152

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
average price was greater through a series of 12 months than it was
during a period of 4 months when 1t was being delivered. Therefore,
we accepted that as a justification for the operation; and since then
we have not missed it a single time in seven years. It comes down
to the question of the concrete application of this matter of carrying
the surplus. In 1925 we had a period of very severe weather in our
section. The American cotton crop for 1925 was 16,104,000 bales
on an acreage of 46,000,000 acres, but long before the size of the crop
was realized bad weather set in, and we had, as a result of that, an
accumulation of over 300,000 bales of low-grade Delta staples, in
the Delta, that for all practical purposes created a surplus right there
in that commodity.

It would not have made any great amount of difference if it had
been only two or three million bales, or even less; you would have
had a surplus there. The directors of the Staple Cotton Association
decided it was up to us to try to meet the situation. We arranged a
line of credit of $10,000,000 with the Federal Intermediate Credit
Bank, with $10,000,000 more if we needed it, and offered to absorb
the entire Delta cotton crop. We made that offer to all the growers
in the Delta, and we agreed to absorb it at a price in excess of the
price which we could get for it at that time. In other words, we
published a statement in which we offered to advance 12 cents a
pound on low middling, and 11 cents, and all the way down to 8
cents on the other grades.

Mr. FuLMER. The actual price——

Mr. Stone. Was about 7 cents in the open market on all the
cotton taken in under that operation, the average. The actual price
advanced was about 8.65. In other words, we advanced about a
cent and a half more than the averages indicated at that time.

Here is what we did: We did in that instance exactly what this
board can do if confronted with a similar problem. We did not sit
down and fix a price on this and say, “ We are not going to sell it for
Cy than that, What we did was to make a full page statement in

e new Bedford Standard, which goes to all the cotton mills in
America. We told them frankly what we were trying to do. We
asked their cooperation. In other words, we told the cotton world
this; the proper handling and marketing of this surplus is a problem,
in the solution of which the mills are scarcely less concerned than is
the grower. Get that. That is fundamental to your whole proposi-

on 1 don’t ens eles it is corn, cotton, wheat, or anything else.

Mr STONE Th 1g . as x you to repeat that statement?

i EN eu \c proper Arnaling and marketing of this cotton,
are scarcely less o he 5 pro em, in the solution of which the mills
this io te cerned than 1s the grower. It must pass, and

1s true of all these commodities, it must pass from the producer
to the consumer through the channel of irresponsible s Sul tion
*ad manipulation at erratic and uncertain prices dictated by distress

n the one hand and cupidity on the other, or it must pass by a
route of orderly marketing at prices absolutel if he tr
as well as absolutely fair. v uniform to the trade,

rr Mp aems, A splendid statement.

Nr. STONE. at w i
N ew Bedford Standard, hale to Seale, the rough, We

ave proper financing facilities.” In other words we told them just