The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 6, 1918, Page 15

good _shape as it was 10 years ago. - And: farmers®are still losing: their - two_organizations make up a report . !iable southern journal among several thousand of its farmer readers indicated that the average rate of interest paid on these credits was 70 per cent. The credit merchants are financed in turn by “cotton factors.” The credit merchant enters into a contract with the factor by which he promises to deliver so much cotton. He is penalized a stated amount a bale for every bale that he fails to de- liver. The connections of the cotton factors extend to the big southern banking houses and these, in turn, to Wall street, New York. THE SAMPLING GRAFT AND ITS RESULTS The result is that as soon as the cotton is picked pressure begins upon the farmers to sell their cotton. Wall street and the big southern banks insist upon it, the cotton factors urge the credit merchants to ship cotton and the credit merchants force it out of the farmers’ hands. The way cotton is left to lie on the ground in big open yards, strikes any visitor to Texas as an example to wastefulness. As a matter of fact, this system is wasteful but it is encouraged by the big interests that control the cotton game. It plays into their hands. First there must be explained another graft upon the farmer in this connection. Every bale that you see'in a cotton yard has a slit in it, generally about half-way down the side. This slit is made by the buyer, or the prospective buyer, in grading. He cuts open the slit, pulls out a wad of cotton from the center of the bale and looks it over to see its condition. And then, does he throw it away or put_ it back in the bale? Oh, no. It goes to the buyer, is put to one side and is accumulated till it be- comes a tidy little pile. And so does every one else take a ‘“sample” of the farmer’s bale, until it goes to the compress. The compress presses the bale into a more handy package for shipment. At the compress shoddy and bagging, worth 2 or 3 cents a pound, is used to fill up the slit from which cotton, worth from 10 to 31 cents a pound, has been taken. The average losses of cotton by this “sampling” run around an average of six to seven pounds per 500-pound bale. The writer met one farmer, how- ever, who had kept accurate account and had found that his losses in one season, during which time ke handled 3,340 bales, averaged 11 pounds a bale. COTTON WAREHOUSES ARE NEEDED TO PROTECT FARMERS But the loss to the farmer in thefts of his cot- ton in this manner are not his most serious losses. The bales, in damp weather, often start to decay. around the spot where the sample has been taken. A little moisture will serve to start this “cancer” and it will spread if not cared for, until the whole bale is affected. Because nearly all the southern cot- ton is sampled in .this manner and then is left to stand in cotton yards in the open, banks will not lend money on it. They say there is too much chance for loss by deterioration. The only way the farmer can get money on his cotton, so that he can afford to hold it for a better market, is to have it stored in a warehouse. That is the reason the Farmers’ union, in 1905, 1906 and 1907, started its big movement for building warehouses. About 200 were constructed at this time.” Then the panic of 1907 came, the cotton holding movement collapsed and the Farmers’ union with it. The Farmers’ union is still alive and working hard in Texas -but the warehouse movement is not in such profits by thefts from their bales by. sampling and by deterioration from - standing in open cotton yards and by rot from slits in the bales. Possibly some of the Texas farm- ers think that losses on deterioration of cotton do not fall on their own shoulders, since much of the loss oc- curs after they have sold their bales. But those who have informed them- selves on the subject -have :learned these facts: There are two great organizations of cotton spinners—one, the American Spinners’ association and the ' other the Master Spinners of the World. The two bodies are affiliated, the American bodYy reporting to the infer- - national association, Every year these on the condition of ‘all cottonthat carried All the American farmer needs is the facts about ‘the unfairness of having to sell at the other man’s price. Then he will organize to meet the organiza- tion of the middlemen on equal terms. What happens to the cotton planter is just what happens to producers of crops in every state in the Union. This is the first of two articles on the cotton situation in the South. The second ar- * ticle, taking up the by-products of cot- ton, will appear in a succeeding issue of the Leader. they have bought, as it comes into the hands of their members. Their loss due to deterioration is calculated closely and is pro-rated back to the district from which the cotton originated, WITH INTEREST. It is charged to the cotton from that district for the next year. IS THERE A REMEDY? FARMERS THINK SO The result is that when cotton is bought the next year, the cotton factors deduct from the price they are willing to pay to the farmer, sufficient to make up for any losses he has been assessed by the spinners, and the farmers, not at fault in most instances, are made to pay for all losses along the line. Is there a remedy for this condition? There are plenty of Texas farmers who think so. They are affiliating themselves with the .National Nonpar- tisan league. rural credit banks to provide farmers with cheaper money, provide for a system of state-ownad and operated cotton warehouses, gins and compresses. THEIR HOPE IN NONPARTISAN LEAGUE With state-owned warehouses cotton growers will be able to borrow money on their cotton and hold it for an advantageous turn of the market. With state-owned gins, it is believed that samples of cotton can be taken at the gin, where the cotton and seed are separated, and thus the necessity of cutting the bale open and the thefts and decay that result from this system will be obviated. State- _ owned and operated compresses will cut out another graft between the producer and the consumer. Because the Nonpartisan league has come for- £ Inventors in the South have been busy in recent years trying to devise some more efficient means of harvesting cotton than the hand-picking process. This shows one of the machines, brought out as a result of their labor. The cotton is caught by tiny hooks on this machine and then is taken from the hooks and by a series of rollers and belts into the containers, . . * PAGE FIFTEEN They are doing this because the . League program in Texas, besides calling for state’ ward with a substantial and workable remedy for the ills suffered by the Texas cotton grower, thousands are flocking to the League standard in the Lone Star state. Raised Food but Couldn’t Ship It Colorado Growers Learn That Production Is No More Important Than Ability to Get a F?.ir Market g]ILL W. COX of Delta, Col., states that thousands of sacks of potatoes and onions are rotting in that territory. The farmers had tried to sell them at {| any price. Some managed to dispose of first-class onions at 15 cents a hun- dred (in 171j-cent sacks). Thousands of sacks of onions were hauled out and dumped on river banks. He calls attention to the fact that eastern papers state that the western slope farmers held this stuff and refused to ship. He can get dozens of affidavits that men who ordered cars were unable to get them. Some say that they were told by commission men that they would secure them cars for $56 or $10 each. He writes: “A few days ago I stopped at the home of V. E. Marsh on California Mesa and found him and five children in the cave sorting out and re- sacking potatoes which he was going to sell to the government buyer. I learned that the govern- ment had agreed to buy about 35 carloads of spuds at 60 cents a hundred pounds, providing they were re-sorted to eliminate dry rot. Mr. Marsh had about 1,000 sacks of potatoes on hand and had kept the children out of school to assist in sorting s0 as to get them ready for the government buyer. “I realized that 60 cents a hundred would not begin to pay him for the labor and expense of rais- ing them, but complimented him upon the fact that he was at last getting something out of them, after having been unable to secure cars at the proper time, but he explained it like this: He is a renter and gives one-half the cash received for any crop to the landowner, hence he will receive but 80 cents per hundred. The sacks to ship spuds in cost him 17% cents each, and it will cost about 10 cents to deliver 'them to the car. That leaves him a margin of 2% cents of purchase price paid for the time of himself and children in sorting and preparing for market, all this coming at a time that he is badly needed in the field. Naturally he would have been better off if he would but dump them all out to rot for fertilizer. How- ever, he was too patriotic to let food- stuffs waste at a time like this, and prepared them for market at this sacrifice of time. “Thousands of sacks of onions were hauled to Delta and stored last fall to be close to the shipping point when sold, but as cars were not available during the winter, and the market price now is too low to pay for ship- ping, the majority of these stored onions have recently been hauled to the river bed and dumped—hundreds of sacks in a place—to let the spring high water carry them away. This in addition to the piles of from 100 to 500 sacks that can be found dumped in out-of-the-way places all over the country. Some few are now planting these sprouted onions to raise seed from them to help hold down these losses.” Here is a statement from a grower at Delta: the local commission houses; they claimed they could not get ears to ship in. Along in the early spring the last of February, I applied to the D. & R. G. railroad for a car to ship some of them myself, but was told that none was available. A few days later, Marion Class (who was ill at the time) "asked me to place an order for a car for him. This I did. After waiting about two weeks and not being told a car was there, we went down to in- had never put the order on: record. sold a car of onions and petatoes for a good price at.that time, but, failing “to get a car, we lost the crop entirely. ~ “I will give full information regard-~ ing the above to any investigator. - : “W. 0. BROWN.” “I was not able to sell any, of my 1917 crop of onions™ and potatoes to- !vestigate and found out that the agent . “Mr. Class and myself could have ST CT CT W B e O WS R R T