The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1921-05-18
A MARKETING PLAN TO SOLVE
KENTUCKYS TOBACCO PROBLEM

swer is yes, unless you bring in a cor
poration which violates some law of
the State. OF course, you couldn't or
ganize even a domestic organization
for the purpose of expressly violating
any law of the State You can have
foreign corporation do anything in
the world which the domestic law will
you to do. You have an interesting
anti-pooling law devised to prevent
combinations or pools in restraint of
. trade. 1t especially prohibits anything
that looks like reduction of acreage or
production. 1t prohibits anything re1at-
ing to collision for restriction of
prices, restraint of competition and
those things by improper methods or
otherwise You have a very drastic
; law in that.
| am going to tell you just how we
are handling the same situation in
Missippi. The State of Missippi does
Mt know the word cooperation" is
in the dictionary. There is not single
law on the books in reference to CO.
poerative marketing associations OF
cooperative associations of any kind.
' Secondly, Mississippi has a law that
no foreign corporation can do bust
ness unless the articles have been ap-
proved by the Attorney General. Next
Mississippi has a law which absolute
ly prohibits any sort of combinations
, which tend to control or regulate
prices or amount of production OF any
commodity and all that. In effect, it
is practically the same as the best part
and the worst part of your kantucky
law.
The Way Out In Mississippi.
Nevertheless, the Mississippi delta
cotton growers wanted to organize
They are now at the point where they
have reached 81 per cent of the cot
ton growers required to be signed up
-192, 900 bales out of 100000. | pre-
pared the articles of incorporation of
that group. 1t will incorporate in Ten
nessee because Tennessee has a fairly
good law 1t is a neighboring State:
Memphis is the capital of Mississippi
anyhow for all business purposes; and
it is very easy to run Mississippi
activities from Memphis. So they will
organize under the Tennessee law.
We had to get articles of incorpora-
ton that would pass the Attorney
General OF Mississippi, and secondly,
that would pass, so that the activities
would not be subject to wild prosecu-
tion under the so-called antitrust act.
We took the Mississippi statute and
traversed each part of the statute. For
instance, where it says you cannot
form combination to fix prices, we
expressly state that this corporation
may not fix prices, but it is empower
ed under a standard arrangement to
handle cotton for growers of this sec
ton and to offer that cotton on the
best markets of the world and to Sc
cure the best current market price.
We traversed every provision in that
particular law. We say expressly in
our articles of incorporation that in
stead of being a combination for the
purpose of reducing or limiting COM
petition or production, we were Great
ing this cooperative association for
the purpose of finding the best mar
kets of the world, for getting products
as directly as possible between the
producer and the actual commercial
users, after eliminating the so-called
speculative and wasteful elements: for
extending markets; for extending de-
mands; for extending production.
So our articles of incorporation
traversed the Mississippi law on every
particular point, stating exactly the
purpose of the association. Now that
is very important, because while it
isn't really important from a technical
standpoint to traverse the law so that
it would pass the Attorney General,
we actually set out in those articles of
incorporation the real and primary
purposes of the cooperative market
ing association.
A cooperative marketing associa-
ton is not created for the purpose of
restraining trade; it is not created for
the purpose of restraining competition
or creating artificial prices, or any
thing of that kind What you are do
ing is to extend the markets, get in
creased production, stabilize market
conditions. You can put out all the
SPECTATORS in the world without a