This same galling fact of bank deposits lying relatively idle when they might be used to further the plans held so much at heart was lamented in cases where it hindered the cotton mill campaign, or the taking of initial steps toward realizing a desire for a mill; but it was made more galling where a venture, properly launched, stood still because the moneyed people held themselves aloof. In distinction to the position of Newberry, South Carolina, where there were "numbers of people ready to aid in the enterprise, convinced as they are that it will be a profitable investment, but ... nobody to take the lead,"[190] was Chester another town in the same State, of about the same size. In February of 1881, after the cotton mill campaign had gotten a fair start, the Chester Bulletin commented: "Just now there is a widespread and deep feeling amongst our people throughout the State to foster the manufacturing interests of the country. More than a year has elapsed since our people felt beat a pulse of enthusiasm for the home industries. (Reference was here had to the chartering by the Legislature of two mill corporations which attracted almost no subscriptions.) There is money enough in the county to start the hum of three thousand spindles. The large amount of personal deposits in bank indicate too truly the lack of confidence in home industrial enterprises."[191]
It may be well to consider a typical comprehensive appeal for domestic capital. For this purpose a leading editorial in The News and Courier asking support for the Charleston Manufacturing Company is particularly useful.[192] In the first place, this company marked the entry of Charleston into the field of regular cotton manufacture, and the enterprise took firm hold on the interest of the city from this cause. Also, South Carolina experienced the cotton mill campaign as a movement more highly conscious than in any other State; Charleston was the center of the campaign, as spiritual leader no less by reason of her sufferings than her heroism, and the News and Courier was the mouthpiece of Charleston.
To begin with, the editorial, headed "Everybody's Opportunity", sets forth clearly the division of arguments: "The Charleston Manufacturing Company addresses itself to the citizens of Charleston in a double capacity: First, as a means of making money for the stockholders. Second, as a means of enlarging the common income, stimulating the growth and increasing the prosperity of the city."
Proceeding under the first of these heads, it is pointed out that the mill will succeed because the management, in the hands of men known for their business sagacity and activity, will be both economical and progressive. There is no doubt that, along with other appeals to local resources, confidence in the projectors of a cotton mill, as personal acquaintances and men whose whole lives were familiar knowledge in a small community, had a powerful influence. Next it is shown that the profits of the South Carolina mills for the year 1879, probably the last available for citation, warranted a belief that the Charleston mill would succeed, having at least as good a chance as county plants. These profits had ranged from 18 to 25½ per cent. It is explained that steam power will be used, but that it is used in England, and that the trend of the better opinion is toward steam power rather than water power, as being more reliable and capable of better control. The approval of steam by the superintendent of the Camperdown Mills at Greenville in the same State, on these grounds and also because he knew that the Northern mills using steam made larger profits than those using water, is instanced. It is evident that the necessity of employing steam power, instead of being able to use the water power of the interior, was a hard obstacle to get over, for recurrence is several times had to it in the course of the argument, and the great advantages of coastal location are stressed as a counterbalancing consideration.
The favorable facts that the Charleston mill will be able to buy cotton all the year round, and so avoid carrying a heavy stock, that samples and tops may be utilized, that the rates of insurance will be low and water freights nominal, and lastly that no cottages or schools or churches will have to be built, city location avoiding this source of expense to a provincial establishment are recited, and the prospective stockholders are reminded that by State law the whole of the capital invested in manufactures is exempted from taxation for ten years.
On the second account, of increasing the prosperity and welfare of the community, it is shown how every $228 invested in cotton manufactures in South Carolina the year before supported one person, and how when people earn they have something to spend; house rents will go up as a result of the new demand. Besides, the State at large benefits from a new means of support for the people. The very potent argument of the addition to value which manufacturing brings about is next employed. "At a low estimate the value of cotton is doubled by the conversion into yarns." If the Charleston Manufacturing Company uses 10,000 bales of 400 pounds a bale, at 10 cents per pound, $400,000 will be returned to the growers of the raw cotton. When made into yarns the cotton will be worth $800,000. Every dollar of this $400,000 difference, except what will be spent for materials not to be precured locally, will be disbursed in Charleston in wages and dividends. "It is evident that the building of half-a-dozen cotton factories could revolutionize Charleston. Two or three million dollars additional poured annually into the pockets of the shop-keepers and tradespeople would make them think that the commercial millenium had come." The appeal concludes: "In a two-fold sense, then, the Charleston Manufacturing Company is entitled to support. For the stockholders it will earn money. To the city it will give the life and vigor which nothing short of manufactures will assure us."[193]
An editorial in the same paper the next spring encouraging subscriptions to the capital stock of the Columbia and Lexington Water Power Company, the enterprise already mentioned, which was opening books in Charleston, urged the two benefits already noticed, profit flowing from physical and economic advantages, and a social gain resulting from the indirect bearings of the plant.[194] The value of the franchise, the offer by the State of more than 146,000 days of convict labor at a low wage, the rebate of taxation on plant and improvements for ten years, and estimated earnings of 17 per cent, on a total outlay of $431,607, or running as high as 25 per cent. on an outlay of $725,000, were held up on the side of material things; in dealing with the gain expected to result to the State at large, the influx of immigrants and the employment of thousands of idle women and girls, already present, for whom it was so hard to find profitable work, were pointed out.
Not unusually, in place of the larger social sense, local pride as such furnished the point of departure in the proclamation of an enterpriser to his fellow-citizens. It is to be feared that sometimes this was made the means of demegoguery, the appeal to local spirit being linked with a disparagement of Northern assistance merely for effect. Instances of this will appear when the attitude toward outside capital is considered.
The case of Mr. Winn's scheme for Sumter illustrates the personal appeal to local pride. It is to be noticed that he reduced everything to an individual and immediate basis. He spoke through the paper of the town, the Sumter Southron:[195] "I am now engaged in getting up a mill of 2,500 spindles at this place. I do not expect to seek a dollar of foreign subscription, but I want our own citizens throughout the county to be interested in it and to help me build and operate it." There follows a description of his findings at several nearby mills which he visited. One is inclined to believe that he paraded the facts to impress his audience in a general way, rather than to appeal to strict business sense. He cites the earnings of the mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, owned by the Oates Brothers. With running expenses of $60, "we have the neat little profit of $155 per day". The Sumter mill could save haulage, and use one-third of its cotton not packed, thus saving in bagging and ties. A concluding sentence indicates his frame of mind: "Will a mill pay in Sumter? Why not?"
A statement of the advantages possessed by a mill already in operation as contrasted with those which would contribute to the success of a proposed mill was a favorite method of argument. Thus the Kershaw Gazette said: "Let us realize that what is good for Charleston in this respect is better for us. (Reference was had to the Charleston Manufacturing Company.) She has to use steam as a motive power, which, in the form of coal, has to be brought long distances and at great cost. We have but to harness the magnificent water-powers which are slipping idly by us, and the thing is done. In Charleston, it is the investment of capital on hand, seeking profitable employment. With us, it will be the creation of capital itself; for we venture the assertion that one hundred thousand dollars invested in a cotton factory at Camden would develop interests to more than double that amount." The saving of three-fourths of a cent per pound in the freight between Camden and Charleston would in itself bring a fair dividend upon the capital invested, it was said. "And yet Charleston expects to, and will, make money by what she is about to do. Let the people of Camden and of Kershaw County be up and doing in this matter."[196]