The Washington times., 1933-09-18
PLANTERS HOPE
. FOR NRA, SAE.|T
MUST WORK :
Old Man Holland, Tobacco
and Cotton Farmer, Voices
. South's SkepticaI Faith

J. South's SkepticaI Faith
FOLLOWING is another article In
q series disclosing the lOorking OF
the NRA as it concerns the "1Uer-
age man.
BY JAMES r. MCCARTHY
copyright. 1898, by International
News Service)
GREENVILLE, N. c., Sept. 18
O.N.SJ "A gray-haired man in
0verallS sat cross-legged on the
front porch Of his tobacco farm
and between puffs on a pipe gave
tersely his attitude toward the
New Deal. He said:
"Tt's got to work. It's got to
work, Or"
A heavy puff Of smoke from the
pipe was his equivalent to the
underworld slang:
"-Or else"
There was nothing desperate in
his voice, for old man Holland, as
he Is known in these parts, is not
q desperate man. He has lived
in this part of the country all his
life, and his father and grand
father before him.
"CrisiS After Crisis"
He has watched one "criSiS"
after another and has listened
patiently to many remedies. just
now his mood is one Of determined
cooperation and hopefulneSS.
To understand the background
Of Old Man Holland Is to appre-
ciate the attitude Of most farm
ers in this section Of the coun.
try. They are, for the most part,
. sturdy, taciturn, fairly inteIn-
gent lot.
Uncomfortably enough, they
have a kind of contempt for such
individuals as reporters who come
from cities seeking to survey con-
ditions." That is because too
many reporters and experts and
others have come down this way
and, after making a "Survey."
have promptly failed to do any,
thing about it.
Tobacco and Cotton
Holland Is q tobacco planter.
He also has some cotton, not
much. But tobacco or cotton, it
doesn't really matter. The prob
lem is the same. The attitude
toward the New Deal is the same.
The tobacco industry, as with
the cotton industry, is located at
the point of production, which
makes the farmer constantly
aware of his marketing problems.
Hollands miSfortuneS didn't
begin with the 1929 market deba-
Gle. He is one Of those planters
who were caught in the land
boom between 1918 and 1925. He
expanded his holdings. mortgaged
his property, borrowed to the
limit on life insurance and from
banks.
When the land boom collapsed,
Holland found that the principal
Of his loans was greater than the
value Of his land. ALI the ficti-
Gous land values were suddenly
wiped out.
Thousands Like Him
The only thing to do was to
have the value Of his land put up
or to foreclose on Holland.
And there are thousands Of
Hollands in the South!
That is why Old Man Holland,
without overoptimiSm and with
no show Of pesSimism, says:
"It'S got to work."
But make no mistake about it,
the planter down this way Is not
bitter. If anything, the New
Deal has brought him encourage
ment. For the first time he is
beginning to believe that the
Government means what it says
and that is something the
agricultural element in these
parts has never believed before.
Skeptical, Hopeful
Yet he is skeptical Of the re-
suits. He sees the worker in the
mills and his own fields suddenly
enjoying prosperity under the
new wage and hour scales die
&ated in the cotton planting, to-
bacco planting and textile codes.
Holland says:
"The fact is, I have two boys
working in textile mills and
one Is on a cotton farm over
near Memphis. They're get
tin more money now and, be-
Heve me, it helps"
But Holland wishes he didn't
have to pay the new scale to his
own hired hands.
Gin NOM Mov1onrSnI