AGRICULTURAL MARKETING REVOLVING FUND 35 
any difference whether they lose money or not. Therefore, they can 
sell this cotton if they want to at any price. I am not making the 
‘harge that they are selling it, or will sell it, at any price, but the 
ooint is that this cotton, being held as it is, with the United States 
Treasury back of it, can be pushed on the market at a loss at any 
time. I mean by that on a basis loss. As you see, there are two 
things we have got to face—— 
Mr. Bucaaxan (interposing). Do you not know that if this cotton 
were pushed on the market at a loss the cooperatives would lose any 
margin that they may have in the cotton? 
Mr. HocaN. Yes. 
Mr. BucHanan, You are antagonizing this concern because it has 
;aken cotton away from your concern ? 
Mr. Hocan. No, sir; we are not attacking the cooperatives. We 
1ave never attacked them. 
Mr. Bucuanax. I did not say that you were; but, as a matter of 
fact. there are one and a half millions or two million bales of cotton 
that the cooperatives hold throughout the United States, cotton 
that your concerns have been handling heretofore. Now, I under- 
stood you to say that you have control of 85 per cent of the cotton 
now. 
Mr. Hogan. Yes, sir; if you gentlemen will let me talk— 
Mr. BucHANAN Ral lg Looking at it from my stand- 
point, which is from the producers’ standpoint, because cotton is 
now selling below the cost of production—you admit that. do you 
not ? 
Mr. Hocan. Yes, sir. 
Mr. Bucuaxan. The farmers ought to get at least the cost of 
production, and a little profit on it, and 1t seems to me like in- 
telligent management to get this cotton together in their pools, and 
handle it so that the producers of cotton mav realize some profit 
from it. 
Mr. Hocan. I am making this assertion now, and you may check 
it: Since the merchandising of farmers’ products began under this 
machinery the farmer's products have been marketed without one 
sent of cost to him. 
Mr. Bucuaxan. The Government statistics do not show that. 
They show that there is a vast spread between what the farmer gets 
and what the consumer pavs. Most of that spread has cone to the 
middleman. } 
Mr. Dickinson. There is a great difference between marketing 
:osts and the speculative spread. The speculative spread is where 
these gentlemen come in. 
Mr. Hoan. We do not speculate. You, the United States Gov- 
:rnment, are speculating. We are not speculating. 
Mr. Bucaanax. If it takes speculation to put a farmer on a basis 
vhere he can live, I am willing for him to speculate. 
Mr. Dickinson. If buying futures is not speculating—— 
Mr. Hogan (Interposing). Do not think that the speculator ever 
hurt the farmer. The speculator has helped him. 
Mr. Bucaanan. He has made a poor job of it. 
Mr. Hocan. Is the farmer any worse off than the poor starving 
yoeratives at Gastonia and Fall River?