The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-12-17

1.-The existing surplus is disposed OF, and an
honest effort is made to relieve the coun-
try of the burden Of control, the country
will find itself in exactly the same position
as to the cotton problem that 1t was IN
when control" was started.
The country spends hundreds of mil
| lions, probably billions of dollars, for
emergency control which controls only
for the period the emergency "control' Is
controlling. If, after few years control
restrictions cease, because the cotton
growers of the country tire of the plan and
throw it away, or the country refuses to
! shoulder the burden longer, then the cot
ton growers and their problem are right
back where they were in 1888 or any year
prior to this time.
The surplus may be wiped out at the
end of the period of experimentation, but
if the restrictions are then removed, just
one season is all the cotton growers need
to produce the greatest surplus in the his
tory of cotton production. By that time
world markets for American cotton will
have entirely disappeared, nothing will re-
main except the domestic market, and the
South can produce in any favorable sea-
son three or four times as much cotton as
this country can use. There is, in addition
to this pleasant and reassuring outlook,
the probability that much of the domestic
market will disappear under the control
regime. Control puts the prices of COT
ton products so high that, if maintained
for few more years, it will cause the loss
of large part of the domestic cotton mar
kets to the manufacturers of cotton sub
stitutes and goods which will displace cot
ton textiles.
The whole problem may be summed up
by saying that under the Bankhead plan
the country will pay hundreds of millions
on up to billions of dollars for cotton 'con-
troll that will control only temporarily. If
control is abandoned after few years,
this immense sum of money will be wasted
thrown in the Socialistic rat hole along
with other billions wasted in other expert
ments-and the cotton growers and the
country as a whole will then still be face
to face with the So-called problem of over
production in the cotton businesS-with
the net result that the whole scheme will
have to be abandoned or Control" will
have to be continued forever and forever,
or as long as the South grows cotton.
The foregoing will come to pass-or the
South will adopt as the alternative, cot
ton control plan that will control that will
work, that is in accord with sound eco
nomic principles.
This statement, of course, will bring
jeers and taunts from the Bankheadites,
the Socialistic dreamers and experiment.
ers, the bureaucratS and regimenterS. They
claim there is no plan but theirs; that they
have monopoly on intelligence and eco
nomic knowledge and business acumen.
There is no answer to any problem except
the answer these fellows formulate in their
gigantic brains.
The fact is, there are voices crying in
the wilderness here in this land of the
South that could and would lead the cot
ton growers and the country out of the
wilderness if they were needed. These
voices are to be found among the cotton
economists of the South, among the grow
ers themselves, among the textile man'i-
facturers and business men of the South;
but these voices are drowned at the pres
ent time by the clamor and ballyhoo of
the multitude; and as this newspaper vi
sions the future of the South (and of the
country, for that matter) something like
four hundred years of servitude in the So
cialist Egypt will be necessary to teach
the American people their lesson.
The program on which industrial lead