The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-27
LETTERS TO EDITOR
John A. Rogers on Cotton Crop


 To the Editor of The Age-Herald.
 The cotton crop of 1911 is the largest ever grown in the United States of America.
 We have made more cotton than we can sell at price that pays us to make it. If this large crop is followed by an other big one, one even 2,oo0,ooo bales less than the present, the price of cotton will not only not go up, but will go down.
 Let us look this face squarely in the face.
 The cotton grower in the southern states of America is the only enemy whom this cotton grower need fear. for he is the only enemy who can do him any permanent injury.
 The cotton grown outside of the United States is neither enough nor of the right sort to do him any real harm This cot ton does not seriously compete with the southern farmers cotton
 The southern farmer then having a nat ural monopoly of his staple crop is the sole master of his fate. It is childish tc blame the spinner for buying cotton just as cheaply as we will sell it to him. We ourselves do not refuse to buy what we need because the price is too cheap.
 It is waste of time, besides being very foolish to condemn tse bear speculator for putting down the price of cotton while we at the same time continue to give him the weapon with which to do it.
 The spinner and the bear speculator love us just as much as we love them; no more, no less; they take advantage of us when they can and laugh at us for cutting up about it, seeing that we give them this advantage and then help them to keep it.
 We would take advantage of them if we could, and we can if we will. There is only one way to do this, make less cot ton and at the same time perfect a judicious system of selling cotton after we have made it. We not only complete with each other in making cot ton; having made it we fairly fall over each other in a wild scramble to sell it before the price goes any lower.
 Under these conditions can we look for anything but continually falling mar ket? When cotton went below Pc a pound, it rell below the price where there is a profit in it to the man who makes it.
 If this be true because as our critics claim we spend too much money on out siders in making it. I ask what is to be- come of those who make the articles which the cotton grower buys, and of the labor which the cotton grower hires?
 Labor used in making cotton is not too high, it is too low, as every man knows who ever followed a mule up and down a cotton row in July and August, and as every woman and eevry child will tes- tify who bend their backs under a Sep tember sun. and who get their fingers frost bitten by winters cold while picking cotton.
 The plane of living in the ranks of all who work should be raised not lowered. for certainly they have as many hardships and should be entitled to as much of the good things of life as other classes of eft izens. We ought really to live better
 than we do, give our children better clothes more of the comforts and pleas ures of life fuller educational advan- tages Fellow farmers, we can do all this, without grinding down those who look to us for living wage. It is up to us, and to us alone to better not only our own condition. but also to better the condition of those who work with and for us.
 We appreciate the sympathy of our gov ernors, the offer of our bankers, to lend uS cheap money the efforts of our agri- cultural commissioners. in our behalf, and the speeches of our politicians ripping up the bears, but unless Nl get together to protect ourselves not so much from out siders as from each other. the road tc ruin lies straight ahead. Let us organize our counties by beats, our states by coun- ties, inviting the counsel and cooperation of every man who sympathizes with ,is and out of this organization there will come a way, not to hurt anybody, but tc help ourselves and those depending upon I us to greater prosperity and to more happiness tlian any agricultural people have heretofore. ever known Sincerely yours, JOHN A. ROGERS.
 Gainesville. December 25.