Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1917-10-12
!. Z. M I 81


cotton market, that threatened to rob
the Southern farmers, has been brok-
en- down. The raiders have been run
to cover. Their rout has been COM
| plete. Cotton has advanced steadily
in price ever since the white light of
publicity exposed the market manipu-
lators and exposed their fallacious
propaganda
Neither the foresight of prophet
nor the son of a prophet is required
TO see that cotton farmers will re-
ceive for this years crop q financial
return commensurate with it's value
If they viii but sit steady and demand
their rights. The law of supply and
demand entities the farmers to re-
ceive' a price approximating Is cents
a pound or more for their staple The
law will work its inexorable certainty
If farmers will but permit it.
The raid of the bear operators on
Wall street, its immediate effects on
the cotton market, on the one hand,
and their exposure In the senate of
the United States and its effect upon
the market, on the other, form an in
teresting story.
The bears sought to profit them
selves financially at the exnesFsA OF
the cotton farmers ~ taking adyan-
tage OF Government necessity So
eager land money-hungry were they
mat they resorted to malicious, illog-
ical and unfair methods to injure the
price of cotton. Their publicity cam
paign of false and misleading informa-
ton temporarily was effective, and
the price of cotton slumped appreci-
ably.
The cotton market profteers. an
alert, INSCRIPTIONS lot of Wall street
gamblers, seized upon the American
cotton embargo as the means to their
selfish end.
The federal government, through
its export administrative board, placed
an embargo on the shipment of cotton
to neutral countries contiguous to Ger
many and the Central powers. Hun
dreds of other articles of commerce
were included in the embargo, which
was resor9ed to as war measure by
the American government measure
that is calculated and designed to end
the war by preventing our enemy and
the enemies of our allies from secur
ing products that may be helpful to
them in waging war on the American
people
Fewer than 100000 bales of Ameri-
can cotton can be affected by the EN-.
barge. The countries contiguous to
Germany and Austria that heretofore
have imported cotton from America
have used fewer than 100000 bales
annually, not enough to affect the
price of the staple one way or an
other.
But the bear raiders, the cotton
market profteers, appreciated the po-
tentialties of the word "embargo" A
cotton embargo was music to their
ears; it meant a jingle of dollars in
their pockets. They we're not SLOW to
seize upon the action of the govern
ment an action utterly useless to
their purpose if they confined them
selves to the truth.
But truth and market manipulators
are strangers. SO the manipulators,
true to the traditions of their bust
ness, magnified the news of the cot
ton embargo. Instead of affecting a
paltry 100000 bales Of the cotton crop,
as was the truth, the manipulators
skillfully circulated the report that
the embarEo would shut off the mar
ket for 100000 bales OF Gotten.
There you have the inside reason
for the sudden drop in the price of
cotton. The market manipulators de-
ceiyed Southern farmers to believe
that the United States government,
b. placing an embargo on cotton, had
cut OF The demand for 1900 600 bales.
Not alone were the farmers deceived.
Other persons, deluded by the sllillful
publicity of the maripulators, believed