The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1935-05-17

scented Alabama for many years in the
| government. 1t is quite in accord with
the suggestions of the committee under
| Doctor Embree.
The Bankhead bill, which at this
writing had gained unanimously ia
vorable report from house committee,
would provide legislation patterned
after that which has allowed the ten
ant farmer of Ireland Denmark, Fin
land and Germany to become land
owner. What has been done for own
ers of mortgaged homes, it plans to
do for the share-cropper-make fed
eral credit available to lift him out OF
! the financial morass.
Senator Bankhead contends that the
Administrations crop reduction ana
| tax on processing were measures adopt
ed in defense of the farmers, protect
ing them from curtailed production by
industries and manufacturers after the
crash. In sharp opposition to him mas
been Senator Willard f. Tydings of
MARYLAND, who claims that the only
result of the whole Roosevelt ECO
Monies of scarcity" program has been
| to reduce the total wealth of the ma
ton. He demands the end of crop cur
tailment by the AAA.
Bankhead Explains.
Senator Bankhead points out that
|
was faced with the biggest cotton sur
plus on record, full years crop of
| 100000 bales, the effect of which
was to cause tremendous drop In
cotton prices. Cotton was 1917 cents
a pound in 1929, but by 1882 it had
fallen off to -51a cents pound, he
pointed out, explaining that the proc
essing tax was designed to give the
| farmers the same scarcity" which
manufacturers had effected to maintain
| their prices.
"The more money you put into peo-
pies hands, the more they can buy"
was Senator Tydings' answer 1.-THE
higher the price, the less they can
buy. If the cost of goods is increased,
then consumption is reduced. The high
err the price of cotton, then the less
you can SELL"
Doctor Embree's committee was
more interested in Senator Bankhead's
proposals to enable the tenant farmer
to gain independence.
Life in the rural South is capable
| of being lived to the fullest" said
| it's report. "In our modern scheme of
| things it has proved much easier to
produce a steady flow of goods than
| to produce a steady income with which
| to purchase those goods or their equiv
| alent. Of all the laborers and crafts
men, the general or all-round farmer
is the only one able to produce the
type and variety of goods suitable for
| his own consumption.
Fundamental Changes.
''In the South we have lost much of
this immunity to the fluctuations of
the price system by an almost insane
| devotion to an export cash crop whose
price fluctuations have become pro-
verbal. This is due, no doubt, to the
historical conjunction of slavery, the
plantation and the cotton plant.
Theoretically, the area saw slavery
abolished Actually, it changed the
plantation pattern to tenancy and in
corporated white peasantry which
| finally came to outnumber the negro
tenants in cotton culture.
1.-THE plantation is not interested in
| feeding it's lower-level denizens with
the vegetables, milk, meats and fruits
of benefcent soil and cline, but only
wants it's cash crop of cotton.
Meanwhile, the system supplies its
laborers with meager diet of fat
back, corn pone and molasses under
as extortionate a credit system as can
be found in the worlds agriculture.
Tenant farmers will undoubtedly
| find the bluebird singing for them once
more, possibly in trees on a farm of
their own, when the administration
gets around to spending the much
| talked-about $4,S00,000,000.
For much of this is going to make
rural America all over again, princi-
pally by moving broken farmers to
new and fertile fields where they can
start all over again, on land described
in deeds made out in their own names.
Mr.. Rexford Guy Tugwell will superin-
| tend the rural remaking
| @ Western Newspaper Union.