AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
271 
Now, Doctor Aswell has suggested that perhaps I do not repre- 
sent very much. I have never claimed to represent more than cotton 
farmers that are in the cooperatives. I do not claim to represent 
them fully. Some of them are, like him, not for this bill; on the 
other hand, a great many on the outside are for this bill, and it is 
only the organized groups of people, you gentlemen know, that can 
have representation, except as they might write you individual 
letters and farmers are not much given to this. 
Bo I represent the only group of organized cotton farmers there is 
in the cotton-producing States. I do not ask you gentlemen to 
attach any more weight or importance to that than it really deserves. 
But I want to say this to you: In the two years that this legislation 
has been discussed in the South—the cotton group only came into 
it two years ago—that it has become pretty generally known. There 
has been a great deal in the press—general press and the agricultural 
press—about this measure. There is scarcely an issue of our agri- 
cultural papers that does not carry something about this. 1 
happen to be a director in a farm paper with 500,000 circulation, that 
circulates in the cotton territory from Virginia through to Texas— 
the Progressive Farmer. I contribute now and then to that paper, 
and I have had a number of contributions in the paper on this subject. 
I have not had so many letters from farmers approving it, but I 
have had none disapproving it. In the talks I have made I have not 
had so many word-of-mouth approvals of the measure, but I have 
had practically none disapproving it. 
Now, just before the holidays, in fact, as a holiday message, I sent 
out this statement, and it went in the State organs of practically 
all of the cotton cooperatives throughout the South, as a holiday 
message. 1 want permission to read this, Mr. Chairman, along the 
line of developing the thought that this matter is better understood 
than many would want to admit, among the farmers of the country, 
and it has far greater support now than it has ever had. [Reading.] 
Ture NEED FOR FEDERAL FARM RELIEF LEGISLATION AND ITs PURPOSE 
There is greater need to-day than there has ever been for farm surplus control, 
or Federal farm relief legislation, as it is commonly called. While farm condi- 
tions in the cotton growing States are better this year with a smaller crop and 
better prices than they were last year with a large crop and low prices, the loss 
on last vear's big crop will not be evened up, much less overcome by the larger 
returns from the smaller crop of this year. The Department of Agriculture in 
Washington is authority for the statement that the 18,000,000 bale cotton crop 
of 1926 brought the cotton farmers 505,000,000 less than the 16,000,000 hale 
crop of 1925. The 1925 crop averaged the grower about 18 cents, which is 
around the average cost of average production throughout the territory, accord- 
ing to Government estimates. The 16,000,000 bale cotton crop of 1925, there- 
fore, brought the producers just about the cost of production, and the $505.000,000 
less obtained for the 18,000,000 bale crop of 1926 was loss, and came out of the 
invested and operating capital of the farmer. 
The Department of Agriculture on December 1, 1927, estimated that the 
13,000,000 bale cotton crop of 1927 would bring the growers $330,000,000 more 
than the 18,000,000 bale crop of 1926. It is, therefore, easy to see that the 
tremendous loss on the 1926 cotton crop can not be overcome bv the better 
prices for the 1927 crop. 
There have been like swings in prices disastrous to the producers in other 
vears of surplus production of cotton and other crops, ‘and until there is some 
national legislation giving the farmer the necessary maclinery for handling these 
temporary surpluses as they occur, disaster will continue to come to the farmers 
of the country in the future as it has in the past in consequence of these 
surpluses. It is generally agreed that overproduction or erop surpluses of our 
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