Newspapers / The Monroe Journal (Monroe, … / Feb. 20, 1912, edition 1 / Page 4
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THE MONROE JOURNAL Founded la UM by the preaent wceis and publishers, U. li. and R. tr Berkley. SMMi M-r jter. The Journal liuliding, comer Jefferson, and Beaaley Streets. THE III M.KK FtK THK IUU'. got the Und. ' free. Banana. ihich a easy and piaapples, j am 4 and A tirtiiilur Atxi uul t.f the VtUI 1 uth thine sprout up like luusb- i:t(ts i;f I'w jn-Oiir.' . roums. Ibis is the country wnere NimuW t. tinw ttx-ai (i-n ' th- Creator issues rations, keeps no iU ilu I roe Tl .-m--J r Kr.iui J bjok. and leaves no Incentive for Telephone No. 19. TuesJay, February 2(1, 1912. !iKirily in Kurt line. hivu the mt thoughtless ran see that jh.Tv1 at'.'st be something wror.,; i:t this country hen such condUijus a are described below are in e::i.:. u.-e. This article, tak en from a Washington correspond ence. is sot pul'ILhod for the pur pose f arousi 1.4 prejuuL-e, as many persons no doubt honestly believe; but for the purpose ot iliustr.it inj too inequality that u forced upon the country by the policy of protec tion atul privii 'k fjs'.cred by Re publican poiici.s. It ought to be the work ef statesmanship to call a hah before it is too ! ite, to so maU the laws of the country that the tenden cy to great wealth cn the part of the tew and utter poverty oa the part of the many should be ch-.cUed. The LepublU.m program utterly Ig llores this tendency that is making .Americuu conditions similar to those of the old count: ies frotu which the people flee to this land. Taj Re- puDiicau idea cr running the gov ernment for th benefit of the priv ileged few CiUi.t ba overthrown in this country ty the increased edu cation and Lite!li:;ence of the mas' ees. No reforms ever start at the top, and the piu-ss-.-s, the average man, can transmit the euuall:y of opportunity to his children by fight ing for It himself only. These great wrongs are not necessarily preined- ltiod on the part of those who benefit by them, most of the benefi aries no doubt honestly believing thai nuch ihinjta are right and proper. This is the seriousness of tho situation, that the party whose policies made tho:;1. more aggrava ted, utterly ft!U to admit that they exist. The article follows: While 30,000 men, women and children mill workers at Lawrence, Mass.. were out of work because of a strike to pivveut a cut la their t, $7 ;nd ii a wc.-k w.tg-.s, .'irs. Kvelyu Walsh McLean, mother of the baby thai is heir to Iuimmjii, tiuO, gavo 11 $.;",ti- dbiu-r to 5tj fiuests at .'a:..iig;oti, the nation's capitol. The hostess :?t thlj batijuet wore diamonds that ;.vu:.Uy cost more than halt h la.lil on dollars. In her Lair was H-ii!:s. it tho "faiur.us" Ho;u ;i.t;no:iii, ..i'.vii cos; 1 tn,"ti, end at her ii::o.ti ano.h.r w.u-ly celebrated m, "Mar of ihe Kast," which w; a cwa larger than the Hope tl i;' sis -11 The 1 1 :.t per 1 dinner was 7i-,' expense wt-s J.iii ported Trjii alt'. each. One of th LUu.'st paid mil: work ers would have to work M years to receive the rust o that b:.;iiuet. The eaimin '; i a doz n Lawrence workers fur bah' a eeu ury vuuld not have purha: d the gems worn by Mrs. McLean. A Lawrence work r Would have to labor years to pay for the yellow lilies alone. The strike cf th? men, women an childn n at l.er'!ic, and the $'') a plate dinner hi Wash ing ion, is a Btrikiu,,' example of conditions ex isting under a sysiem of excessive protection in the year of our Lord 1912. Neither the Lawrence strike nor th McLean (Sinner are exceptions. They are but samples of iiwr.y similar illustrations which could be cited If Bp ice permitted. Only recently, Wm. M. Wood, the head of the woolen trust, whose empbyoj arj now on strike at Law rence, vns r. rivaled for knocking down and running over a pedestri an with his aut'imobile. When ar raigned la court he was asked how many automobiles ho owned, and he replied be didn't know. Imagine a Ban so rich he doesn't know how many autos he has on hand! Fortunes which make it possible for or.e woman to wear a half a million dollars' worth of diamonds at one time, and which enable a man to possess so many automobiles he cannot keep track of them, nec essarily come through tho power to place a price on the things which the common people must have in order to live. It is significant. In this connec tion, that the tnrlff, the cost of liv ing, 700 a plate dinners every thing but the workiiigman's WHges have increased hand in hand, reveal ing tho intimate relationship of one to the other. ia'.e at ta Me Lean . t);i Loai in the 1 ;.ellov i.IUs im a;l at a Cost ef $2 Ilk IfctintBii u of the Stu(!u The TrUoa is sailing every ; his cork helLiel disappears over the rim of every heruon; with portable o.nh-iua he mv.i.ie every juUj.pL Through savage lands runs that per- of sisieiu tntl. worn by the fevt of) empire-builders who are not inakiui: tracks for fun. They are hungry for the ra. raw, cotton, to feed the ravenous nulls of 1-at'cuhiro. Here is the situation as Lancash ire Mvi ii: Tae mills of Lancashire employ half a million operatives, and cjtton spinning, next to agricul ture, constitutes the chief Industry of Ureal Hrituin. This business has now iH-cotue Insecure, for Hrltish tin. Is depend almost entirely upon American fields. Years before the American Civil War the Lama.-ture spinners jogg od along iu the secitrtst rut, with a Chinese wall on either side. They used a raw material, nut one ource of which could be produced at home. Lancashire would no more seem to be the logical point to man ufacture cotton gin-ds than Khartum is the logical point to manufacture sealsklu sacks. Cut in the.se days the cotton crop was ample to meet all demands, and Lancashire bought cotton at its own figure. .Mills ran at full speed, wheels whirred cease lessly, aad a steady Jingi" of guin eas coninced Lancashire that its in dustry was founded on a rock The first rude shock cam In the shape of hostilities in America, when a blockade stiod between the coron ports and the door of llri'.'sh mills This cut off three-uarters of the world's cation supply, threw 230,000 operatives In Lancashire out of work, with ltio.OOO others only par tially employed. At that time Lan cashire mills needed approximately two and three quarter million bales of American cotton, and could not get I;. In the later years of the Civil War.cotton in X-w York averaged a dollar per pcund. Lancashire wants C11KAI" cotton. For twenty years after that war the average price of cotton hold itself above ten cents. fell so low that a multitude of new- uses was Invented to take up the s:x cents commodity. Xew mills sprang up and cotton fields were extended; and this brings us to the period in which the supply of cotton and the lemand began seesawing upward one against the other. Of course the American fields can be extended, but the spinner sees this extension being largely swallow ed up by increasing facilities for manufacturing at home. The spin ner also fiuures, erroneously, that these ravenous new spindles in the .Southern Sta'es of America are apt to curtail the raising of cotton, by luring labor of the fields and setting it in the mills. So the spinner must take a more comprehensive view of creation. An idea occurred to Mm: t'jtton must be grown within the tnipire, planted beneath the I'liI'Mi Jack, guarded by the far-flung bat- tle-hne. rind freighted home In Urit Ish bottom.'. This was :i large job, for which the spinner s'raliilmwiy 01 ganlzod. He set in operation the "Ur'tish C.ittOii Crowing A us ci:i- f Ion" born May, lito:', at Man- loeer. The field -,(iis broad. Ac rd.tn; to reperts !rom experts, he aw tho cotton zone girdling the ro te.nd e.ir.h, from forty degrees no.-th to forty degrees seuih everything between the colar button atid the kiue. Thy tried many spots and many or.. nrles with little or no success. then: I'gnnda Is exactly the mid- ;le of the Inkiest spot in the dark est sec ion of Darkest Africa. Cam ran can be l.mded in tho daylight. Ur Samuel ilaktr branded it as an inlfrnal hell and an external nui sance, which formed the Hrltish pretext for annexation, and nobody was dispos' d to grumble. Years niro some Arab trndi rs had Introduced the cotton seed, but It grew kind o' cirelis:., just ns the negroes did '!ore kinks than cotton. After giv ing these black folk a few hypoderm ics of hustle, the optimistic experts reported that "natives of Uganda in . Utnate dissipation. their Intense eagerness and energy have to be restrained." They tit up nil ntttht waiting for It to get light enough to hoe some mor cotton. These exhuberant darkies worked themselves into such a fidget of hysteria that they col the'r seed bus iness in a Jam: and this put a hoo- In llroun Creek. Wadesboro Messier. Sir. Sid Gaddy of Iinesbaro township, while on his way home Ironi adesboro Friday had a nar row escape while crossing Brown creek. Tho creek was very high and was running around the bridge. Just as Mr. Oaridy drove off of the bridge his mules either mired up or fell off the embankment and it wag with the greatest difficulty and dag ger he saved them, lie jumped into the icy cold water and finally suc ceeded in cutting the mules loose from the wagon and getting them back to land. It is a question for us not of founding a new party, but in the preservation of the Ideals ot the old party. a negro to work. Taiugs grow just as fast while he is sitting down, aud there s no sense ia fusing with them. The British theeri.it brought with hk'i the American farmer, who had cut his ey elect h on six-cent cotton and free negroes in the Mississippi IH-l.a. lighting high water and mos quitoes. They formed a three cornered partnership with the native head man. This man is IT In Nigeria. He bosses the plain negroes; they Jump when he nods, or they get strapped. The plain negro can't run away, be cause the next tribe will eat him alive. Kvery fellow is branded with a tribal m irk and there Is no mis taking a runaway. Strangers of this stripe are thankfully received In I Africa as meals sent in by the neighbors which makes an embar rassing situation for a colored gen tleman who Is conscientiously op posed to sweat. As a matter of fact, public policy prevents a ne gro man owr thirty from working. In his youth he has gathered a pint or so of palm-oil and bought his first wife. This lays the firm foun dation of his fortune. He superin tends her toil while she buys him a second wife. These two wives club In and purchase a third for hubby's Christmas gift. After which the ac quisition of helpmetes ruus merrily as a marriage bell. As for the head man, he has per haps twenty wives. He is not a Uni fied corporation. He files his wives away In a long, low, mud-built house which has a thatched roof and twenty-one stalls. Pessimists might consider this a precarious chance for conjugal felicity. Pessimists do not know everything. These black women live together In peace, twenty of them helping with each other's tasks and nursing each oth er's babies. The cooperative com munity runs like a clock. There's no Jangling and jowling. If a frac tional wife of his bosom develops Incompatibility, the husband sells, her. There's no rambling to Reno, no woodcuts In the newspapers, no public scandal, no , alimony. They lead the simple life" in Nigeria Through dim and misty centuries, i these Nigerian negroes had raised a little cotton coarse, kinky-stapled 1 stuff, guaranteed to choke any mill j in Lancashire. This cotton former- j ly constituted an Important article of barter with savage tribes of the Interior. West Coast darkies plant ed it in hill or sowed It broadcast, with no attempt at cultivation. The women made a rough contrivance by which they spun coarse thread, 1 weaving their cloth and dyeing it1 in fantastic colors. The domestic I wardrobe was not extensive; a piece 1 of cloth the idze of a Columbian poatage Etamp would array tho fam-j ily. I Ibis was the situation for Hrltish theorist and American practitioner: they had plenty of soil and no end of climate, but they needed labor. For labor they Jolli -d the king and tipped th? head men, never fool ing nway time with common ne groes. The king detailed so many head men, each with his gang, his Majesty receiving a tin medal and battered plug hat In recognition of royal favors. This landed the head man and his squad upon the em bryo plantation. To communicate with him an Interpreter always stoul at the white man's elbow. Mere was the tarteeb: Tho Am rican plant or speaks to the Inter preter; the Interpreter passes the word to the bead man; the head man bluffs the plain negroes, and the plain negroes work like fun - while he la looking. For this, the head man gets a shilling a day, and the common la borers sixpence. In plnnta;lon par lance, they "find themselves." The bead man provides the substantial.; by way of delicacies his boarders Genueinen, lay, And all the Rest of This Week We will Display IOO BOLT ENDS of the Garden City Tailoring Company's New Spring Styles Ity set-lug t!iee designs in IMt-Kmls you ran net a better idea of how a garment will look after iM-inji made up. To-day the Tallor-dresMt! man is the rule anil not the exception, anil we have put prices 011 these patterns that bring them down to the prices of ordinary custom-made gar ments. WATCH CI.OTHIXU .sTOIlK WIMHIWS Foil IHLT-K1 DISPI-W OF THK MOST .Molt. KKATK I'KICF.D TAII.OKlNti I.1XK IX 1USIXKSS. Price fron $11.30 to fcUUMt. Men's "PARRO" Trousuers. The spring question ran be nettled easy by taking a look through our Xew Spring Shipment of lMKUO T KOI SKHS. All patterns made with side buckles It-It strops, ami urei full x-g tow. thicks iux;k kkom to $1.50. TACK Knickerbocker A complete assortment of Hoys' Kn Ickerbockcr pant ran 1h found here in new serviceable goods, all made full, at 30c 75c., lKc. and 91.541. W. H. BELK & BRO. WHOLKSAI.E A XI) LLTAIL. MOXKOK, X. C. duoe a merchantable staple. But the imported long staples do not yield as generously an the native short cotton, and the hyde-bound Fast Indian prefers his own quanti ty to the foreigner's quality. About twenty-five hundred bales of long staple cotton are produced in the Scind dhitrict each year. Up to date that Is, from 1!03 to UHiy the Hrltish Cotton Crowing ! Association, by sc-nping around Ifrom Tasmania to Tlmbur.too, has succeeded in producing a total of ; eighty-three tnoiu-.ind bales. This is about one thirtieth of the fiber required by Lancashire each year. It is now- proposed to charter a more ! powerful company, with a capital of : tive millions sterling, to push this work on to practical success. Uy practical success, the spinner means the production of a fixed and dependable supply of cotton under the britlb flag sufficient to run may catch grub-worms, grasshoppers: every spindle In La lira hi re or at I and rabbits or live on bananas, Hie very least, to overwhelm the pineapples ; nd yams, which are lesa .Southern states so that Lancashire fati.tuing to overtake. Nobody mm- plains about the hi:th cos! or living, j Two cents per day covers board and; Icdglng, every Nigerian convenience. ind leaves a little surplus lor legi-j may once more dictate cotton prices for the world. F.verybody's Maga zine for February. A Trust That lOiisluvcw lis Labor. ! Sixty-five per cent of the workers " i In the United States Steel corpora- The Pritish scheme Is to educate !i;u'g plant at Pittsburg cam less these natives into growing of Im-jthan the uctual cost of subsistence proed cotton and to educate j u tho average family according to these natives Into the growing of lm calculations made before tho Stan proved cotton, and to educate them i,.y steel trust Investigating commit out of the notion of making clJth;t(. by Louis I). Draudela, tho "peo nt home. Lancashire can not raise )i, lawyer." doo on the wholo experiment. The cotton, but it can make cloth. The; -The average wage of 65 per cent experts had been planting all kinds natives are supposed to ahip cotton 0f the employees lu the steel plants or seed, keeping them strictly sepa-j where It will do the most good ; at Pittsburg," he sald,"ls 17', 4 cents raie. ami maaniK rec irti oi earn namely, Lancashire. l lien tneyian hour. The Associated Charities product. Hut the negroca went cm- must buy cloth, hardware, ctc.,'0f that city, by careful investlga zy, snatched handfulls of seed from w here their money will do the most tion, has figured It out that the anywhere they could get It, and j good namely Lancashire, Sheffield, COst of bare existence cf a family planted everything In a Jumble. This; (jreat Hritian. If left to themsel- 0; a husband and wife and three prouueeu a mtuiKrei io mau n uieirives, tney a rather raise monaey .children In I'lttsburg Is J768 a nuts. year. By working 12 hours a day, In all this, the jplnner sees a 1 365 days a year, this 65 per cent gleam of light, yet dolefully admits 0f the workers, at tho end of their that the enterprise will require ; year's labor, w ill have earned Just years or toil und the sinkings of ,$i.co less than this Bum. vast moneys. "These horrible conditions are The same experiments, with lesB-1 the result of the we of the great) er decrees of success, have been , nouer artd wealth of this trust to. which be-, pursued In Nntal and many other or ; prevent its employees from Joining I tho provinces Held reports organizations. The conditions of i read like an account of a novel op-' labor in tbii Industry is nothing1 icratlon In surgery; the surgeon's , less than slavery. In ten years. sklil and and all the scientific val- this trust, while working men under, ues pan out to a gnat s heel, opera-; these conditions, has taken from but s tho American people $65ti,u00,OOU ; in excess of a liberal profit on its r.Fiiorted breeds of dogs. Up rose the governor a governor that gov erns. "Hoid on. you nigger;,!" ho ordered. "Don't put another seed in the ground except what conies from my warehouse." Then a line of naked farmers marched up to the governor's warehouse and drew ra tions of "Black Rattier." came the ofi'irtal variety. Growing cotton In Uganda U a tedious Job; the natives Insist upon; planting by hand, and balk nt a plow. The Knglishnrin has to teach them to use these refinements of clv;tions are uniformly successful. illzation. Huge sums have been at the end "the patient died.' spent In fostering the Industry. In 1908 Uganda shipped back to Lan cashire a quarter of a million dol- One hundred years ago, the Brlt- I actual investment, and this enor- i mous profit has been used to grind n J'ii,h vi indinu annniioit lovpntv hit down its workers to their present lars 'worth, and promised a thotis- . . n,.htro-. mimn Thon : miserable condition." and tons for 1910. Whereupon the enthusiactlc spinners took brnndy and soda together, pledging Dark Uganda as the brightest spot In Lancashire's hope. India and Egypt can do nothing because the land must be devoted to food crops. West Africa produced two things happened: America en- Query for American people; Ssince tered the competition, and the West I they were protecting the steel In Indian sugar Industry developed. ! dustry with high tarif rates so that, Susiar became more profitable than! the workingmen In that Industry, cotton, and the people preferred to Aldrlch and Pemrose represented raise cane. Today the West Indies could have good wages aud deslra represent thirty thousand acres In hie working conditions, and since cotton, with an annual export, in tho steel trust has denied Us work-; seed and lint, to the value of a quar ers both good wages and decent working conditions, wny snouia tne i Q 900 h.ina in lano rwtulia tro tor a million sterlinir. But the di in i.fc.Hh. In A frinn rirt pntv nnnulatlon and limited areas steel trust be longer permitted to the association distributed Improved offer scarcely a drop to Lancahire's bucket. In other countries tne same story Is to be told British perseverance and Ingenu ity conducted experiments all Over India on their low grade cottons, hy bridizing indigenous varieties with American seed in the effort to pro- seed among the natives, opened up transportation, built oil mills, and paid the negroes a penny a pound for seed cotton as they brought it in. A little penny goes a long way in Africa. Then they experimented on a large scale. F lrst of all, they enjoy tariff rates which taxes ev ery family In th9 United States? On one side aro the advocates and the beneficiaries of special privi lege; on the other side are those, who stand for equality of opportun ity to all. 1 ? tew -x The First National Bank The Big Bank The Strong Bank The Liberal Bank Solicits YOUR DEPOSITS Because of Efficiency Because of Safety Because of Strength. WHEN YOU NEED US Command Our Resources. We Want Your Business. You Need Our Aid. Call for a Time Certificate AT: TH6 First National Bank It. A. MOIUtOW, President 1). A. HOUHTOX, Cashier W. H. nilKEIL Teller J. R. E(iI.I.SII, Vlce-I-rcsldcnt H. M. t LMKK, .Wt Cashier i. 1L COITLK, Hook-keeper
The Monroe Journal (Monroe, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 20, 1912, edition 1
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