The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-21

| crate it. The cotton exchanges as oper-
 ated today are very injurious to the cot ton producer in the United States.
 This bill is in the interest of fair play. 1 1t Is for the purpose Of requiring cotton exchanges to perform their rightful and legitimate functions in the cotton world. What is the purpose of the cotton ey
 change, or should be the function of the exchange? It should benefit the producer of cotton. It should help to sell and dis
 tribute the cotton crop. Does it do that
 now? No. MT. Speaker, as conducted
 today 1t utterly fails to do that It deals
 in fictitious stuff called cotton, and
 sells that stuff in unlimited quantities
 and real cotton is injured by these sales,
 because real cotton is not required to
 settle the contracts. They use the word
 cotton" in their contracts, but they do
 not deliver cotton on their contracts.
 They have no cotton. They do not want
 any cotton, for it does not require cotton
 to do the kind of business that they do.
 Mr. Speaker, I characterized once be-
 fore this dealing in cotton as a dummy
 performance.' A gentleman illustrated to
 me what he meant by a dummy saloon.'
 He said They sell whisky on Sunday,
 but in order to sell a drink of whisky
 they must serve a sandwich with each drink. a sandwich composed of two slices of bread with one piece of red meat in
 the middle 1ne bartender ulSCONeTeu
 that instead of having to go to the
 baker and butcher for bread and meat he could have some wooden sandwiches
 painted like brown bread with red
 slice painted like meat in the middle; and
 on Sunday he would put the sandwich
 on the table when a man would order a
 drink. In this way these wooden sand
 wiches were served over and over to
 thousands of mem
 ssThat ic ba, I
 ton exchange. They keep the same old dog tail cotton and serve it with con tracts on which they expect a settlement in money and not in cotton. The man who bought the dummy cotton contract on the exchange did not want the stuff sold him any more than the fellow who bought the whisky wanted the dummy sandwich. They put this exchange cotton l back and serve it to you, and to you and to thousands of others. They settle the difference in dollars and dimes. No cot ton is demanded, and the farmer is out ragged and outlawed by this awful prac- tice The Scripture tells us that if you SOW the wind you will reap the whirl- wind. I wish to say that the cotton ex- change sells the wind and the cotton farmer reaps the whrlwind. (Applause) Mr Speaker, this open and notorious gambling in cotton is the greatest evil that the cotton producers have to con tend with. tApplause.)
 MT Speaker, I was about to say moment ago that the hearings before the committee agriculture disclosed the fact that neither the president of tte New York exchange nor the president of the New orleans exchange knew how many bales of cotton were actually han | dled on these exchanges In single year. We asked these gentlemen, DO you know how many bales of cotton are delivered | on contracts made on your exchanges in 1 one year and they answered that they did not We asked them Do you know what percentage of the contracts made on your exchange in year is fulfilled? l I do not, came the answer from both exchanges. Then MT Beall said. Is there any way to get at that?' I know of no 1 way said MT. Nevill of New York. 'ex- cept showing our books, and I would not do that
 .'So. MT Speaker. the House has some idea now of what kind of a skin game the cotton producer is up against The gentleman from Miss 'ssippi (Mr. Dick son) has shown YOU that the New York exchange in one year. in 1895 or 1896. when they were required to keep a rec ord. received 23.0eo bales sold 9o,00oO00 bales, and had 169.G0O bales left out of a crop of loOoo.00o bales. Daughter and
 applause)
 1T cannot account for that cotton
 miracle except upon the reverse of the
 process employed by the bees in packing
 honey in the bee gum of old man Thorn
 ton in my district. He said. I had a
 five gallon bee gum and we robbed 1t the
 other day and got seven gallons of honey
 and two and a half gallons of honey
 comb Flue Busbee said. Uncle Jake