San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-12-07
R0DDY'S PLAN FOR DISPENSING
WITH THE SPECTATORS.
HE WOULD HAVE THE COTTON
PRODUCERS FORM THEIR OWN
COOPERATIVE COMBINE TO
CONTROL PRICES.
He Thinks the Great Bulk of
Agents Gould Be Dispensed
With and the Farmers
Divide the Profits of
These Middlemeu.

New YORK, Dec. IA special to d
morning paper from YorkviIle, s. c. says:
The farmers of York county are at high
pitch Of excitement over a scheme OF
John T. ROddy, a New York cotton
broker, to organize the cotton products of
the south into a gigantic trust Mr..
Roddy is a native of this county, but for
the last few years has been doing business
in New York. During the last ten days
he has been here preaching the practical
bility of his schemes to his old acquaint-
ances and former associates and has sue
ceeded i'm working up wonderful degree
of enthusiasm. In an interview he said:
1.-The price of cotton is now controlled al
most absolutely by the professional spec
ulators at Liverpool, New York and New
Orleans. The SPECTATORS haOdle hun
dreds of millions OF bales oil cotton an
nualIy. Their transactions in imaginary
cotton are so vast as to make the trans
actions in real cotton OF secondary I'M
portance. They have succeed in suspend
ing the laws OF supply and demand. The
DurchaSe and rate of hundreds OF millions
of bales of imaginary cotton tend to Tx
the prices of the 100000 or 9,OOOO0O bales
of actual cotton a. mere incident, ana
the result is tremendous disadvantage
10 the men VINO actually plOuuSt IlO COl-
ton. "By proper organization the pro-
ducerS of cotton can to great extent put
a stop to speculation, restore the opera
tion of the law of supply and demand and
themselves realize most OF the rich prOhtS
that are sucked out of the raw material
on its way to the manufacturers. And
the problem Of organization is not so dith .
cult as those who have not considered the
matter might suppose. Throughout the
south there are already enough ware
houses to store the entire crop. These
warehouses were built with profits made
out of cotton and are sustained by such
profits. There are six times as many local
buyers as are necessary to handle the
crop and all get fairly good incomes. AS
we can scoop in all the private
warehouses for certificates of stock and
also dispense with tive-sixths OF
the local buyers. This will enable US 10
use the warehouses on the basis of fair
rate of interest, and to save the farmers
the amount now paid to the support OF
superfluouS local buyers. With large
per cent. of the cotton croo absolutely I'M
der one management and control, we can
let cotton on the market only as 1t is
needed and IL necessary hold back one
fourth or one fifth of the crop altogether.
In case the mills should try to freeze us
out there would be constantly increasing
Qemd0u lOT COUGOu ROOuS~ "hiSn "Ouio
advance the price. The price Of cotton
would follow. Cotton is always good Sc
curity, and when stored in our ware
houses we could borrow for its owners
enough money to enable them to keep 60
ing until the mills would be willing to pay
the price asked. Even if we should re-
ceive no benefits from any other
source we could certainly experience a
rise in price on account of the elimination
OF cotton buyers and the thousands Of
other middle men and the rise in price
would more than pay all the expenses of
organization. 81 have received more than
1000 letters from prominent cotton pro-
ducers in different sections Of the south
ern states and with one accord they
promise me their hearty support. Start
the ball, they say, and we are with you"
This county has a population OF 5000
and produces annually 10000 bales OF cot
ton. The cotton producers have simply
gone wild over ROddy's scheme. They
are holding meetings in every township
and have elected delegates to meeting
to be held in YorkVile next Saturday.