476

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. Apkins. How about the little fellow getting skinned. Ihave a
lot of them in my country, and I am kind of interested in him. This
bill without a fee——

Mr. CaveErNo. Are you talking about corn or about cotton?

Mr. Apkins. It does not make any difference.

Mr. Caverno. It does to me. I want to explain that corn
proposition. }

Mr. Apxins. Well, take cotton or corn either way. This board
will go to operating on a commodity when the price is too low; it
will not operate unless it is. If you are going to depend on getting
merchandise to maintain this business you have got to buy and sell
at a profit. You proceed to operate when the little fellow has to
sell, when the price is low, do you not; and if this theory of taking
this off the market does raise the price, when you dispose of this and
sell it at this higher price it has been stabilized, too? Who has been
skinned? The fellow who has to sell, is it not? And that is the only
way you can operate.

Mr. AsweLL. Let me say one mere thing, and I will quit. This
bill, if you will analyze it, proposes a minimum price for cotton.
[ gave the example of 20 cents as the minimum price. We are going
to hold it and keep buying as long as it is below 20, and when it gets
to 20 we are going to sell. But the minimum price will be 20 cents.

Mr. CaverNo. That is absolutely ignoring the law of supply and
demand. I never thought, gentlemen, I would be in a position
where I would have to get up and defend the law of supply and
demand. I have seen people bow down and kow-tow on this, but
I want to say I can not let it go without some consideration. I was
amazed at Mr. Yoakum ignoring the law of supply and demand.
I am too hidebound on the law of supply and demand to admit as
arbitrary a price-fixing scheme as you have got.

Mr. KincaeLoe. How do you mean Mr. Yoakum ignored the law
of supply and demand?

Mr. AsweLL. I would like to know that myself.

Mr. CavierNo. Because he said if they had 80 per cent of a crop
they could fix the price.

Mr. KincHELOE. They can absolutely fix it. There is not a co-
operative in America, if national in scope, which controlled 80 per
cent of the crop, which could not only fix the price, but they would
not need Congress or anybody else to help them do it. But the
cooperatives have all failed because they have not had enough of
the crop to give them control, and because it is local in scope and
not national, as Mr. Yoakum has said.

Mr. CaverNo. Those tobacco cooperatives are local.

Mr. KiNncHELOE. Is not that cooperative local?

Mr. CavErNo. I mean in Burley tobacco one locality dominates
the crop. It is not raised in any great quantities anywhere else.

Mr. KiNncHELOE. Listen. What you are talking about was not what
Mr, Yoakum was talking about. Mr. Yoakum said that if you could

ave a national cooperative association that had 80 per cent of the
basic commodity in it—he named 14 of them—that you could abso-
lutely control the price, and you can.

Sh. Caverno. Ido not think so; because if you get it up to a point
where people would refuse to use at the high price, then you would
have a surplus which would fall back on your hinds,