Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (July 14, 1907)
I) Uprising of the Wine Growers of the Midi and the Causes Thereof 'ymnOXAN, June The remark l Ll I able fconnmiu demonstration. 1 . , . I unique In thi variegated history f fj", )i.J of France, which the wins grow ers of the Midi have conducted now for the best part of two month with a view to bettering their material condition will hae ended before those lines 'can be read In America, but the real causes of that demonstration and the conditions In the country aTecled have been told only fragmentartly In the cable dispatches and they form a most Interesting, almost as tonishing chapter In the long story of economic progress. The people of the four departments bor 'crlnsr on the Mediterranean from the Trtjth of the Khone to the Pyrenees are a t Frenchmen as tlie world understands and thinks of Frenchmen. In speech. In manner, In type, they resemble somewhat the Spaniards, but they are less Spanish than they are French. For want of a bet ter term they are often called by those who study them Fyreneeans. Their country ,ln many respects a won derful one and full of historical as well as contemporaneous Interest, Is yet compara tively little visited by the supposedly ubl- f teutons tourist. Daudet has made them lest known to the reading world, but the Merldlonaux are not all as Daudet painted his delightful characters. Thnre la the Midi of Paudet and there la the Midi of a dfforent character, less ebul lient, not lees pronounced In Independence. The Midi of Daudet hns been seen In ag gregates of hundreds of thousands In these last weeks of early summer and has been heard where the tcleyraph ticks around the world. It Is the other Midi that the French government and Parliament have got to settle with in the last annlysls. For there Is dlntress in the Midi, or more accurately in parts of the Midi the distress that conies of a severe falling oft in busi ness. Of personal distress In the sense of suffering for want of food there Is com paratively little, and what there Is Is Id the department of Aude. To say the truth, not a person visible In the Aude wears the aspect of a hungry person, but clt Irene of Narbonne, In this department, declare that many of the work ing people are obliged to restrict themselves to one. meal a day througti Inability to find A employment enough to pay for more. It V Is in this department that the winegrowers' demonstrations originated. Argellers, the center of the agitation, la llttlu more than an hour's drive from Nar bonne. Thero Is a reason, a very simple one, for the greater distress manifesting Itself in Audo. In this department the people cultivate practically nothing but the vine. They grow small quantities of food for their own cousumption. but their gardens are all small, designed for family sui ply only. The only labor wanted for hire Is vineyard labor. The vlneyardlsts pay laborers, and some distress Is the Inevitable result. The towns suffer accordingly from the Inability of anybody to buy much. I. and of the Vine. For mile after mile one may traverse the country In the Audo and see naught growing but vines. Even wild flowers by the road side are few. The traveler drives or walks with vinos within arm's length of the val leys and over the hillsides, vines extending kl as far as the eye can reach, relieved here VI and. there by scattered olive trees perhaps. N TVftes of other sorts except on wooded hills i"" r few, and the blazing sun which fires the "thern temperment Is reflected from this intense of waving greenery as from the surface of an undulating sea. In the strong winds that sweap across the broad lauds of the Aude, strong and steady aa the trades, there Is further suggestion of the ocean, but of a tropical ooean where the citizen of the north feels that he would parch and suffocate If they did not blow and bring him new life In the dry furnace of the midday atmosphere. Many a native wears a protecting handkerchief over the bark of his neck, and country women do not distaln to screen themselves with para sols. The people of Aude have sat quietly down and watted for the soil and the sunshine of their vale of fortune to bring them com petence. When, through a multiplicity of causes this failed to materialize they be gan to bestir themselves, not to see what was rotten In this southern Denmark, but i to demand that their Parisian governors I should unsure them an easy living of the s tt to which they had accustomed them selves. In this period of agitation not half of them paused to think for themselves. Much after the fashion of thousands of Amer icans who credit an administration with good times and charge against an adminis tration all bad times occurring under Its teuure of office, these people were keen to blame the government for the consequences of their own want of perspicacity, ouupled. with an alteration of the soelal and eco nomlo conditions In France. And, finding nucleus about which to accumulate them selves and their grievances, they set out to demand fallacious treatment for a misun derstood disease. The Political Aspect. To the great heart of humanity an ap peal on Uie keynote of distress Is never made In vain. If personal Interest height ens susceptibility to this call the response Is likely to be correspondingly accentuated. This was the case In the Midi, with the additional factor of the spontaneous gen. b ft : . V V l V.J . I .1 tr: 1 , , .Afeyfi' - thrilL F. ::'!, ruu -t.. . - " f 4 J I (Prej'dYUlciMdnooNN!:. w'hcrc rud rinsr Victim or thz AioTnltkC., 'A' ' IvsV. i f , , ',iw'',rivy'titiy,iiTT1j.w,I11 t.WiM.w1r:g--JSg ' ,'v .;, , . -x i W.i - " ' . ra T-J; ' VtJ . V , ' ' i. -- v- . '.v- St i - x W :'ij.'f"-. 1,' rnges consumed In the Midi are enormous. With government aid the Midi again pros pered In Its wine growing, but It did not return to Its former habits of wine drink ing. In the meantime a change was coming over tho habits of the peoplo of Fram e. The bourgeoisie, who formerly took care ', to put down a lot of wine for home con sumption, began to take to the custom of buying Its wine as needed. Iter sUU the fashion changed from wine drinking to water drinking, and It Is today fashion able In France to drink water and not wine. It is mainly the foreigners In France and the Inhabitants of foreign countries and the poorer people of France who drink wine. Here was the explanation of a large falling cfT In the demand for wine, which for ages had been grown and bought of the Mori dianoux. Again, the Bordeaux people had stand ardized their wines and could sell a room or less staple and stable' product through 'out the world, so that a man buying on of h well known brands which la In no eroslty charayt eristic of the warm-blooded Merldlonaujr. The departments of Herault and Gard, on the northeast, and of the Pyrenees Ori entates, on the south, whose wine Industry languished even as did that of Aude, wire keen to spring to the aid of distressed brothers. The people of these three depart ments were not seated on the edge of suffering, as were those of Aude, for they were not so exclusively vltloultural, but their prosperity through tho cultivation of the grape was at a low ebb. Succor for the Aude's wine Industry would dlsseml nate Its soothing beneficence among them. The call to come over Into Aude and help met an Instantaneous response. Meettnss were organised. Leaders were selected. The politicians, who In France are quite as Indefatigable as, and much less stable than those of Tammany hall or any other well organized American political machine, saw their opportunity and Joined foroos with the industrial population. Clemenceau had held power too long. Socialists, monarchists, clericals, each had grievances enabling- a approchement with a common destructive end. however, different might be their several methods of reconstruction. That political machina tion profited by the economic dyspepsia of the Midi is indisputable. sense meant wine of one and the same vineyard In each instance could bo reason ably certain of securing a wine tasting bout as he expected It to taste. Not so the growers of the Midi. Their wine continued to be whatever nature made It. be it better or worse. Truth com pels one to say that It Is generally worse. The Midi wine Is not good from the view point of the lover of Bordeaux, not yet of him of Burgundy, although Burgundy wine has been "helped" ever since the phyl loxera year by various forma of treatment. The Midi wine is not strong enough In alcohol to stand long keeping or distant transportation and the growers resorted to sugar to Increase the fermentation and Its pcpgja. mm Soothed by gentle anoint ings with Cuticura Oint ment, the Great Skin Cure, precededbywarmbathswith WXBBS& 4 v I mo For eczemas, rashes, itch--ings, irritations, inflamma tions, chafmgs, sunburn, tan, pimples, blackheads.red, rough, and sore hands, for shaving and shampooing, and for all the purposes of the toilet, bath, and nursery, Cuticura Soap and Cuticura Uintment are priceless. f Bold throiurtraut The wnrld twtxt lift ?uttu u... Byaavr. into, a. ml. ru Ce.:"". rbto. Huns Koij ITUS ft).: JaiuB. fc&nir&,lA4 .Tulv: an. rJiTwa. Mom: &ui ar rwvuM, mucuas awekist m Can e( ansj Laaeoa.tT, slastlo hordes of excitable Merldlonaux didn't know that they were being exploited Is equally beyond cavil. The remarkable demonstrations by hun dreds of thousands In the principal towns of the four departments of which the world knows were the result. Word was sent broadcast that the people were starving, yet to the astonishment of tho world these people Instead of Improvising weapons and attacking the breadshops compassed or derly pligTlmmages In astounding numbers and cried "please" where their power might have wrought ruin, destruction, revolution. Dream Rnded Bloodshed. Amazed at their own success, misled by Spain. With the Gard, where there Is no embrace the glories and the charms of a trouble beyond a business depression, and world meant for happiness and plenty, where, knowing that, the people are pre- The whole landscape smiles. The peoplo pared, as In America, to look out for them- are happy as the livelong day. EatT They selves, one has passed a territory where can eat as Sir Toby could drink aye, and common sense reigns. In the Herau.lt one drink so, too, while there Is a passage In has seen struggling common sense triumph- their throats and wlno In Illyrla, which Is ant. In the Aude one has soen all the to 41,6 Pyrennees. For there Is food In misery that the Midi can display, and It P'nty, and wlno to accompany It yes, and That the enthu- must be said that most of that misery Is ,,loner to buy It at the cafes; ber and bjii- to be found In verbiage put at the dispo sition of unscrupulous politicians. No Revolt, Says the Wise Coachman. F.ven In Herault the people are more In terested In pointing out the beauties of their country than In expatiating upon their misery. Coachmen are about as soon as any to deteot a falling oft In local prosperity. The coachmen were as busy as they ever want to be and there has been no Influx of strangers Into the Midi, either; quite the contrary and the coach men were more Interested In Indulging themselves continuously, as from hahtt, In the enjoyment of their countryside than ths specious exhortations of doluded leaders " enlarging upon me distress of the wlno nit the more reorehenslble lnstlcatlons i"" of political charlatans, the people worked themselves Into the belief that by a sort of laying on of hands the government could cure Instantaneously a deep rooted disease. If not they would have none of the government, albeit they failed to One of these, most delightful, who summed up In himself a whole section of the Midi, drove about with delicious non chalance. Had there been anything un pleasant during the previous nieht, the night of greatest rioting; hod there been tomed oalmT Oh, no; except for those who sought excitement. To be sure, there was always a chance for them anywhere. As for Mister Coachman, ha went home about dinner time In the evening and remained there till next day, eomme d'habltude, and found most of his recognise that refusal to carry on relations any real disturbance of the city's accua- wlth the central aumomy at raxts was tantamount to secession. They , wanted to show their resentment to live their own lives and to force the government to enable them to live as they had always lived, but they Imagined that this could be accomplished without seced ing from the rwrruhllo. which they hadn't any real Intention or desire, to do. The ne!nbors living also as usual. bloodshed at Narbonne. probably caused Couldn't he hurry his excellent horse a through mistaken severity on the part of HtUe so as to permit a more complete mounted troops, riddled their dream ana view 01 me environs of his delightful town, left them daiod upon awakenlnsf. the largest in the Midi, of Montpeller? His deplorable aa It was, this blood-letting horse was a veritably good one, far ahead marked he beginning of the end of serious of any drawing a carriage plying for hire difficulties. It gave people time to think even In the gulne of a private carriage In of the Ignominious flight of him whom they Paris. Most certainly he could, but then dubbed "Apostle," "Redeemer," a small monsieur or madame would be unable to wins grower and cafe proprietor of the or jf to tnn unat,p to Bpi,reriBtrti village of Argellers, a hamlet of 1,400 the beauties of Montpelller and its sur people. rounding vulleys of verdure, of forest and He had been acclaimed as a leader of 0f vines, men. He proved to be more facile In flight Xn excellent cocher this, tied up In the than glib In oratory. The people soon re,tr1ote1 pr,0nc of Montpelller. not like dropped him from his pedestal, although lh, co(leh drlv,rs of oMeT tlmes an M grudgingly relinquishing their Idea that one onIy of cUsl pernped , whom they had taken so warmly to their tlvlnf trav,. ym wnat th WBntM t0 hearts must be worthy of a higher place. h fcut tnorou h, on f h h. 4.. ty-mt Anla end Narbonna ... ii.su. w. i - lm, community who had been niiHienre- go to any extreniUy of slnthe to give by contrast a relish to the vinous boverafves of the neighboring fields which Is commoner to the Inhabitants than water to a Yankee farmer. And thy are proud of their abundance, are these poople of Perplgnan. The town Is full of Tartarlna. Will Tartarian ac knowledge that his department la suffering? Never. Ixiok about and you cannot doubt even Tartarian? But he Is lovely In the freshness of his braggadocio. Time nor age can stale the Inventiveness, tho pride, the confident view of the ever living Tartarian and he lives as well under the towering shadow of the blue, snowcapped Pyrenees as he does on the easterly side of the Rhone's mouth, Tartarln, the most modern and progres sive Tarturiu of them all did lie not have rubber tires on Ins luriiaue, the only car riage in all I'erple.nou which boosted of thei novelties of a twentieth century civil ization? Tartarln from a tenative begin ning developed himself quickly till he was able to boast that unik-r tiie Pyreneean wings which folded and expanded them selves In sheltering core over the people of his department were grown all the fruits and vegetables of Africa and of France, all Indeed that the world held good. Were the kindly fruits and vegetables of the earth that northern neighbors prayed their God to preserve to them till the harvest time also grown under the Perplgnanlan sun? Why, there Is no land but Tartanln's! Who knows, who cares, who dreams of aught that the misguided outlanders may woke up the other departments lessened M t their Interest. Nome had suffered so much or gone so far, and to subside gradually into habitual calm was easy, revolt. He would like to have business better, but In no way Intended to have the ,,o "u W-- peaceful routine of hi. daily life Interfered In the most northerly department. Card f processes of te nearest to Paris, where the people . ' , 1, i the nearest more newspapers and think was never at any time real trouble. In Herault, the most Important of the depart ments, with the largest city. Montpeller, such troubls aa there was was paused chiefly by hoodlums, although the troopers ex asperated many by heedless and needless disregard for the oltlxens' rights. After traversing these departments, to nneotial seasons or nnenuul itl,trik,iinn more, there . -,i Kiueinevs. "Burely I will willingly hasten, monxleur, madame, but remember you will see loss of the beauties of the countryside of our ex cellent city,- . Kda la Ike Pyrenees Shadow. But the beauties of the Herault of Mont Pelllor are as nauaht to the nstnr&l aitran. enter Into the departments of Ike Pyrenees tlon, of the pynnet,a Orientales. The very Orientates Is to behold ths realm where rauw,T jtaelf. unpoetio in it natural nature Itself, the arch coquette. Invites to rigidity, seems to caress the limpid snores all the sweet enjoyments of Andalusia, of of th Mediterranean on the one hand. Granada, with a fillip which south of the while with the other It reaches like a Pyrenees Is wanting; thus men say when patriarchal lover toward ths blus seductive analysing their sensations ea a return (rem Pyrenees ooompsedtng in pas mnlrceiit FLAKES Avoid artificial flavoring In foods. Buy E. C. CORN Flakes, ir.ado by the origi nal HGG-O-CEE process, which brings out tho wholesome, natural flavor ofthovraln. Highest qual ity andlargest package on the market for 10c. All Crooers' 10c. think Is gnod Just because It springs up In their st ? Are the people of the Pyrenees Orientales poor are suffering? Has building ceased among them? Are they hungry? Never! They have riot set their fields with vines to the exclusion of other products of nature. They are gardeners largely. They live well and gayly. New buildings are going up rapidly here in Perplgnan, the chief city of this region. Why have these Pyreneeans turned in their lot "with the people of the more north ern and less wise Midi? "Tout slmplement, monsieur, they are our brothers; we go to sympathize with them. Why not? But In deed we do not suffer. We have to eat and to drink. It Is only the vulgarians who des pise the law who have attempted to burn the prefecture and their efforts have been elaborated In the description by the excel lent Journalists. Behold! here Is the pre fecture, which was set afire four times In four places on the same night. Where Is the mark of all this damage? Veritably you need be wise to find the smudge of the In cendiary's smoke." And so It was. Not so much as a mark ren.alned on the prefecture building of the awful nttenipts .f the aroused inhabitants of this secth n of the Midi. And was there llklihood, was there de sire upon the part of the Inhabitants, of an uprising against the central government at Paris? All around market women and men, who were said to be the worst of the manifest ants, were selling artichokes, fat and Juicy to a drjrree that ought to make Mouquln buy better qualities. And the people said In smiling self-indulgence "Ah, we Catalans, we talk much, but we do little." And, terrible as may be the Catalans , when aroused, and as their history shows, they are not aroused as a pe"P's now; they merely went to the aid of their less fore sighted brothers. (air of the Trials. And what brought about this Midi crisis? The answer Is altoge'her too long and too complicated to give In a paragraph or to give exhaustively In a volume. Put with a little attention the reader may. obtain a better uiidcrxtandlng of Its essential fenfires than Is to be derived from the necessarily brief cable dispatches which have chronicled the Midi's demonstrations, and a het'er comprehension even than large numbers of the Merldlonaux have themselves. The Midi was prosperous. It was prodi gal. The wine of its vineyards was sold at a good profit and a few days' labor gave a year's plenitude. The phylloxera came and destroyed the vineyards. That part of the story is old and need not be repeated. Tho government helped the distressed Midi. California vines were Imported arid they are cultivated yet not, as fond Americans would fain believe, to grew grartes for producing wine, but for purposes of grafting with a view to relnvlgoratlng the wcrnout native stock. In those diys luifore the phylloxera of i'b the Midi drank Its wine and was happy without intoxication. There was so muoh wine that great quantities were distilled and the resulting rognao was drunk also In the Midi. After the misfortunes of those years there was no wins for distillation and littls to drink. Ths Midi HmU took to absinths and then to beer, bat mainly to absinths, although ths quantities of both ttiess bev- alcoholic strength. From the small be ginning of "medical treatment" the step to fraudulent adulteration was short, and it was simple and scarcely more than a venial sin, insomuch as the adulteration did not make the wine particularly deleterious to health. From this practice the rewards of vltl. culture, already larse. were greatly en hanced and ti e Midi swnm in luxury. Tho sugar raiders of the north sew their op portunity and nistln it easy for tin- Mtll to I'LHniii sugar for Its trislment of tho wine, not to say for the wine's adultera tion. Bcinc business men. they were not slow to enable merchants to see that they, too, might Increaae their profits by uillum sugar for the sire imthcntnK of wines of inferior grade. Adulteration became a wholesale trade and the Midi was one of the lamest practitlotn I , Not only was the lirst cm strengthened and fortified by suKr additions, but suc ceeding cms ' rendered possible and profitable by sitailar means. The market was Hooded with spurious wlnrj at the same time thai tltu consumption and de mand for genuine wines was for reasons already seen rapHlly falling off. ' Result, a Midi full of wine and emotion and face to face with tho necessity of hnrd work, of changing its habits, of changing Its business principles. The Midi wouldn t think of doing this. Not even would a man think of looking elsewhere to sell his wine than the place where his fathers had sold 11 before lilin. The Midi sat under its olive trees anJ tald: Things aro wrong; the times ara out of Joint. Let Parliament -tho locum tennis of the king ancient h t things aright. Na ture and the king miule this a wine-growing ' country. Tho world has always boiiKht our wine; let the world buy It now. What If wo did help out our profits by using mnar- in a proper way, oh, of course, in a proper way-wlmt rinl;t did that give to anybody cls to fabricate wine of dregs and chemicals ami Hood the markets so that we should not be able to sell our wine? Kupposing we do liko to drink beer and absinthe. It is still the world's busi ness to drink the wlno tho Midi grows. Let the government help us. These same Meridlonaux would not even reiokiiiize a further cause for tho falling off In the demand for their wine. Their wine, especially In Us second cru, was ths wlno of the poor poople of Parts and of the stock of the small dealers. Tho patrons of these dealers, the poorer peoplo through many degrees, camu to prefer the Inebria tion due to a glass of absinthe to that of a poor Klass of wine. And they, too, like the Midi growers, took to absinthe and helped to leave the wlno market slow and lack. Tbe Itemed r. The Midi Is truly In hard luck, but ths fraud practised In the fabrication of wine, In which the Midi is Itself a participant. Is not the whole story of Its distress, nor will a bill against fraud restore the Midi's pros perity, especially If the bill Is only directed against the northern sugar growers ' and leaves the merchants free to adulterate the wine. So much for the economic cause of the Midi's distress, and not all of them are told here. As for the complications due to the political causes of the uprising, to trace these causes would Involvo a more or less Intimate understanding of French politics and would Involve too long a story for one newspaper article. Suffice it to say that reactionary, mon archical and clerical Influences were at one In aiding, encouraging and In public prints exaggoratlng tho Midi movement, and to these must be added that other element of disorder In the republic, the General Con federation of Labor. All these together brought France to the edge of revolution four departments had therefore ceased to conduct their political and civil functions in tho way the country's laws prescribed and the crisis developed the latent spirit of Indiscipline In the army. The whole was due to economlo ds- hysterla, exaggeration, want of patrlatlsra political chicanery. Tho dis turbing elements In the latter categories have been seen and heard. Tho sufferers from ths first malady are the ones who must be satisfied In the end, and to that end they and the government must meet on the common ground of common sense. And a rare meeting that will bo! sssS Old Butch Cleanser Is a revelation to every woman who has been toiling; away forbears with back-breaking old-fashioned cleaning; agents. This new cleanser does all kinds of cleaning, and does it easier,quicker and better than anything else. The New, Ail-Around Cleanser For Cleaning, For Scrubbing, For Scouring, For Polishing'. In every part of the house Old Dutch Cleanser gave time, labor and money in keeping things scrupulously clean, t or Wood r loors, m- dows, Knamel Tubs, Marble, Pots, Kettles and Tans, I'aintcd and Burlap walls, nothing like it has ever bten covered. targe, Jlfiligs Can (at all Gracers') THE CUDAHT PACKING CO. Sooth Omaha, Nb. y a a - r - - JTA m J VIC I I' IKTi we. ywmmkmm SUMMER RATES GREATLY REDUCED .oco Wabash City Office 1601 TARN AM STREET, HARRY E. MOORES, Q. A. P. a OMAHA,