTER SHOT AT MAIL ORDERS.
(The Dublin Times.)
Out in Texas there is a sturdy lit
tle evangelist, respected and beloved
all over the state, whose name is Abe
Mulkey. He is full of sure enough re
ligion and horse sense, and the peo
ple listen to him with the faith and
confidence born of long experience and
full knowledge of the man. He talks
of other things besides religion. He
hits an evil of any kind wherever he
sees it, and a Texas exchange shows
him in the following characteristic at
tack on the “mail order" l usiness:
“The mail order house is the quack
doctor of commerce. It promises much
and guarantees nothing. Like some
patent medicines, the directions are
on the inside and you have to buy
a non-returnable package before you
can find out what they are. No mail
order house ever helped to build the
little white school house in your dis
trict, or turnpike the road past your
door.
“No mail order house ever took you
by the hand when you were in dis
tress and told you to let that little ac
count go until after harvest the next
year. No mall order house ever re
joiced with you or your neighbors
when you were glad, nor spoke encour
aging words to you in affliction, nor
stood with uncovered head beside the
grave when your loved ones died.
“No mall order house ever sold you
an article and then spent every cent
of Its profit in the community where
you and your neighbors could get it
back again.
"Stand by your local dealer as he
stands by you, with his time, skill and
money. He helps build up your com
munity and he makes it a better place
for both to live in. His success de
pends on your prosperity. He swears
by the goods branded with the trade
mark of the most skilled manufactur
ers on earth which are none too good
for that major-general of Industry, the
gentleman farmer.’’ —Exchange.
WILL NOT DISBAND.
The United Confederate Veteran#
Society of Kentucky decided not to
disband.
FARMERS AND THE PARHWW
If the government of the average
county, or of any state, or of the na
tion, is not conducted with due regard
for the interests of the farmer# and
other field and forest producers of the
nation, the blame must rest upon the
complainants.
There is not a county government,
other than counties controlled by large
cities, in which the personal character
and policies of the authorities cannot
be determined in the district meetings
of the few scores, or few hundreds,
of voters who reside in such districts.
Ou well defined issues that make for
good or bad government the people
can there act directly and with fair
assurance that the majority will side
with the good rather than the evil men
and measures. Hence the fulcrum
of every good citizen’s power is in his
home caucus, or town meeting. Right
action starting there will gather im
petus and finally reach its highest
goal.
Politics produce many special prop
agandists and parasites whose busi
ness it is to “control the farmer vote,"
or failing that, to keep it from the
caucus and the polls.
Yet there is no greater fool under
the folds of the American flag than
the farmer who listens seriously to
these seducers and who absents him
self from the time and place where
his real interests are to be preserved—•
or perverted. He is like a man who
goes fishing while his standing crop
is being destroyed by vagrant cattle.
No man who is wise in this genera
tion will consent to “trust the party"
to care for his welfare. Now more
than ever the eternal vigilance of the
individual citizen is the price of his
freedom, his property and his pros
perity. Most of the politics and party
ism of today is gross commerce in
special legislation to allow the rich
and powerful to oppress and rob the
masses.
Every so-called business on the con
tinent that “scalps" its trade and prof
its from the producers and consum
ers is in politics, but they have no pol
itics. Their convictions are commer
cial and not patriotic. Each of them
favors the party and the policy that
favors its schemes of exploitation and
plunder of the common people. Banks,
railroads, factories, foundries, trusts,
monopolies of every character, are not
Democratic and are not Republican.
They are either for the one party or
the other as their own schemes deter
mine them.
It is that party which outbids the
other with favoritisms for capital,
trusts and plunderbunds that gets their
support and their campaign aid to
success.
The farmers of the nation need a
great awakening to the truth that nei
ther party is their friend and guar
dian, but that by a solid union of their
forces they can, if they will, make both
parties their competing suppliants
and servants. S. W. S.
FORCED INTO THE OPEN.
(Baltimore Sun.)
The discharged stenographer of Mr.
Harriman, in selling the Webster let
ter to a newspaper, probably had only
a faint idea of the suproar he was to
occasion. One of the first results of
the publication seems to be the forc
ing of Mr. Roosevelt into the open as
a candidate for renomination. Few
people have doubted that the effort of
the administration to secure a conven
tion which would nominate a "Roose
velt man" for the presidency could, If
successful, have but one result —the
nomination of Mr. Roosevelt himself.
He is the only Roosevelt man upon
whom Mr. Roosevelt could place com
plete reliance to carry out his policy.