The influence of the commission house on the Southern cotton mill is a subject of the deepest interest, and this might be drawn out in some detail under a discussion of the marketing of the product of the mills. Whether the commission houses' participation, as marketing agents, or as stockholders with a voice in the affairs of the company, was on the whole helpful or detrimental is of concern where only incidentally as pertaining to those involved in the launching of the enterprises. For the present purpose, that the commission merchant was an investor is enough, except only for the consideration as to whether it were wise to invite his connection in the first place.
One practical-minded man declared that the mills could not have existed without the commission houses, be their influence good or bad, and dismissed the matter with this.[296]
A mill president grown old in the business in North Carolina said that the Southern mills could not have gotten along at all without the commission houses at first; that not only in their establishment, but in selling their product, they needed an influential agent.[297] After explaining that Northern commission houses had supplied much of the capital for the developing of the cotton manufacturing in his region, another mill president, and one who has had experience of every phase of the mills' growth, said: "Their influence (that of the commission houses) was good; you ought to praise always the bridge that carried you over."[298]
The editor of one of the chief textile periodicals in North Carolina said that there were cases where the commission houses hurt the profits of the mills, but they did start the mills.[299] Another North Carolinian, of conservative turn of mind and much practical knowledge, gave a parallel statement, that even as a general rule the commission houses formerly had a baleful influence, though this is no longer the case; that they have had the effect of promoting the development of mills in the South.[300]
A mill treasurer in what is perhaps the most progressive and ambitious spinning district of the South, gave it as his belief that as a whole, while there are commission houses and commission houses, their influence on the Southern textile industry had been bad. Asked whether there were not many Southern mills that would not have come into existence but for the aid of the commission houses, he answered yes, but that such mills were built as feeders for a commission house and not to earn money for the local stockholders.[301]