I
mas,
TOBACCO BECOMIHG JUST ANOTHER INDUSTRY; NO LONGER THE ROMANTICIZED WAY OF LIFE
By Jack Rider
“Tobacco' Road” has become
a part of the folk legend of Am
... H erica and although the brutaliz
ed caricature that Was -etched
so deeply into’ the Sou^era con
science by an assortment of its
poets in residence is now rapid
ly fading into the. industrialized
New South it is still not so. far
j away that most Southerners old
v enough to remember the voice
' of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
have forgotten it.
“Tobacco Road” was many
things to many people.
To some it was riches beyond
their simple understanding but
for many more it was unremit
ting drudgery and. poverty be
yond description.
“Tobacco Road” was a short
stretch of Americana that reach
ed to heaven above and to hell
below,
In its tender years ‘Tobacco
Road” was not the oppressive,
all-consuming tail that wagged
the entire economy of so large
a segment of the Southland. To
, bacco was' first a money crop,
used by “live-at-home” farmers
to supplement the ancient habits
v of life with a few luxuries and
assorted dissipations at auction
time. '
But then in the Terrible Thir
ties government involved itself
in tobacco, and most other en
deavors of the mortal taxpayer
and to help that “Pore Soul”
who erratically feasted and fam
ined in Tdbaccoland a “program”
was instituted.
And the program almost ov
ernight changed the gentle
farmer folk into a greedy soil
destroyer, whose total 365-day
to-the-year passion was to see
how many pounds of tobacco he
could persuade to grow on a
• ' ' measured acre of tobacco.
That was what the honest one’s
did.
The tlpeves in the trade brib
ed government measurers, hid
fields in wooded areas, stdle
from their neighbors, snatched
bundles off warehouse floors,
picked up loose tobacco from
the streets; in short, did any
thing and everything to get one
more pound of tobacco sdM un
der their marketing card.
And while the average farm
er became a tobacco hand, and
the below-average farmer be
came a professional thief there
were others preying on them.
Wherever the rich smell of
sudden money appears thieves
will come like flies to honey,
and they came to Tobacooland,
USA.
Every known kind of Flim
Flam artist ever conceived by
the wicked mind of man, and a
, few that were spawned in hell
itself arrived, seasonally to
fleece the briefly-rich tobacco
t hand, who lost his perspective
in September and largely re
mained bankrupt the rest of the
B-i
year.
There were rawnbony “Elmer
Gantrys” with their tents, their
dog-eared Bible, their piano
pounding hypnotist and the ever
ready collection buckets to ex
tract coins and occasional swea
ty Mils from the frightened poor
sold who was being told how
wicked he had been all the rest
of the year , and how close he
was to eternal hfell if he didn’t
get his soul right adth The Lotd
and put a little something in the
collection to protect the evang
elist from some fate such as
honorable work.
1 And there were long-legged,
bosomy wenches who’d left their
professional pursuits iround
-NMjf; bases and Army camps
long enough to “work toe tobac
^ J ^ In such worldwide
? And there were pale shifty
eyed men whose hand fitted
cards and dice better than a
plow handle or tobacco stick.
They came to bait their several
traps with the promise of even
greater wealth than that accent
ed by the auctioneer’s stutter
ing chant. But the bait was nev
er lost and many a dull-witted
tobacco hand spent a long win
ter and'late spring trying to
figure out the intricacies of stud
poker and rolling dice. Some did,
and! when they did they left
the tobacco patch and joined
the other parasites who sucked
their sustenance from the man
who cropped those nicotinish
weeds, climbed those hellishly
hot teir poles and grew red-eyed
and restless from night-long
tending tobacco bum furnaces.
And there were thieves on the
grand scale who moved into the
tobacco business itself. They
fattened and grew old on the
comfortable premise that it was
respectable and right to steal
just a little bit from eveibody
they did business with but not
to be so hoggish as to try to
break the poor goose who was
laying those golden weeds.
Apd so for that brief time be
tween the opening of the Flori
da-Georgia tobacco sales to the
Christmas-time closing in the
Belt a billion dollars was pump
ed briefly into the bands 61 those
who worshipped at the tobacco
shrine.
And as in every other bus
iness the wise grew rich, the
stupid became poorer, and they
all grew older together and
each inherited the same small
slice of surborban Teal estate;
oft-times called the grave.
But now in a different time
the choking poverty and the
cheating ohincanery seem to
vanish like Glen Gray’s famous
“Smoke Rings,” when it was le
gal to speak and sing kindly of
tobacco and the products it
spawned.
Today for those old enough
and sentimental enough it is the
happier moments that boil to
the surface of one’s memory.
Chicken stews around the to
bacco barn, roasting corn in the
shuck, a big barbecue when the
crop’s all in, watermelons cool
ed in a creek or deep In a dark
well pit, money jingling in bi)b
overall pockets, new bicycles to
ride the sand-rutted roads with
when selling time has come and
“Pa” has paid off his family
hands with tfhenr allotted tithe
of what was left when the time
merchant, the Mred hands, the
tax collector and mortgage hold
er had first collected their
pounds of that tired tobacco
flesSh.
Riding to town on a pile of
tobacco stacked high on a two
horse wagon, hearing the crunch
of the heavily loaded wheels on
the sandy roads and, as town
came nearer, the grinding roar
of steel on asphalt and cement.
And in town the musty smell
of cavernous warehouses, the
long rows of stables where farm
team waited on the sale of the
heavy load they had dragged to
town. The profanity and leather
and plug tobacco smell of livery
stables where “Pa” looked over
a new pair of mules with an in
difference that never fooled the
sharp-eyed horse trader, who
could tell with a certain instinct
just when a farmer had fallen
jn love With “the finest pair of
mules ever to come out of Miss
ouri.” *
And fair time. The sights,
sounds, smells and taste of the
diusty midway, the cool exhibit
halls, the stables where glossy
race horses pawed impatiently
and worldly outsiders snickered
openly at the parading “hicks.”
And now tobacco Is re
treating to that reasonable place
in the fram picture when it pro
vides a part still a major
part — of Tobaccoland’s living,
but not the totality it was in
the years between the end of
World War Two and the jungle
rot of .Vietnam.
Fanners unchained from that
relentless effort to Squeeze one'
more pound of tobacco frpm that
measured apre noW have accept
ed the poundage allocation con
cept and their energy and in
genuity are concentrated on less
glamorous but more stable ways
of making a living from the
good rich soil.
In some parts of Tobaccoland
.poultry now provides a year
round income, and in others it
is hogs, beef cattle, turkeys,
truck farming, soybean cultiva
tion, and just plain high-produc
tion corn farming.
Nobody except the strawberry
farmer, the grape farmer or the
trellis tomato cultivator has' yet
found |a crop that will gross as
many dollars per acre as tobac
co. And none has found a crop
that costs as much per acre in
dollars and in ulcers and in
sweat as tobacco.
Tobacco for much too long
hypnotized farmers into* forget
ting and in all too many instanc
es neglecting 85 per cent of their
land while they slaved over less
than ,15 per cent on which tobac
co was planted.
The modern more highly edu
cated young farmer understands
— although he may not like it
•— that farming is a highly spec
ialized business in which the
best use made of each acre un
der his stewardship and that it
is impractical and now impossi
ble to afford for himself and his
family a fair share of the things
this affluent society offers un
less he works throughout the
year rather than just for that
brief, terrible tobacco time.
Tobacco is still there and it’s
likely to be a major factor in
the farm economy of Tobacco
land USA for as far into the ar
ricultural future as the guess
ing eye can see, but now it is a
part and not all of the economy
for those who have the intelli
gence to survive in the fiercely
competitive and highly special
ized world of farming:
NUMBER 17 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1969 VOLUME XVII
Jones Arrests
Four arrests were made dur
ing the past week in Jones
County. They were: Ira P. Bul
lard of Lumberton for driving
while his license was revoked;
Augustus Willoughby of New
Bern for driving without an op
erators license; Willie Mundine
of Trenton for assault; and, Bil
ly Quick Of Maysvffle for as
sault on a female.
Maysville Girl's
Husband at ROTC
Training Camp
Robert B. Dulaney Jr. of 1372
Avondale Ave., Jacksonville, Fla.,
is participating in an Air Force
Reserve Officers Training Corps
(AFROTC) field training encamp
ment at Otis AFB, Mass.
His wife, Sandra, is tbe daugh
ter of Mrs. Kathleen Jenkins
of Marysville.
During the encampment, cad
ets 'become familiar with the life
and! activities on Air Force bas
es and, can examine career op
portunities in iwhich they might
wish to serve a£ officers.
Other highlights include sur
vival training, aircraft and air
craft indoctrination, small arms
training and visits to other Air
Force bases,
' . ' v '•
Cadet Dulaney, a 1966 grad
uate of Robert E. Lee High
School where he was a member
of the National Honor Society,*
is a member of the AFROTC unit
at North Carolina State Univer
sity at Rateigfr.
Billion-Dollar Plan Unveiled for
70 Communities and 36 REA Co-ops
Last week the 18-month plan
ning of 70 North Carolina cities
and towns and 36 REA Electric
Membership corporations was
unveiled and it calls for a bil
lion-dollar interconnected power
system to serve all parts of
North Carolina. Kinston and La
Grange were among the 70 com
munities and every REA co-op
in the state is a party to the
planning.
The .plan calls for a major
hydroelectric generating plant
to serve the mountain end of the
state and a series of iboth nu
clear and coal fired plants in
the Piedmont and Coastal Plains
area, with all systems connected
with a high-voltage line.
The towns involved would fi
nance their pro-rated portion of
the system by the issue of rev
enue bonds and the REA co-ops
would borrow money from fed
eral sources or issue similar
bonds.
It is estimated by the consult
ant engineering firm which did
the study the first 10 years in
operation of this system would
represent a minimum saving of
$100 million dollars over rates
presently being paid to Carolina
Power and Light Company,
Duke Power Company and Vir
ginia Electric Power Company,
from whom these 70 towns and
36 co-ops now buy a majority of
the power they distribute in
their systems.
Very few of the cities on the
list have any generating capaci
ty left, but Kinston and a few
others do have plants that sup
ply a small per cent of the pow
er they are presently using. All
of these small plants would be
phased out under the statewide
system recommended in this stu
dy.
Something in the order of 10
years would be required to fully
implement the plan, but major
portions of it might be opera
tive in as little as five years if
the groups involved decided to
go ahead with the plan.
School to Start
Jones County Schools will
open their doors for sti*.
dent orientation day on August
29. The following Monday which
is Labor Day will be a holiday
and the first regular school day
will begin September 2.
Senator Sam Ervin Explains His ^
Vote on Anti-Ballistic Missile System
The month-long Senate debate
over the deployment of the ABM
system has focused in the main
on the discontent growing out of
our involvement in the Vietnam
War. When all is said, however,
this part of the debate strayed
from the crucial questions relat
ing to the safety of the nation
in case of enemy attack.
In reaching a judgment in fa
vor . of the deployment of the
ABM system, I weighed the arg
uments pro and con relating to
what seemed to me to be the su
preme questions involved in this
controversy, and have come to
these conclusions:
First: Can the Soviets by the
mi<M970’s acquire a capability
sufficient to endanger our stra
tegic missile deterrent? The
weight of the evidence clearly
indicates that they can — if
they continue on their present
course and we take no further
action now to increase our pres
ently planned strategic offen
sive forces or to improve their
survivability.
There is general agreement
that the Soviets can by the mid
1970’s acquire a force of SS-9
ICBM’s and submarine-launched
missiles large enough virtual
ly to destroy our entire land
based missile and manned bomb
er forces in a surprise attack.
Some have argued that our
Polaris-Poseidon forces alone will
be a sufficient deterrent, but
they overlook the point that it
is the height of folly, consider
ing what is at stake, to depend
for our deterrent upon only one
of the three major elements of
our strategic offensive forces
(bombers, ICBM’s, and submarin
es), no matter how invulnerable
that force may appear to be to
day. Common prudence dictates
that we must do everything pos
sible to hedge against technol
ogical surprises in the future.
Second: Will the Soviets con
tinue on their present course?
No one knows the answer to
this, but until we have some
proof to the contrary we must
assume that they will. All doubts
must he resolved in favor of the
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