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Opinion
Textiles, tobacco reel
under economic siege
March 29, 2004
South Carolinians who have worked hard in two distinct areas of the state and in two different ways have seen their ability to earn a living either wiped out or greatly reduced.
One, of course, is in textiles. People in Greenwood and other parts of the Lakelands, and indeed the upstate, have seen a good many textile plants closed and thousands of jobs lost. They know all too well the hard times that has caused.
The other is in the tobacco industry. Tobacco historically has been the number one cash crop in South Carolina. In recent years, though, the big tobacco companies have been hit hard by anti-tobacco efforts from every direction.
THAT MEANS, CERTAINLY, that tobacco growers have been hit just as hard, maybe even harder. Their families, the same as those in textiles, have been left wondering what they can expect next and whether anything can or will be done to alleviate the situation.
It hasn’t been only the biggest growers feeling the pinch, either. Every tobacco farmer, small to large, has seen the pressures on his situation increase year after year.
There has been all kinds of talk about what might be done to save textile jobs as well as how to help tobacco farmers cope. As yet, though, there haven’t been any real solutions offered for the problems that have forced working people to sometimes wonder where they’ll get the money for the house payment, or even the next meal.
THESE PROBLEMS, IN both areas, have been building in the minds – and lives – of a lot of people for a lot of years, so blaming government officials and politicians of today is pointing fingers at the wrong people.
Nevertheless, these are the times that register with a lot of people. That, naturally, means that those in office at the moment, whether in Washington or Columbia, get the full impact of public resentment.
That, unfortunately, is the way things work out. Too often the wrong political people get the blame – or credit – for what their predecessors did. That’s true in textiles and it’s true in tobacco.
Editorial expression in this feature represents our own views.
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