The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1919-03-21
CLOVEN FOOT OF THE SOUTH IS.
SHOWN IN COTTON REGULATION
Every Planter Who Refuses to Re-
duce Acreage One-Third to Be
An Outcast

| An Outcast
To keep northern wheat from going
to S. per bushel during the war
democratic congress fixed the price at
500 per bushel, but refused to fix
to forty cents pound. Now, because
it has declined since the war came to
an end they propose to force it back
to forty cents by reducing the acreage
one third. Read the account of the
recent meeting at New Orleans where
it was proposed to put every cotton
grower on black list who refused to
reduce his acreage. "When the Devil
was sick, the Devil a Monk would be,
but when the Devil got we'll the divel
monk was he"
The Southern States Cotton Acre
age Reduction Convention has just
closed its sessions at the Grunewald
Hotel, New Orleans. 1t was attended
by over four hundred delegates COM
posed of cotton planters, cotton brok-
ers and cotton bankers from all the
cotton producing states. 1t was pre-
sided over by governor Ruffin G.
Pleasant, of Louisiana. At the close
of the convention, after two days of
discussion and conferences, the con-
vention voted unanimously to reduce
cotton acreage one-third during the
coming season and to withhold from
the market the 1918 cotton crop until
it brings the price demanded by the
cotton interests-35c to 40c per pound.
A strong organization was perfect
ed which will cover every state, every
county and every neighborhood in the
cotton belt and will use the machinery
of the various state councils of de-
tense and the state and county agricul-
tural agents in carrying out it pro-
gram to compel every planter to re-
duce his cotton acreage. The conven-
ton passed resolutions to the effect
that any planter who did not follow
this program would be publicly
branded as Stacker" and ''would be
denied the respect and support of his
community" 1t was frequently as
serted in the convention that in the
event planter disregarded the re-
quest to reduce his acreage, he would
run the danger of having his extra
cotton acreage destroyed by other
members of the league.
Sounds Like Secession Talk
In opening the convention William
w. B. Thompson, a prominent cotton
broker of New Orleans and president
of the New Orleans board of port
commissioners, said, "What is pro-
posed is the erection of a cotton re-
public. A remedy for the situation is
the reduction of cotton production.
Then we can say, IF you do not want
the cotton, you do not have to take it.
Do not worry us with ghost stories of
readjustment. We do not have to sell
and we do not have to buy. You go
your way and we will ours"
In closing the convention, former
Governor Manning of South Carolina,
said, "The work of reducing cotton
production and keeping prices up has
lust begun. We intend to follow it up
lin the same way and with the same
celebrity in which the selective service
was put through"
1t is interesting to contrast the ac-
ton of the cotton interests now, when
only their individual profits are con-
cerned, with their action a little over
a year ago when the government APP
pealed to their sense of patriotism
and their twin the war" spirit. Rep
resentatives of the United States Food
Administration visited every section of
the south in the autumn of 1917,
asking the planters to raise less cotton
and more food. 1t was pointed out
that the South had never fed itself.
It had never produced enough food for
its people or enough feed for its an
imals. 1t had always drawn upon the
North for hundreds of millions of dol
lars worth of human food and animal
ration. They were urged as a patri-
otto duty to raise enough food for
their own wants SO that the food raised