The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-03

Ala, OctODer ~, lJlS. Mir. Clarence Ousley, Assistant Secretary
 of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.:
 Dear Sir-Your widely printed interview of October IS ostensibly defending your low grade cotton allocation scheme and your supervision of the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges, but really viciously criticizing me. has been read, and we resent your attempt to question our patriotism. to make us snide defend CTS of the cotton farming interest, and to put us in evil controversy with our government.
 Ousley Sneers at Cotton Mills
 We are intensely loyal to our admins tratfon, and sufficiently Presbyterian to believe that President Wilson was di- vinely prepared and predestined for the great work he is now accomplishing. We are personally acquainted with MT. Me- Adoo, MT. Lane and MT. Harding, and by propinquity with Mir. Daniels, and have intense admiration for their accom- plishments. Further our company used $50G % of it's commercial capital to buy fourth Liberty Bonds, but because of our disagreement with your management of the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges, and with your proposed bil- letting scheme forcing all manufacturers to buy arbitrary allocations of low grade cotton, you seek to hide your failure by suggesting that we are unpatriotic and
 
 and you sheer at the cotton mill profit as though you had never heard of war profit tax.
 UphoIds the Cotton Gamblers
 Mfr Clarence Ousley. all the statements which we have addressed to your depart ment and the public on the business inl- moralities practced in the cotton ex- changes. New York and New Orleans, under your espionage, are absolutely cor rect.
 If your interview headlined "Cotton men have nothing to fear, declares Ous- ley" refers to the cotton producer and manufacturer you are wrong, if it means the cotton gambler on the exchanges and the speculating accommodating holders or low grade cotton, you are right.
 Fix the Price and Stop the Gambling You state, from accurate and first hand information that there has not been from the beginning, nor is there now any set purpose to fix cotton prices" In our article published in the Journal oI Commerce, New York, we stated that it would be a great deal better for the farming interest and manufacturing in terest If you would fix the price of cot ton and then let it alone. You say that on a parity with wheat at s2.D. that middling cotton would be 32.20c q sug' gested 34c). If the committee will name that as price and let supply and de- mand take care of the grades up and , down, then the committee will take cot ton out of the hand of the gambler and speculator and put it where nobody Will be hurt making transactions safe Tor both the producer and manufacturers And we state for your information that days ago the word was passed that low grade cotton was speculative buy.
 A I,eft-Handed Price Fixing Method
 We quote from the Mobile Register of Sentember 2S: The committee will re- ouire both domestic and foreign consum- CTS to take fair and equitable propor- tion of the grades below middling" When The committee does that they Will fix the price of cotton down, in other words if will be depressing influence, or all 4he laws of political economy, supply and dAmand. will be vitiated. It will be z loft t-handed method of pricing cotton, and the farmer will suffer most. rms does not apply to the removal or the unnecessary and arbitrary graoe res.rlc. lions in the manufacture of government 5 goods. which removal all manufacturers would indorse.
 How the Scheme Win Hurt
 You state that the spectators. the holders of this low grade cotton torigi- naIiy bought from the farmers at low price, have a patriotic righ. to have the government force the manufacture err; to buy this cotton from them, ana if would be beneflcldi 10 the iafHieiS ss because it would enable. the same mer- { chants to buy more low grade cotton from the farmers, we presume at more cheap prices This is certainly new pastime for the government, an inter esting individual preferential scheme, which carried out will confound all the laws of tade.
 Truly. the speculative trade have no fears that you will fix prices. This is as bad, MT. Ousley. as taking the so- called spot quotations from 10 spot markets and making an excnange r,ar- ket out of it, basis middlng.
 Here is the Law
 You state that almost continually in the last few months contract quotations have been out of normal relation to spot quotations-and generally have tended to depress or to discount the trade value of real cotton. The Smith Lever bill was enacted by Congress to prevent these very conditions, Section 8 Of that bill says. That in determin- ing, pursuant 10 the provisions of this act, what markets are bona fide spot markets, the Secretary Of Agricultule is directed to consider only markets in which spot cotton is sold in such vol uue and under such conditions as GUS ton,arily to reflect accurately the value of middling cotton and the csffer- %ences between the prices nr values of 1niddling cotton and If other grades of cotton for which standards shall have