The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-08

without being accused of being selfish in trying to do it.
 The has introduced this bill in the Inter
 ests of the manufacturer and against the 1 interests of the farmer-and the ex- 1 change"
 Who ever heard of a thing like that l The farmers interests and the manufac-
 turers interests have to go together. They
 have to do it. IL is the manufacturer. the
 man who buys the cotton, that takes il | off the market. If it were not for his
 purchasing it, taking it off the market
 and sending it to consumption, whai
 woud become of the market?
 want to call the attention of every southern man here to this: This year
 and last fall the exchanges tried time
 and again to break the price of cotton
 Time and again they tried to do it. It was
 only by the firm holding by the farmers, | by the spot holders, that the market was
 preserved. Many times the exchange mar
 ket went from 8 to 5 cents below the spot market, and yet they say they are acting in the interests of the farmer 1 But Senator Conner makes a good showing as to his farming interests, as
 well as being a manufacturer, and it is believed he has the whip hand in the 1 fight before the conference" l The whip hand in the fight, They have
 not seen the exchanges fight, have they l They do not know down there how it is done. The farmers never organize. They
 have no adequate organization. They do
 not know hom. They have not the money ! to organize with It is the other fellow 1 who does the organizing. It is organiza- ] ton against unorganization. That i5 what wins the fight always. and that is
 where the farmer has had his trouble.
 He claims for his bill that future contract vii lmean something and can
 not be used for speculative and gambling purposes"
 | All it means, senators, is that it tends | to make the exchange price commensn-
 rate with the commercial price. That is all it means-nothing else--and anybody
 knows that is what the exchange stands ] for, and it will stand for it if it is not prevented by law.
 "rhe agility and facility which cotton i contracts were manipulated in the unreg-
 ulated days, and the only slight improve
 ment that has been achieved under the law as it stands makes Senator Conner s 1 amendment worthy of serious Nconsidera- , tion. and if it will accomplish what he says it will-'
 | It will not accomplish senators, the full intent of it. I could not get a bill 1 like that through; but it will accomplish i in a large measure what it is intended ! to do, and that is the protection of the 1 cotton people, and, by the way, there is | nothing more important in the United States than cotton farming 1 'it should have the whole-hearted sup port of every congressman and senator. | 'The people of the south unorganized and financially depressed as they have been since the War Between the States,
 have had their cotton taken away from them-'
 l That is so- The exchanges have fleeced them unmercifully-
 "by the most abominable combinations and tactics of the spectators, who could 1 organize raid at any time and sell
 40,000 900 bales of cotton against a crop of only 100000 bales, and when delivery time came at the end of any month they would tender the dog-tail and escape all l consequences of overselling. Under this nefarious practice cotton could be de- pressed at any time and the cotton farm CT was robbed of his cotton as an am nual festivity'
 I have had New Orleans deliver me sixteen different stylesAof low grade cot ton in 1O0-sixteen different styles, an av- craze of six and two-thirds bales of a kind in 100 bales, when they knew it was unstable.
 Mir. Gronna: Mir. president, will it dis turb the senator if I ask him question? MT. Conner. Why, surely not.
 
 committee of conference which has to decide this question, I want to say at the outset that I believe it is only fair to say that the committee of conference
 is willing to take the judgment of the people from the cotton states; but as to the merits of the senator's amendment. as I understand it. the senator wants to make it possible for the buyer to demand one-half of the purchase to be above the standard orada
 Mir. Comers No, not above, not below, senator.
 Mir. Gronna: We'll, at or above.
 MT /Comer No: that half of it shall be the higher grades, you understand?
 Mr Gronna: And the other half belowy
 Mir. Conner: Anywhere they want. It gives the seller the option of delivering anything he wants as tc half of it. It gices the/buyer the right to demand that half of it shall be middling and above You know, there are ten grades that are tenderable. There is middling, strict mid ding good middling, strictly good mid ding and middling fair. Those are the five grades up. He can deliver any one of those. or any combination of those, for half of it. Then there are five off grades low middling, strictly low middling, strict middling tinges good middling tinges and good middling light yellow stains, mak-
 ing five Now. he can deliver any part or combination of those he want to. or he can deliver any combination he wants in the ten grades for the 50 per cent, but the 50 per cent shall be mddling and above. will state while I am on this question that three-fourths of the mills, possibly, use middling and above. yod understand, and some of them use strict middling, and by a combination of good niddling and middling you make strict middling. The majority of the cotton is middling to good middling. More than half of it runs that way.
 More than half of the mills spin these grades and when man takes a contract of this kind, if he can not use it himself, he can sell>it but under the old system possibly more than two-thirds of the mills could not use one-tenth of it. Mir. Gronna: Let us take a concrete case now and say that farmer has 1000 bales of cotton, one-half of it mid ding or better, the other half middling or lower than middling. In order to sell that cotton he would Of course have to ssll it all because the buyer could re- fuse to accept the half below middling, bus of course perhaps he would be willing to accept what was above middling, or good middling. Would it not penalize the cotton farmer in disposing of his lower grades?
 MT. Conner: Not in the least. The ex- changes do not spin any cotton, and they do not manufacture any cotton MT. Gronna: I understand that. MT. Conner: They do not deliver cotton through the exchanges. If the exchange price were to exceed the market price sufficient to pay the cost of delivery through the exchange, then the dealer
 would sell the market :, the exchange