154

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
the subject of farm legislation, I will withdraw my motion at this
time and will renew it on Tuesday, February 21, in an effort to fix
a definite date for closing of the hearings.

The CualRMAN. We will hear Mr. Caverno.
STATEMENT OF XENOPHON CAVERNO, REPRESENTING THE
MISSOURI COTTON GROWERS’ COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION
Mr. CaveErNo. My name is Xenophon Caverno. I live on a farm
in southeast Missouri, in that narrow belt where cotton, corn, wheat,
and livestock overlap.

Before telling you the organizations that I represent, I want to tell
you, before Doctor Aswell asks me, that I represent nobody except
myself.

Mr. AswerL. I am glad that you said that.

Mr. Caverno. Now, having told you that, I will give you my
high-sounding titles. I am president of the Missouri Cotton Growers’
Cooperative Association. 1 have all the honors of a president with-
out any of the emoluments.

Our cotton counties in Missouri border on Arkansas and we market
through the Arkansas Association.

Mr. AsweLL. How much cotton do you grow in a year?

Mr. Caverno. How much do I grow?

Mr. AsweLL. How much is grown in that area?

Mr. CaveErNo. Gentlemen, I want to answer the questions that 1
can answer best. The doctor has in his office the statistics of every
cotton county in the United States. I do not carry around figures in
my head. It will not do much good to ask me about figures.

I want to answer those questions or bring up those things which
out of my experience may be of some benefit to you. As a president
of the Missouri Cotton Growers’ Cooperative Association I am also
a member of the executive committee of the American Cotton
Growers’ Exchange, and for five years I have sat there with a busi-
ness man’s training and a farmer’s experience and watched those
men struggle to meet the situation with which they are confronted.

I have every reason for favoring coopera tive marketing or the
efforts of my colleagues in that venture. I have sat there with a
critical mind, as critical as you men would have, and I would hate
to read to you some of the things that I have in my files at home,
or some which I have in this brief case. I am afraid they would be
misused in regard to my opinions on the success or failure of coop-
erative marketing. But I want to tell you that no man can be more
critical of them than I have been, and I have had no responsibility ;
they have carried the burden and I have had none. I have not had
to make good to anybody. I have just been in a position to criticize
and I have been as critical as you men would be.

I was appointed a member of the executive committee of the North
Central States agricultural conference at Des Moines. of which Mr.
George Peek was chairman.

So that I have had the contacts with all the cotton associations
and practically all of the corn associations. Now, with that high-
sounding set of titles, I want to tell you. that. {represent nobedy:but
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