Watson's weekly Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1907, April 18, 1907, Image 7

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.