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-gy" DANIEL
Editor's Note. Daniel J. Sully, the author of this article depict
ing the possibilities of cotton, the pitiful vassalage of the planter
and the destiny awaiting the United States and the cotton grower,
when we take advantage of our opportunity, has had a remarkable
career In the record and romance cf cotton. It was his unparalleled
market campaign that caused cotton to rise to 17 cents a pound
in 1903, the highest point reached since the civil war. During this
actual reign of" cotton, when Sully was its premier, $450,000,030 in
gold was brought to this country and formed the substructure of the
enormous bull market which culminated in the spring of 1907. Then
the south and the whole nation realized for the first time that the
success of cotton and the advancement of civilization go hand in
hand.
MER1CAX cotton-piam-
..Hn..j,tML fit' Ihn
I greatest gold-producing
I staple In the world, are
I rmnr Thnv :ire In prac
tical servitude. It Is a
tragedy of contemporary
life that they who pro
duce for the world the
commodity without
which modern civiliza
tion and industrial life
could not proceed are
themselves absolutely
subservient aud the
noorest nald toilers in
he United States. Intellectually the
:otton-growers are surrounded and
toereed by factors which have no other
urpose than to keep them In this be
lighted vassalage. From this condition
nfluences of a new American spirit
oust liberate them.
We smile at the Celestial shivering in
:he midst of coal-fields larger than tho
itate of Pennsylvania. America's attl
.ii de toward cotton is almost equally
rrotesque. On the southern rim of the
United States, within an area of prac
ically 14 states, is grown SO per cent.
f the world's supply of cotton. The re
naining 20 per cent., grown in South
America, India, and the far east, Is of an
nferior quality and cannot compete
with the cotton grown In the United
States. Notwithstanding this enormous
idvantage, the fact still remains that
:hls heaven-sent boon, paradoxical
.hough it may seem, does not enrich,
But rather Impoverishes, tho southland.
This is a tale of commercial inepti
tude. Our greatest asset is our greatest
Humiliation. Cotton is king, but it is a
badly served monarch. Other nations,
by farEighted policy, intense activity,
and commercial alertness, have over
come the tremendous advantage we
have, and by beating down the price of
the raw product, and with cheap labor on looms
and machinery for the manufacture of the fin
ished product, now control the markets of the
world. In the Orient, where we once had our
share of trade, the market, to say the least, is
slipping from us. It seems almost a travesty
on American business methods that Kngllsb
and German manufacturers tun go on tho
docks at Galveston and take our raw cotton,
carry it to Kurope la subsidized ships, weave
it with cheap labor, retransport it to the Uni
ted States, pay the customs duty, and under
sell our home manufacturers. There is some
thing wrong here, isn't there?
Cotton Is tho clothing of the uncounted mul
titudes, and even those born to tho purple de
pend upon cotton for much of their apparel
ing. King Cotton's dominion is mankind.
America, therefore, producing, practically
alone, a commodity vital to civilized life and
progress, has in that harvest the secret of
incomparable wealth and power. It Is not
steel or lumber, kerosene or corn, that Insures
enduring leadership for the United States. Vast
capital and dynamic genius have gono into tho
development of steel, yet this is transitory.
The scepter of steel must ultimately slip from
our grasp. Tho iron-ore beds of the Lake Su
perior region are doomed. Experts have num
bered their years as less than a generation.
Lumber cannot furnish a permanent founda
tion for our industrial pre-eminence. Tho for
ests are fast vanishing. Oil has contributed
one of tho leading items to our export trade,
and has multiplied incredibly the fortunes of
its managers; but the oil-wells cannot disgorge
their illumlnant forever. Uesides the Ilaku
fields ore ready to compete. Our corn and
wheat before the end of many decades will
be consumed at home. Argentina, central Eu
rope and Manchuria produce these cereals in
prodigal abundance. Even if our corn and
wheat were tho world'B sole sufficient supply,
ns In the case of our cotton, tho oversea na
tions could dispense with theso staples, as
some of them now do. Millions upon millions
of Mongolians have not yet developed an ap
petite for anything save rice. Hut all of them
nre clad in cotton goods. An additional inch
on the shirts worn by tho Mongolians would
mean one million bales of cotton, and this is
the market that is slipping from us.
Makes America Supreme
- Nations.
Thus it is cotton, and cotton alone, that can
make America permanently unique and su
premo among tho nations. This fact makes
grotesquo the record of our unsuccess in Bell
ing finished cotton products across the sea.
The only foreign customer that counted nt all
importantly in the totals of our export trade
was China, and our market there has pitiably
declined. England, Germany, and Japan aro
forcing our ships from the I'aclilc, Just as they
crowded them off the paths of tho Atlantic.
We should be carrying cargoes of cotton goods
to all the ports of the earth. Instead of that
the nations Bend here for 80 per cent, of their
raw supply, manufacture It into all forms of
commodities, outsell us in all the world's mar
kets, and even successfully ship the manufac-
'gr cotton; when you dio
Pses: es&rrr& Throughout life cotton
ft'-' '? -w. """" "i- ! -.ii n p, , jj, must constantly
4JL f- with man. It Is bis
IfeM . mj. iwi, fl W-i' ftV'l day and keeps hlni
'Hito comfortable at night.
&f: Cotton is spread upon
ot
Cotton
1. " - - - "
tured goods back to tho
Americans who produce tho
raw supply. Switzerland,
for example, which grows
no cotton, whoso mountains
yield no coal for its fac
tories, a country that has
not an inch of seacoast or a
plank afloat, sends to us, In
the ships of other nations,
more finished cotton goods
than we export to all the
countries of continental Eu
rope combined.
America's future, when
she realizes her heritage
and opportunity In cotton,
will eclipse anything that
has beeu foretold for this
republic. It is only within
tho last hundred years that
cotton has conquered the
world. The career of this
plant has scarcely begun.
The remarkable pace in its
progress to power is re
vealed by the quulnt fact
that in -17S4 eight bags or
American cotton were
seized by tho customs au
thorities at Liverpool, the
sage British verdict being
that tho importation was
fraudulent, as so much cot (on could not possi
bly be produced in one year in America! In
Napoleon's campaigns thousnnds of the wound
ed could have been saved had there been an
adequate supply of cotton for bandages.
llefore Ell Whitney's time It took a man in
his home two years to separato ono bale of
cotton from the seed. The yield of cotton thus
handicapped on its way to the wearer was un
important. There hnd been cotton from re
mote antiquity. The mummies of Peru were
wrapped In it. The ancient Hindus wove it,
and by. some forgotten urt the weaving was
5,000 times liner than is to b found in any of
the fabrlcB of modern times. Cotton was a
sacred thread among the llrahmans, and the
theft of it a serious crime. In the gardens of
Chineso temples at the present day a special
variety of cotton plant Is found which is no
where else grown. From its yield tho vest
ments of the Confucian priests aro made.
fifcat llrltnln has mado nn organized and
scientific effort to raise a supply that would
make her independent of America, for the
statesmen of that empire foreseo the possibili
ties of Iho day when America, rising to a
recognition of her right, will manufacture her
own cotton and sell It to tho world. Hut Great
Hritain, with her grip upon all available areas,
after many years of unsuccessful effort, ha
had to and must come continually to America
for her supply.
The Standard Oil Company baa mado it pos
sible to iliumlno millions of homes that other
wise would bo in darkness, but this has been
mado practicable only through the cotton
wick. When you are born they wrap you la
COTTOA-S3JLJL.
upholstering of bis
chairs. If he takes a ride
on the Flying Limited it
Is cotton waste in the
wheel-boxes, through
which lubricating oil is'
fed to the runnlnggear,
that insures av continu
ous trip. This is an elec
trical age, but without
cotton Insulation on the
wires the might of elec
tricity would be a menace.
In mind, that cotton ioih, tho cloth
of the civilized mashes, wiliiout
which they would become barbari
ans, is the product of a plant. Cloth
grown from the Mill! If by some
botanical in croiuancy we could
grow Mulshed garments in the
lliils. ami it' these garments could
be produced in like quantities in
no other part of the earth, every
man would instantly realize that
America possessed n monopoly
which would make all other na
tions our petitioners. Yet we have
that monopoly us assured as It
would be if we harvested clothing
ready to wear, for if we ourselves
produced tho garments that we by our toil in
the south enable Europe and Japan to manu
fucluro, we would possess almost nn exclusive
supply of the cloth and clothing already need
ed by at least one-half of the human race.
Men cannot, if they would, again depend fo(
their clothing upon the skins of wild animals.
These beasts have practically vanished. Nor
Is there enough wilderness on the globe to
furnish a range for the rearing of sullkient
animals to provide garments of skins for man
kind. The world of men and wom
en Is clothed to-day us never be
fore. It Is only within the last cen
tury, with cotton within tho reach
of the multitude, that the majority
have been adequately clothed. Tho
heroes of the revolution were half
clad and thtit half was rags.
And It Is ono of the Interesting
ironies of history that during that
period, when the problem of clothes
was supreme, both in America and
abroad, Richard Arkwrlght, who
invented the spinning frame, and
James llargreaves, who invented
the spinning-Jenny, crentlons which
were to chango tho history of tho
race, had their machines destroyed
by the enraged and half clad popu
lace, who feared the competition of
these labor-saving devices.
Wo smile nt the short-lighted fol
ly of that day, and yet the prog
ress In the use and manufacture of
cotton will bo as tremendous In the
coming years as in the past. There
is an actual kingship for cotton.
not only commercially but political
ly; and this sovereignty of cotton in America
1 believe to bo at hand.
We shall awake to our new destiny as a
world power and trading nation when we re
alize fully that the southern section of our
republic is virtually the exclusive source of a
commodity absolutely indispensable to the
myriads of mankind from New York to Shang
hai, from Nome to Montevideo, from Iondon
to the Cape. Less than one nnd a quarter rail
lion Americans, in 14 states of this union, hold
In their hands the comfort, tho luxury, the des
tiny of mankind.
An enormous profit is made somewhere In
y 1 Ui 1'.' lJK,f'- m
. I Cot rr kj , . 1 ifCi
THE. MVATOAU O- THE,
Cot TO v GrS
Among
Cotton has within Itself, under the guiding
hand of the country which produces It, the
power to bring about ultimate world peuce.
The United States, by prohibiting tho exporta
tion of raw cotton cargoes to Knglaiu, Ger
many, France, Italy and Switzerland, could In
flict hopeless industrial paralysis nnd financial
panic upon those lat ds. Tho balance of power
is in our hands to a most remarkable degree,
but we treat it with indifference.
Ono word from America that it would with
hold supplies of cotton would bring all Eu
rope to terms of comity.
In the meantime, and until we reach tho re
alization of tho potency of cotton, if nations
coutlnue to waste their substance (and their
purchasing power), In war, cotton will con
tinue to be found indispensable in conflict. It
is guncotton that hurls destruction through tho
ranks, and it Is co ton that binds up tho
wounds of the fallen. The Japanese In their
recent war, through an unrlvuled system of
surgery nnd hospiul service, reduced the
death-rate of the wounded to an unprecedent
ed minimum. Without cotton that would have
been impossible. And It Is in cotton khaki
that tho armies march. And they make their
bivouacs under cot 'on tents.
Cotton is indeed lirst in war, as it is tlrst
In peace!
Now we are entering a new age, the age of
aerial flight, ond the neroplnne is a cotton
chariot! On thesr wings of cotton we have be
gun to fly through the heavens at :iu and 40
miles an hour, nnd the end Is not yet.
It is easy to forget, or at least to fall to keep
the progress of cotton to the consumer. Every
year cotton goods to the value or nearly six
billion dollars nre turned out from the 12.',00U,
000 spindles in the world, ltut the poor farm
er In the cotton-fields sees but a pitiful part
of the multiplying fortunes attending tho mi
gration of cotton goods around the earth. Tho
southerner sells raw cotton to Japan, and tho
mills at Osaka turn out products that outsell
our goods in Shanghai nnd Canton; and the
Japanese cotton-manufacturer, traveling in
state to America, may wonder wherein the
half-fed southern farmer a vassal tenant fol
lowing his one mule in tho furrow, has ad
vanced in civilization over tho only recently
awakened pagan of the east.
The ordinary grower of cotton cultivates 20
acres, producing one-half a bale to the acre.
Unfortunately, In too great a majority of cases
he Is a tenant fanner. Of his ten bales, the
result of his year's toll, five must go to tho
owner of the land. The working farmer, for
his product, gets, we will say, ten cents a
pound or $!j0 a bale, his 12 months of effort
and expense bringing him In a gross revenuo
of $2.r.0. This is an insignlilcant tutu for the
man who among others produces tho commod
ity thnt controls the world.
Out of that $:'j0 he must provide for his fam
ily, himself and bis mule, and make provision
for tho ensuing times of planting and cultivat
ing. Fully GO per cent, of America's cotton is
produced by this struggling method. Up to
190, when tho grout movement In cotton
prices blessed the southern Industry with tho
transforming gleam of prosperity, 90 per cent,
of our cotton crop was harvested in this same
hopeless way.
lip
'" If
I pi
Tt.it .li'tf hln, it
wl1 Snipers no
Ami wiwyler: Imit-tikH
tlooiii.li tfi" il:i',
YctiM tuive to ft'! tlio
liriit,, tn know
Tli" f iiI evirrsiit(in on
IIS f.l'f.
It :iim IhmI.'.i- hh, little
i L.i.r
: l ' I tl limii"' Its tllll
ii u:a i i t t ttii llimr
ll'it I;" i ii"ViT nittluK
th-r-;
lilt ilou r.in't 11-nl him
;i:iy rner
Tlie ilei; peers through
tl't; window ptino
Anil li.oks In short,
rxr'trll CIlIK
Or tmiM u trait that
liml.H in vain
rpstiilrN .'fid tlnwn-
Hlalrs through tho
li.illn,
Ami out of liner unit to
tho rlroct
Ami there the ilK will
Htop mill h tit ml
And li-iten for the It'tlo
f.N-t
Or w'.lmpT for tho
h't!'.' hnnil.
Tl.e iloi; rn i (is to the
little l),'.l
Tlnil nil litirnmpli'il Is
lo-il.iy
And iini' s at the ll')W-rr,-il
HlirriHl,
Thin whiinpers ii turns away;
It funis Hoini' hill ' t.iit ri d toy
And lirlnnH It In Its innilth with (fire
And wiihh Us t:ill In ti''w-foiinil Jny
And looks nil iU"t lontna ill me.
It rests its hc.id upon Its puws '
And thliikH. uml t'.iinks-iind does not
heed J
The hone on which It never Kiaws
Then rhien with ce.ltiil Feel
And rin'is to oonie piny ciMit; then
'(irni'S Inn It nnd whines und whimpers
-es. ,
And doi-s th minin Dilnijs onen utfiln
As thoiiKti u dog could feel dlstrenn! '
Thnt ring o' lits-lt ejirno to me
Aliout a bulf ho'ir iko
And put one front puw on ench kneo
And looked Alt ttinnKh I might to know.
As thoimh I-Ah, how siid It la!
We two Who loved the. hid no well
I'm dumb ns Is thnt dot; of his
It r.innot link; 1 ejinnot tf II.
mm
1
Old Man Giddles
A man will al
ways contrive In
some way to let
you know that be
has on a new
suit.
Tho bigger the
salary the louder
the call of duty to
the politician.
Ell TImm'B
daughter thinks
sbo has a great voice, and his son
believes he is cut out for a diplomat.
Ell says it would cost him just as
much to raise them, anyway.
The successful man is the one who
doesn't let others learn of his mistakes.
Long hair doesn't make a football
player; it's tho sand to take the
bumps.
What will they do in tho next world
to the man who figures out how to
make
this?
imitation pumpkin pies in
The Dull Man.
"I can't Imagine what is wrong with
our gas supply," says tho beautiful
young thing when George hns been!
seated in the parlor. "Wo don't seem'
able to get more than ono-fourthr
enough for light."
Sure enough, the gas Is burning dim
ly so dimly, indeed, tbut Georgo can.
barely seo her where ehe sits across;
tho room.
Recognizing an opportunity to dem
onstrate his ability to tojH with any
set of circumstances, Georgo volun
teers to find tho trnublu. He goes to
the basement, and after lnRoctlng
the gas meter returns und says:
"Oddest thing I ever saw. Tbo cap
controlling the gas supply was almost
entirely shut off."
The -gas Is now blading merrily, but
the fair young thing twists a hand
kerchief about her bruised hand anil
soon feigns a headache of sufficient
strength to make George cut short his
call.
The Toiling- Author.
"No doubt," wo say to the author
of the best seller, "you have to work
over and over your stories."
"Yes," he responds, wearily. "After
tho publishers havo accepted them I
have to re write them to make them
lit the illustrations."