The following resume of bills introduced in the United States Congress during the 1926 crisis shows the varying viewpoints as to what is the matter with cotton, and the remedies that should be adopted: 1. A bill introduced by Representative Marvin Jones of Texas would limit the reporting and forecasting state ment of the Bureau of Crop Estimates and Bureau of the Census. The South, it was explained, is turning against the methods of crop reporting, and is growing tired of the government's "arbitrary meddling with cotton grow ing and cotton prices." 2. Senator Tom Heflin of Alabama introduced a bill to make every bid and offer on cotton available to every body on equal terms. This bill embodies the opinion cur rent among many southern farmers that underhand methods of Wall Street and trading in futures are some how responsible for the fall in cotton prices.
3. Another bill introduced by Senator Heflin would provide for a new census of cotton acreage planted in 1926 before the Bureau could proceed with the new esti mates.
4. Senator Mayfield of Texas proposed making sur veys of grades and staple lengths of stock carried over in warehouses.
5. Senator Cameron of Arizona introduced a bill to pay ten cents a pound bounty to the grower of all cotton of inch staple—the kind grown in Arizona. This proposal represents the bonus idea in its frankest form.
6. A bill introduced by Representative William C. Lankford of Georgia proposed to set up government corporations to buy all cotton offered at less than 22 cents and hold until salable at 24 cents.
7. Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi proposed that the Federal Farm Loan Board set up twelve Federal Intermediate Credit Banks to lend to cooperatives on farm products.
8. Representative Tom Connelly of Texas urged that $50,000 be appropriated for research to discover new uses for cotton in industry." On October 13 a cotton convention, participated in by the governors of fourteen cotton growing states was held at Memphis, Tennessee. In the call for the conven tion, issued to all the governors of the cotton states, Governor H. L. Whitfield of Mississippi said in part : The rapid decline of the price of cotton within the last few weeks has brought the price of cotton below the cost of production. Within this time the cotton states of the South have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. . . .
For the South as a whole, the cotton crop is the basis of all other business, and the depression resulting from this rapid lowering of price is already becoming manifest in all forms of business. . . .
Experience has demonstrated that it is only a time of great necessity that causes the people to quit the old systems of business and adopt new methods. In other words, necessity is
the great spur to change. All sensible men realize that such a situation exists today and probably the psychological situ ation is such that our people can be brought together on some general plan for the proper handling and marketing of our great staple crop. For a hundred years the South has been producing cotton and during this period there has been no systematic general method for marketing this crop on which the welfare and prosperity of the South rest.
The time has come when the business interests of the South, not only for the protection of the farmer but the welfare of the general business of the South must, through organized effort, come to the realization of the situation as Governor Whitfield closed by suggesting five items for discussion: 1. Formation of pools in every state to take off the market a sufficient number of bales to equalize supply and demand.
2. Definite steps to reduce cotton acreage proportionately throughout the Cotton Belt.
3. Utilization of governmental and cooperative growers' agencies toward these ends.
4. Development of new attitudes in southern business to ward the marketing of cotton.
5. Suggestion of other plans.
At the meeting of the convention a campaign was launched to reduce acreage and to form cotton-holding pools. The latter met with more success. Credit organi zations were arranged to assist those who wished to hold their cotton off a ten-cent market. A voluntary pool, financed by bankers and merchants, was proposed to take four million bales off the market and hold it for two years if necessary. The effect on the stock exchange was apparent the next day when the price rose half a cent.
In acreage restriction the convention was unable to do more than pay the customary lip service to diversifi cation. It was virtually admitted that no hope existed in a voluntary acreage restriction campaign. One view is that the more successful a program of sign-ups to reduce cotton planting appears, the more likely it is that farm ers will break their pledges. Another group holds that such reduction campaigns if successful are only tem porary and serve in the long run to increase fluctuations. They follow the reasoning previously presented, that suc cessful acreage reduction is accelerated by weather con ditions to reduce production in greater proportion, and this so raises the price of cotton that next year all caution in regard to planting is thrown to the winds. Both views point to one conclusion—the futility of at tempts at acreage reduction, as heretofore practised, to stabilize prices.