352 
MAY 2 
GOVERNOR TILLMAN TALKS. 
An Interview With South Carolina’s 
Farmer Governor. 
The Sub Treasury Bill, State control of 
the phosphate industry; Is the Alli¬ 
ance a D-mocratic annex? What 
does the Suthwant? How does she 
propose to yet it ? 
The R. N Y. p'rr poses to m»ke a feature of intro¬ 
ducing i's reader* to the men who have come to the 
i * on i. In t ho farmers’ mo verm nt W< prorose to let 
th* m talk fairly and franki , e< nfldent that our 
read< rs will " size them up’’ wl’h accuracy. The 
R. N.-V . will submit these interviews wlitiout com¬ 
ment or art ument. W’e sha'l give these gentlemen a 
talking place.—E ds. R. N.-Y. 
Columbia, South Carolina. 
At the invitation ot Gov. Tillman, I spent 
three hours on Saturday night at the Man¬ 
sion talking with him on the agriculture 
and horticulture of the South in general 
and of their status in the “ Palmetto State ” 
In particular. The “Farmer Governor” 
is thoroughly alive to the agricultural sit¬ 
uation in his State, and, I believe, as thor¬ 
oughly sincere in his efforts to better the 
condition of the farmers by every means at 
his command ; acd yet he is too thoroughly 
a politician to allow his desires in the direc¬ 
tion indicated to stand in the way of an ad¬ 
ministration for the whole people. I have 
talked with men of all political shades in 
the State; one man in particular who is a 
bitter personal and political enemy of the 
Governor, yet I find them to a unit ex¬ 
pressing the opinion that the administra¬ 
tion of Governor Tillman will be a clean 
one. 
The Sub-Treasury Bill Only a Wedge 
Knowing that many diversified opinions 
on the Sub Treasury scheme have been 
charged to Gov. Tillman, I was careful to 
obtain his views on this subject in such a 
manner that they would contain full 
agricultural significance. I quote below 
from an interview with the Governor by 
an attach6 of the Cincinnati Post, bearing 
on the same subject: 
“ In response to my query, the Governor 
said: 
to” I do not believe if the Farmers’Alli¬ 
ance wtre polled in this State, one half 
would support the Sub-Treasury scheme. 
My guide in making up my opinion is to 
observe the results in the Congressional 
districts where, by vote, this has been 
tested, and I believe the Alliance of the en¬ 
tire South would repudiate it. Some lead¬ 
ers may favor it, but the rank and file—the 
thinking, reading members—utterly refuse 
the absurd provisions of the scheme.” 
Between this opinion, wholly political, 
and that expressed in my entirely non- 
political talk with him on the same sub¬ 
ject, there is a flue distinction which will 
appeal to the mind of the farmer reader. 
To me the Governor said: “The Sub- 
Treasury Bill in its present form can never 
become a law, and it is perhaps desirable 
that it should not. At btst it is a crude 
measuie, and there are hundreds of men in 
the Alliance, men of intelligence, who 
laugh at it in its present form. It is simply 
an opening wedge, for the proposition with 
which it is clothed is this: ‘ Give us the 
Sub-Treasury Bill or something better 
and it is something betur, a modification 
of the present bill, which we desire and 
expect. Our people have been shown only 
the favorable side of the present bill. When 
the other side of it is shown they will not 
be so strongly in favor of it as now.” 
To the question as to who would present 
the unfavorable side of the measure, the 
Governor said: “It will come u p for argu¬ 
ment between members of the Alliance; its 
provisions will be thoroughly discussed, 
and a substitute modification of the pres¬ 
ent bid, which shall be satisfying and to 
which only demagogues can take excep¬ 
tion, will be introduced and doubtless go 
into the statute hoi ks." 
The italics are mine. 
The State’s Phosphate Farming. 
The phosphate industry of the State is 
large and the present administration pro¬ 
poses to watch that portion of it in which 
the State has a direct interest more clo. ely 
than it has been guarded heretofore. Of 
course State ownership or control of the 
industry as a whole is practically out of the 
question. The deposits underlie the lands 
of private individual and are therefore in¬ 
dividual property over which the State 
can have no control. Under nearly all the 
navigable streams of the State these phos¬ 
phate depo-its ex'st and to this portion of 
the industry Gov. Tillman is turning his 
attention. The State exacts a royalty on 
every ton of this deposit which is mined 
and the supervision of this mining by 
State officials has been so lax in the past as 
to cause the State to be defrauded of large 
amounts in royalty. The Commission with 
the Governor at its head, now proposes 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
that the mines shall come under closer 
supervision, and to that end a patrol boat 
will be put into commission, and every 
stream in which phosphate mining is done 
will be clo-ely watched by this authorize 
patrol; payments of royalties due can 
hardly be avoided under this supervision. 
Will The Farmers’ Alliance Split 
The Democracy ? 
Drifting into politics in its relation not 
only to agriculture, but to the people as a 
whole independently of their pol'tical com¬ 
plexion, Gov. Tillman said that D.-mocracy 
in the South means more to the people than 
any party possibly could to the North. 
Here it simply means “ white supremacy.” 
States rights and other fundamental prin¬ 
ciples of the Nortnern Jeffersonian Dem¬ 
ocracy are of secondary impor ance to the 
people of the South. The negroes al most 
to a unit are Republicans; hence the suc¬ 
cess of that party in the South wou'd mean 
the ascendancy of the negro, and this would 
mean a repetition of all the horrors of “ re¬ 
construction days ” The Governor pre¬ 
dicted that in the Presidental election of 
’92 this State would go solid for the Dem¬ 
ocratic nominee. “ Yes, we will swallow 
even the ‘ silver letter’ of Grover Cleve¬ 
land, and help elect him should he be the 
Democratic candidate. There can be no 
successful third party movement in the 
South, unless it shall have Democracy for 
its standard.” 
What Is the Farmers’Alliance 
Anyway ? 
Incidentally reference was made to the 
magazine article recently published by 
Senator Peffer of Kansas, explanatory of 
the Alliance and Its purposes. When 
asked to express his opinion Gov. 
Tillman said: "The meaning of the Al¬ 
liance here and elsewhere is simply an 
honest, concentrated effort to rescue our 
farming communities from the hands of 
usurers; from commission men; from 
Wall Street. Just see what it means here. 
The farmer formerly drew advances from 
his commission man on his crop, and ow¬ 
ing to the dishonesty of many of these com¬ 
mission men dozens of our planters were 
practically ruined. Now they have erected 
a warehouse, store their cotton, and if in 
need of money, borrow on the cotton from 
the banks. The product is thus marketed 
at the proper time, the loans are repaid 
and the profit, instead of going into the 
hands ot usurers, goes where it belongs, 
into the pockets of the producers.” 
The Cause of the Low Price of Land. 
“Governor,” I said, “our farmers in the 
North frequently put this question to us. 
‘ Why is it that we pay from $50 to $200 an 
acre for our farming lands when land in 
the South can be bought, in the same rela¬ 
tive position to small towns on the line of 
the railroads for from $10 to $40 an acre ?’ 
What is the trouble with these lands that 
they sell for so low a figure ?” 
“Just one word,” replied the Governor, 
“will explain the whole thing, and that is 
‘nigger.’ He cheapens the price of land 
by his incompentency as a laborer. Sub¬ 
stitute for our negro population a good 
white population and our lands will quad¬ 
ruple in value in five years.” 
This same question I have asked of seve¬ 
ral practical farmers in th s section ; men 
who are wideawake, progressive and 
workers, and they in the majority agree 
with the opinion here expressed, though 
in some cases acknowledging that their 
farming lands were not in such a high 
state of cultivation and development as 
those of the North and West. 
Northern Farmers and Fruit 
Growers Wanted. 
“Governor, doet South Carolina desire 
Northern immigration?” 
“ Most decidedly, yes, if we can have the 
right kind. Don’t send us your Italians, 
they are your ‘ niggers ’ and we have no 
use for them here. But let your competent 
white men who have some capital, who are 
earnest workers, content to procure such 
areas of land as each can work under his 
own eye, come hers and they will be wel¬ 
comed indeed. We will assist every one 
with our knowledge of the soil and climate 
and in every pos-ible way. He must not, 
however, have the ‘baronial’ ideas of great 
castles and enormous plantations such as 
our ‘rice kings’ had before the war. These 
are things of the past. What we want in a 
Northern man who comes here is sound 
common sense, some capital, a knowledge 
of the improved methods of growing and 
handling products, a willingness to work 
and, more than all, a capacity to personally 
direct operations. The future of such men 
in soil culture here will be brighter than in 
any other section of the country. 
“ Why, see our climate and diversity of 
soils! In the western part of our State and 
running into North Carolina is an apple 
country far beyond any other in the nation; 
but it needs development; it needs i mproved 
varieties ; it needs newer and more pro¬ 
gressive method-! of culture, and these your 
Northern men can give us. We can and do 
grow peaches equal to any in the country : 
our vineyards are remarkable for their 
healthfulness and production : wheat can 
be succees’ully grown in the State even 
south of Columbia and in large yields. 
Tobacco, cotton, early vegetables fl jurish 
here; in fact It is a veritable sub-tropical 
country. As I have said, all this needs de¬ 
veloping and no people are so well able to 
do this as the class of Northern people I 
have described and which we desire. We 
desire and need more money in the South. 
You know we are paying many millions 
of dollars into the National Treasury as 
our share of the pension fund, and this is 
increasing year after year. In other ways 
we are paying large sums to the United 
Srates government, and nearly all of it cir¬ 
culates in the North. Very little of itcomes 
back to our people; practically all which 
reaches us again are the sums paid to post¬ 
masters and other local officials of the gov¬ 
ernment and to workers on an occasional 
public building ” 
White People, Capital and Brains. 
In reply to the question as to what three 
things the S'ate mo*t needed, theGtvernor 
said : “ White people, capital and brains: 
brains which go to make up a technical 
knowledge of how to do. Our people have 
too much land and instead of concentrat¬ 
ing their efforts on small areas, hating to 
see so much idle, they spread their crops 
all over it seeking to make up in quantity 
what they lack in quality.” 
Some effort was made in the past to 
Invite immigration but the wo'kof that 
department was so unsatisfactory to the 
people that the Immigration Bureau was 
finally abolished. Gov. Tillman is making 
an effort to induce the legislature of the 
State to make a liberal appropriation to 
enable South Carolina to make a fine dis¬ 
play at the World’s Fair. He had no other 
defiuite plan for bringing the three desid¬ 
erata into the State. 
The New Agricultural College. 
At the old Calhoun homestead near the 
town of Pendleton, in the northwestern 
part of the State, is to be located the new 
College of Agriculture and Industrial 
Arts for white pupils. The tract contains 
800 acres and will be devoted to every 
branch af agricultural work. The build¬ 
ings now in process of erection will cost 
$150 OOJ, and will be ready for occupancy 
in February. The college will bear the 
title of Cleinsen University, and will de¬ 
rive its support from theClemsen fund, the 
portion of the fund from the government 
under the Hatch Bill and from the land 
grant fund. 
“The purpose of the college,” said Gov. 
Tillman, “will be to give the pupils a 
practical English education In which prac¬ 
tical science is taught; in other words, to 
so educate them that they will be ready for 
business with a practical knowledge of the 
methods u*ed in it. It is estimated that 
this education can be given to the pupils 
at a net cost of $100 a year. The prospects 
for this college are exceedingly bright, and 
there are already over 500 applications for 
entry.” 
The institution is to take the place to 
some extent of the two abolished experi¬ 
ment stations which the State has had. 
The Claflin University and Agricultural 
College in the eastern central part of the 
State devoted to the education of the ne¬ 
groes, which I will describe in another let¬ 
ter, will probably at some future time 
share with the Clemsen in experiment work 
for the State. 
What Gov. Tillman Looks Like. 
As a farmer the Executive of South Caro¬ 
lina is better known In Edgefield, his home, 
than elsewhere in the State. He told me 
that he had 1,8* 0 acres of ground, adding 
that he, like too many others in the State, 
was land-poor. Cotton bad b-en his chief 
crop in the past, but the land in that sec¬ 
tion, mostly mountainous and on slopes, 
had so washed that he was turning his 
attention to fruit-culture and stock raising, 
which promi-ed to be successful. Per¬ 
sonally Gov. Tillman is a man of good 
height, with a smooth-shaven face, one 
eye, a strong, decided voice, and his 
.opinions are clearly and vigorously ex¬ 
pressed, but bear evidence of having been 
fully weighed before spoken. He is a good 
talker, a brilliant orator, clever and strong 
rather than polished, a good politician and 
a strong partisan I am told, but, withal, a 
man who knows the people at whose hands 
he expects preferment, and who, I believe, 
is honestly, sincerely and conscientiously 
endeavoring to give to the people of South 
Caro iaa a “ people’s government.” He has 
begun several investigations of alleged 
abuses of privileges and powers in the State 
institutions—one of them an investigation 
of the State insane asylums—and he ap¬ 
pears to be carrying on the work fearlessly 
and thoroughly with the sole object of get¬ 
ting at the truth of affairs without regard 
to what individual may be found guilty. 
Every effort having for its purpose the 
betterment of the condition of the agricul¬ 
tural portion of the State has his hearty 
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