Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-10-21
SOUTH DOES NOT
 NEED ASSISTANCE
 WITH COTTON CROP
Present Condition is Only a Scare" Says Recognized
 Authority
APPEALS TO NATION
 ARE UNWARRANTED
Statement Compares Situation With Those of Other Years and Expresses Opti
 mism

New Orleans, La, Oct. 20.--In a ' statement prepared at the instance of the New Orleans Cotton exchange directors and made public tonight, Henry C.. Hester, secretary of the exchange and for fifty years regard ed as an international authority on matters pertaining to cotton mar- keting, declared there is mo reason for rushing for federal financial aid" and asserted there was nothing the matter with the South beyond an unreasoning scare in cotton"
 The statement prepared "for the benefit and encouragement of those who are not fully informed, fol- lows:"
 "The drastic decline that has ac- cured in cotton since the first of Au- gust, amounting to nearly $90 bale, of about 48 per cent, has been main- ly due to the pressure to sell on 2 shrinking market, under mining con fidence of both sellers and consum- CTS, accentuating the fears of the former and increasing the reluctance of the latter, until they practically abandoned the snarket except at con- stant concessions which is the greatest drop that has ever taken place in the staple in any like per- iod. In the past ten weeks, more than million bales of spot cotton have literally been thrown overheard without rhyme or reason. Nearly three -fourths of the Texas ginnings to September 25 have been rushed to market and, while other sections have sold more sparingly, the re- ported sales at three leading Texas 800,00O bales. Futures have per- force followed spots, the pressure having beer, accentuated. by sales to lhedge spots.
 Recalls 1914 Scare
 "Various theories have been ad- vanced for the scare mainly the question of financing, unfavorable attitude of the federal reserve bank, and tight money. Neither of these, however, should reasonably have precipitated a practical panic. Calm thinkers consider there was no more reason for rushing for federal aid than during the buy bale' per- iod of 1914. They argue, and justly so, that we marketed in part and carried over without outside aid the heavy remnant of the most stu- pendous crop produced that year in face of the inauguration of world wide war and at a time that the south was infinitely poorer thAn n present. They knew then not only that cotton was selling many cents per pound below the cost of produc- tion but that it was bringing less than it's actual market value, even in face of adverse European war conditions and the promise of an ah- normally large production (which finally proved to be 17,0O0,O ,O0O bales) and they knew that the panic could only be temporary. War or no war. the world needed our cotton and that if the channels of trade were blocked for a time, a way would be found to open them in the near fu- ture.
 "And what did we do? We mark eted that year more than was ever marketed in any year in the history of the trade and if we did not get much for our bales as we should have done, we laid the foundation for an upward trend that brought more money into the south, fairly earned, in the years that followed than had ever before been obtained in our history Why, then, should we, after four seasons in which our raw cotton, including the seed, has exceeded in value seven billions nine hundred and seventy millions of dollars, balk at carrying few mil- lion bales pending temporary Hull in demand. Has not that very lull been heightened by the .senseless and unreasoning fears of producersi
 Plauds Efforts N
 "Of ours, everybody knows that the government made efforts to re- duce the high cost of living and have exercied some influence, but that has been by no means entirely res- ponsible for the cotton panic. Let us look at the government figures for the months of August and Sep-s tember, 1920. In face of all the talk about reduction of consumption, we find that the mills north and south consumed of American cotton from August first to September 30th, 08t4z 900 bales against 948,000 same tiuS last year, decrease of only 6oss09 bales. This then was not where III 81| shoe pinchest as far as doNestie3 consumption was concerned
 When the mills became informS& of the growing fears of the sonth4 ern producers of decline ip yalp1e the fell back on their suppliee
 raw cotton and during the
 months used up 4Se.0OO bales
 their reserve stocks. Thus Qq 1Qy r>rsrs<>r~<
 frnntinned on paeo S1xl @ & ff3