Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1921-09-12
WHY SHOULD PIRATES AND, PIKERS FIX
THE PRICE OF OUR COTTON?-The price

WHY SHOULD PIRATES AND, PIKERS FIX
THE PRICE OF OUR COTTON?-The price
of middling cotton delivered in Atlanta Wednes-
day was 1925 cents per pound. On the next day
the price | cent lessAthat is 1925 cents per
pound.
On Friday the price was back at 1925 cents per
pound. The prices throughout the United States
from New York to Galveston, showed parallel
fluctuations:
In short the farmers of the South who found it
necessary to sell their cotton on Thursday were
penalized I cent per pound-$5OO bale
Why?
Why, merely because a lot of gamblers-people
buying cotton they didn't want and selling cotton
they didn't have-had created technical condi-
ton and the futures dropped something more
than 200 points.
Why, in the name of decent honest citizenship
should the farmers of Georgia and the rest of the
South be swindled in any such manner as this be
cause of the lust for unearned money bv a lot al
professional gamblers and half witted suckers?
Why should cotton, industry which consti-
tutes the very backbone of existence in our great
and beloved section, be football kicked about BY
bunch of able but unprncipled manipulators on
one side and a horde of diotc pkers on the other
side?
Isn't it time to call halt this sort of thing
Isn't it time to put the producing and selling Of
cotton on business basis?
Isn't it time for the farmer to declare his indie
pendence of this gang of pirates and pikers and tc
organize and sell cotton as Judge Gary sells stee
or Fuller Galloway sells cloth or Sam Zones sell.
stoves or J. X. Orr sells shoes?
Imagine if you those gentlemen permitting
a lot of toddle-top spinners saying to them YOU
steel billet your bolt of cloth or your stove
your of shoes was worth sos Wednesday anc
is worth sos today, but was worth only 800 yes
terday.
Yes, that is what the farmers of the South have
been permitting the pirates and the pkers. gamb
ling in Gravier Street, New Orleans and Wal
Street, New York, to say to them for 50 years
Isn't it time to stop it?
The Georgian and American is not so absurr as
to say the New York and New Orleans Cotton Elk
changes should be closed by law To legislate
those exchanges out of existence would leave the
Southern farmer in worse fix>than ever. We
not witess as to say speculation in cotton
should be banned, because know very well it
can't be done
But the Georgian and Amercan.does know that
the cotton farmer can remove his product from
the of the speculation and put it in the realm
of business where the petty gambler and the able
manipulation can't touch it.
How?
BY organizing under the Sapiro plan and sell
ing his cotton just the peach growers of Geor-
eia sell their Elbertas, ust as the watermelon
growers of Southwest Georgia this year sold their
Tom Watsons, just as the orange and lemon grow
of Florida and California sell their fruit
On business basis, where supply and demand
meet with clean hands and honest purposes anc
transact business like merchants and gentlemen.
Sign up farmers of Georgia Seek out tn,
nearest hnember of the organization committee o
the Georgia Cotton Growers Cooperative Associ
alton, and sign up!
Let's put Georgia over Just as they have don,
in Texas and Oklahoma and Mississippi and Ar
izona and North Carolina
Sign up: Let's abolish the pirates and the pix
crs Let's sell our cotton like merchants. no
Ike beggafo.
Let's ger fair price and decent profit Tor on
'weve month of labor.-Atlanta Georgian.