The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-31
Why Must We Plow
Cotton Under When
We Need Clothes
(By Farmer Correspondent

tBy Farmer Correspondent
MENA, Ark.-The government
has asked US to pillow up half of
our cotton crop, telling US it would
help to raise the price Of cotton
this fall. Well it may raise it
some. But it also has sent the
price of shirts, overalls and dres-
ses up over fifty percent, We
can't touch them at all as the cot
ton is not ready to pick yet and
we have not got the money that
the government promised us for
our cotton.
it and they have got it, to pay for
the tens of thousands of yards Of
cloth that we have plowed up at
their Communicating that it will
help prices. Whose prices will it
help most? Not ours but the BIG
man and the middle man who are
already starving us. We are organv
izing that we may stand up for our
rights and get that which is ours.
At a meeting Saturday night a
speaker had just outlined the pos
Sibilities for war and had showed
how it would affect us when a fellow
in the back of the room said that
he would fight for something to eat
and that he would have to do it soon
if something didn't happen, but that
he would not fight for any other
reason, that the big boys could go
to hell before he would fight in
another world war. Then another
fellow close to him got up and said
that if the government wanted him
they would have to burn the woods
and look away down by the creek
in the thicket and sift the ashes for
him.
This is the general spirit of the
people in this country towards war.
They will fight for something to eat
and lot talked of it last winter and
now they are thinking of something
very seriously. When you go to town
you used to hear fellows say how
bad they needed something to eat
and that they just had to have it
right now. But now they, come
around with different look in their
face and set around and say nothing.
If anyone says anything of relief
they will answer that there isn't any
need TO look for any, that we, will
just have to go and take it.
Fewer and fewer people come to
town now on Saturday and those
that do come look hungrier than
they did last winter and their
clothes are just off their backs and
lots of the children are naked" But
you never see them in town. There
are lots OF them that are. completely
without clothes at all. Why are we
told to pillow up our cotton? is the
question asked at every corner and
any place you see any one. Why
doesn't the government give us our
money for the cotton? Is s it that
the government is broke Or that
Roosevelt Is lying to us? Why is it
that the Moratorium Bill that the
State passed last year is titconsti-
tutional? Why is it that everything
that is for us, is unconstitutional
and everything that is for the big
man is all good? o.,a -,
There is lots of sickness here and
1t is caused by the lack of clothes
and something to eat One family
here hasn't had anything to eat
except what they raised in the gar
den and had no salt or bread stuff
to go with that (and the gardens
are just about gone now -andeit is
time for winter and nothing to eat
or wear). A fellow in town heard
Of them and give the mother a job
cooking for them, so when she got
something to eat she got .hemhor-
rage of the stomach and almost died
and now two OF the children are
very sick with the fever which they
probably would not have had if they
had strong body to fight it-.away
with. And now they havenis got
any money to get medicine with, and
no way to get any. Only way see
it is we must organize better.