AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 183 Very few people know anything about it, as very few people who do not live in the cotton sections know anything about cotton. As it happens, in Kentucky-—both of these gentlemen are from there—the Burley tobacco is raised more or less in the blue-grass region, and it is largely domestically consumed, as Mr. Kehoe will explain to you. While in the western part of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the southern part of Indiana is the dark-tobacco section. That tobacco is most of it fired, taken from the field to the barn, and 80 per cent I suspect is consumed in other countries. Mr. Apkixs. What do you mean by ‘fired’? Mr. KiNncHELOE. They bring it out of the field on the stick and hang it up in the barn and a fire built under it. We had cooperative tobacco organizations in Kentucky and Mr. Kehoe had been vice president of the Burley pool for a long time, and that organization has gone to the bad. The Dark Tobacco Association, of which Mr. Morgan is the president, has also gone to the bad. But I want to say that Mr. Kehoe in his line and Mr. Morgan in the dark tobacco line are experts, and will be able to give this com- mittee any information they want, and I presume the first to speak is Mr. Kehoe. STATEMENT OF HON. J. N. KEHOE, REPRESENTING BURLEY BURLEY TOBACCO GROWERS COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, MAYSVILLE. KY. Mr. Kesoe. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I suppose following the custom, and for qualification, I should state my connection with the subject under discussion. My name is J. N. Kehoe, Maysville, Ky. My interests, my alliances, and my sympathies are all with agri- culture. My parents and my grandparents were farmers; my wife is a farmer. I was born and raised and have spent all my life in an agricultural community. During the past five years I have given the most of my time to the organization and management of cooperative organizations, chief among which was the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Associ- ation of Kentucky, operating in West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri. We succeeded in signing into that association about 112,000 members, their contract running for five years. During our operations in the five years we handled over a billion pounds of tobacco and over $200,000,000 in money, and in- creased the value of the product, by its orderly marketing, to all the producers, over a hundred million dollars. For the same period, throughout the life of the operations, there was no scandal connected with our organization of any kind. There was no complaint about its mismanagement or extravagance. It was economical and it kept clear, plain records and established as good a credit as any business organization in the United States. But while it did not fail, it can no further function, because it could not and can not, and no cooperative organization can, without the enactment of such legislation as is proposed by this McNary- Haugen bill. Any other character of legislation, any other character of organization, according to my experience, observation, and belief will fail, as we have failed, to continue to function. We did not fail; as far as we went, it was all satisfactory. I have read and I have