Farmers of Martin, Beaufort and Bertie counties gathered at the Roanoke fair grounds here Saturday, where a feal day of association was enjoyed. The meeting was not only enjoyed and well attended by farmers but was well attended by the business men of this section also. The ladies were also in attendance but not as large a number of them as there should have been.
The meeting was called to order by Mr. T. Jones Taylor in a few words of welcome to all. Mr. R.J. Works then introduced Mr. Samuel R. Guard, director of the Sears-Roebuck Agricultural Foundation, whose subject was “A three-way system of cooperation—the joining of commerce, labor and agriculture for the common prosperity of all.” This, Mr. Guard declared, was the sole solution of the many evils which now beset both industry and farming. Mr. Guard is touring in the South where he is making a study of farm conditions. He addressed a meeting of Edgecombe farmers at Rocky Mount last Thursday before coming here Saturday. From here Mr. Guard went to Duplin, where he spoke to the farmers of that county at Beulahville last evening.
“Cooperative marking ad developed by the farmers of North Carolina,” Mr. Guard said in the course of his address, “to improve the distribution of their cotton and tobacco, is only the beginning of a national movement of prime consequence to all groups of society. It contemplates a speedy development of a larger philosophy which will bring cooperation between classes as well as between individuals in the same group. The trend in this direction is plainly evident. The development of the cooperative forces already at work for the rehabilitation of faming all over America will bring again the “Golden Era of the Greeks and the Era of “Good Feeling” experienced by this nation under the skillful administration of President James Monroe.
“Already we have farmers in every quarter of America getting together on the sound group basis of ‘do unto others as you would have others do unto you’ and marketing a billion dollars’ worth of stuff in an orderly non-speculative way. This cooperative effort results in a shorter, more direct road to market. It brings the inevitable economic result of a higher price to the farmer-producer and a lower cost to the city-consumer for food which workers must have. This is the economic basis for cooperation between the farmer and the laborer which (neither) politics nor greed can diminish.
“At the same time, we see the third great group—Commerce—taking a definite economic interest in the prosperity of both agriculture and labor. In order to keep going, commerce must deal with both the farmer and the worker. If the food that furnishes energy to our society costs labor less and brings the farmer more, the buying power of both is increased. Therefore, commerce sees a vital self-interest in developing improved distribution of staple farm commodities.
“Our commercial institutions are playing an important part in bringing the new conditions about. Thus we have Sears-Roebuck and company, the largest store in the world, inviting a farm-minded man to not up an Agricultural Foundation with avowed educational and social purposes. And soon you may expect to see this new idea in industry thriving everywhere. It is all part of the development of the three-way system of cooperation—farmer to labor to commerce—the dawn of the 20th century Era of Good Feeling.”
Mr. Guard’s speech was the most effective to the farming people because of his actual farming experiences, troubles and losses, his having actually plowed and hoed the corn in the great Ohio valley. He pictured the price of tobacco and other farm commodities as a shooting star. His experience with the wheat growing in the far West was quite varied where you either have wheat and no price or price and no wheat.
Miss Elizabeth Kelly, who for a number of years has been engaged in teaching and educational work in this State, followed Mr. Guard. Her speech was to the point and so true to life that it held her audience spell-bound. Miss Kelly is a natural speaker, an educated woman and with an expressive feeling of sympathy she reached the hearts of her audience. her speech or subject could be termed “The better life and how to attain it.’ the spirit of cooperation was laid down as the base upon which the state rests and upon which society depends. We all become equal when we cooperate and have many advantages unobtainable without cooperation. No person can have his individual church, school, road, town, county or state. It takes people associated together for such institutions of blessings and to obtain the most perfect of such.
Miss Kelly described how the school folk, bankers, merchants, mechanics, and in fact every class of people except the farmer have organized and cooperated.
At the close of Miss Kelly’s speech, dinner was spread in the exhibition building where all partook of the many good things to eat.
In the afternoon, Mr. George “A. Norwood, President of the |Tri-State Tobacco Growers Assocation, spoke. He gave a description of his recent trip to the Old Country where he went in the interest of the Tobacco Growers Association and where he visited the buyers of our bright tobacco.
The Association expects to come in close contact with the users of the tobacco unless satisfactory arrangements can be obtained with the present established dealers. Mr. Norwood is a plain, unassuming, dependable gentleman and president of the National Bank of Goldsboro.
Short talks were made by Mr. “R.P. Holt of Rocky Mount, who told of the opening markets in South Carolina, and by Rev. C.E. Lee, a Beaufort county grower, who expressed his enthusiasm and good faith in the Association.
From the front page of The Williamston Enterprise, Martin County, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073995/1924-08-12/ed-1/seq-1/#words=August+12.+1924
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