Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-01-10
|HARDW|CK URGES
CO-OPER ATVE PLAN

- governor InOTlaS w. 1druWlCk
has issued an official statement call
ing attention to the need for scieu-
tific methods in the solution of mar
keting problems in Georgia and the
south, and indorsing the plan of
the Cotton Growers Cooperative
Marketing association. The COVER
nor urges all farmers to study the
association plan and to align them
selves with the organization.
His statement follows:
We are now passing through
strenuous days in the economic re-
construction Of our land. Many
changes are taking place in our in
dustrial, commercial and agricultural
life.
Our country must get down to zeal
business and learn how to save and
make. Many wasteful methods in
all lines of activity in our past must
be eliminated.
I wish to call attention to the
fact that the state Of Georgia in the
main is almost wholly an agricul-
tural state. 1t is true our state has
many resources other than farming,
but it must be borne in mind that
our timber reserves are pretty well
used up, and the pillow is now taking
the place of the forest. Our mining
is limited, and our manufacturing
is small. Our main resource is ag-
riculture.
Then let us give our best efforts
to making prosperous agriculture
for the state of Georgia. Let us do
our best in production, and let us
exercise the utmost care in the mat
ter of marketing.
One of Georgia's greatest benefac-
tors is the man, or group of men,
who produces an article that the
whole world needs and must have,
and I know of no man, or set Of
men, who reaches to the remOtest
parts of the earth as the cotton farm
er does.
The cotton farmer touches every
quarter Of the civilized world, but
at that the cotton farmer has never
had a voice in determining the value
of this most universally needed and
universally used article, and it is
on this subject that I wish to talk
to the citizens of the state of Geor-
gia, and to the farmers in particu-
lar.
The question Of getting the right
price, and a profitable price, for cot
ton, to the farmers Of our state, as
well as to the citizens Of our COM
monwealth. is not an individual
problem, and it cannot be solved by
the Individual marketing system. In
dividual selling of cotton only al
lows speculation and gambling to
creep in, and demoralizes our mar
kets and our cEces.
I have studied the question from
many angles. and I have become
thoroughly convinced that our only
hope for a stabilized market and a
profitable price for the farmers and
citizens of our state, lies in the CO.
operative marketing associations for
cotton.
1t is true we may not produce so
have in the past, but the ravages of
the boil weevil and the uncertainty
of gambling and specializing in cot
ton, make it doubly important and
necessary that the farmers have a
stabilized market and a fair price
l wish, therefore, to call attention
to the movement in Georgia, and in
the south, to form the Cotton Grow
ers' Cooperative association.
I believe it is the right move in
the right direction, and 1 further
believe it to be the plain duty of
every citizen who loves Georgia and
the south, to put his shoulder to the
wheel and help in this great move
ment that will restore the buying
power Of the farmers, and bring
to our state.
I am acquainted with the per-
sonnet of the men behind this move
ment, and know them to be of the
highest type citizens of the state.
l want to admonish every farmer
who expects to grow a bale of cot
ton in 1922, to study this association
and movement carefully, and when
he has made up his mind, as 1 have,
to then sign the contract and put
Georgia in the proper light with the
other southern states in the move
ment to get fair price for our prin-
cipal product.
THOMAS w. HARDWICK,
Governor
Even the man VINO has a will of