In 1898-99 cotton was selling at and around 4¾ cents in New Orleans, and at still lower figures at interior points—a price showing on its face the staple was selling below the cost of production. The condition was abnormal. Mr. Brown saw it, and realized it could not long endure. Looking backward, he had the wisdom to perceive that for several years preceding the production of cotton had not kept pace with the consumption; that consumption was limited, not by the acreage, which, under favorable circumstances, could be planted, but by the labor that could be commanded to till the fields and gather the crop. He saw that the prosperity of the country, the world over, was drawing laborers from the cotton fields to furnish them more remunerative employment in industrial pursuits and enterprises, where the profits on manufactured products, and in their transportation and distribution, enabled capital to pay bigger wages than could be earned on the farm. As “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera” of old, so the sun and the seasons, and the prosperity of the country, producing a scarcity of labor for farm work, fought the bears, causing cotton production to lag while speeding its consumption. The inevitable followed. The demand exceeded the supply, and the natural tendency of prices was upward. Seeing the unusually strong statistical position of cotton, and anticipating the inescapable results that would follow such conditions, if the markets were intelligently watched and artful manipulation to lower prices prevented, Mr. Brown set himself to work legitimately to aid the staple to “corner itself.” The management of the campaign for months was all that could have been expected. The plan was happily conceived, and executed with great courage and skill. Prices advanced until, in January, 1904, it looked as though they would soar to the skies. The effort to punish the Southern operators leading the fight—the men who were reared on cotton plantations and sympathized with the producers, because brought up among them, and who also knew the long suffering entailed by low prices—proved unavailing, until Sully went by the board. The combinations of Wall Street and wealthy Wall Street bears to lower prices and break down the bull leaders so far succeeded, that, about February 1, 1904, Sully was driven to the wall and prices sank so rapidly that plethoric purses in a few seconds were reduced to aching voids. Excitement on the Cotton Exchanges of New York and New Orleans ran to tidal wave proportions. Seeing their fortunes melt like mist before the morning’s sun, men lost their heads and the panic became appalling. It was like Bedlam broken loose. Pandemonium reigned, and there is no telling where the decline would have stopped had it not been for the iron nerve and reckless indifference to the assaults of the enemy on the part of the Napoleonic bull leader. It was seemingly a Waterloo, there is no doubt about that.