AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

153

what the situation was. ‘‘We have proper financing facilities ade-
quate to the handling of the entire supply of low grade Delta staples.
There will be no panic in the carrying of this cotton.” That was
aot a threat, not even implied. That was a mere statement of a
fact. You could say this same thing if you had this legislation in
effect. The world would know. The world would be definitely
advised. There would be no panic, just as we advised the mill trade
there would be no panic.

“The Association’s program of stabilization contemplates the use
of funds to the extent of $10,000,000 or more if necessary, by way of
financing the growers to meet their immediate needs, thus rendering
unnecessary the sacrifice of their cotton.”

We have again the essence of the whole proposition obtained in that
statement right there. What have you got? The avoidance of the
necessity of sacrificing their cotton to meet their immediate needs.

I want to say in any board you set up, I don’t care what the board,
if it 1s going to handle a commodity which is essential to the ordinary
life of the American people, whether it is clothing or whether it is
food, or no matter what 1t is, unless that board considers both sides
to it, unless they consider the consumer and the people who buy and
who manufacture, as well as those who produce, and put them on a
parity, and try to establish a fair situation between them, that board
is going to fall of its duty, and your proposition or enterprise is going
to fail of success.

For that reason I say I am willing to let the future take care of
itself, when it comes to this proposition, because we can not hope to
get by certain fundamental facts, you can not get more for a com-
modity than it is worth in the long run, anymore than vou can make
she Mississippi run up stream.

‘While we are carrying this cotton for the producer,”—and that
has always been our policy. If I were a member of this board, the
first thing I would do would be to visit the executive committee of
the cotton millers in Boston and have them work with us instead of
against us—‘‘we are also carrying it for the mills until such time as
they are prepared to use it.” That is the whole proposition. If you
carry it for one, you are bound to carry it for the other because vou
create a reserve on which they can draw.

We had no trade secrets about it. We told them what we had,
and told them we would extend facility in every possible way to help
his difficult situation, and*that is all I want to do with this thing.

Now, then, we went ahead under that proposition. We made this
offer to the growers of the delta. We absorbed 100,000 bales as a
result of it. That was in December, 1925. We set up in our account-
ing that cotton separately from the other cotton in 1926. We did
not hoard it. We never hoard anything. We carry right here in
our pages of this little Staple Cotton Review, which is the official
organ of our association, which I edit. It is a joke with Mr. Bledsoe
and some of the other members that I don’t get it out promptly;
sometimes I get out one in three months and sometimes three in one
month, but I always get out 12 in a vear.
This association does not sell its cotton in aliquot parts, nor monthly, nor by
any other division of the calendar. Nor do we ever withdraw from the market.
We operate an open shop, to which the cotton trade of the world may come with
confidence, at all times and under all circumstances—not for bargains, but for
Service.