Evening star., 1935-05-05
BY WILLIAM r. CASTLE, JR,
Former United States Undersecretary o

BY WILLIAM r. CASTLE, JR-
Former United States Undersecretary Of
State.
IT is only recently that people
have become cotton conscious
to use q horrid modern expression.
/ Yet ever since the New Deal
began its astonishing series of
experiments the cotton industry has
been one of the principal objects Of
vivisection.
However, 1t was only when the in
dustry began to show signs that the
knife had definitely cut too deep.
that the medicines injected as stimu-
lants must have had poison in them.
when 1t looked as though viyisection
would soon become mere student rer
search on the corps of the industry
only then did the country fully wake
up. And today the country as a
whole-or, at least, the part that
thinks-is miles ahead of both the
raisers of cotton, who are getting good
prices for their reduced crop and are
drawing benefits from Washington
for their implanted land, and the
operating doctors who seem not yet to
have recognized the fatal signs.
The Secretary Of Agriculture does a
lot of talking on the subject OF cotton,
since he evidently feels that what Is
happening needs much explaining,
and. no matter what subject he Is dis
cussing, one is inclined to feel that
a good bit Of what he says is in
fluenced by this cotton worry. When
he is talking about international
trade, for example, one feels that he
must have an irritating cotton head
ache which makes him talk little
more violently than he ordinarily
his eyes against the painful light Of
facts.
"Shuts Eyes TO Facts"
He was certainly shutting his eyes
to facts when he said recently that
talk about the alleged increased cot
ton production abroad was just propa-
ganda against the Department Of
Agriculture. 1t shows lack Of clear
thinking. also, when in discussing
international trade ne upbraids us
for our indifference about imports
and, by inference, subordinates ex-
ports to imports.
If you asked him why the export
of our cotton Is falling off he would
probably answer that it is because
we do not import enough of some
thing else. Because this statement
is only half truth, it is really propa-
ganda.
The Secretary and his cohorts are
trying to find an explanation for the
alarming decrease in exports, but they
want to find this explanation outside
their own operations. They there
fore utterly refuse to look the matter
squsrely in the face and to say fear
leSsly, One reason, which we believe
to be temporary, is that our cotton
control has raised the price to a
point where nobody will buy except
through dire necessity"
In the New Deal mind 1t was ap-
parently taken for granted that higher
domestic prices would not affect for
eign trade because the whole matter
would be equali2ed by the deprecia-
tion of the dollar in comparison with
foreign money. The trouble with that
beautiful theory was that foreign
money deprecated also. This leads
us straight to the SOLDERING truth that
cotton costs too much to buy now,
and opens q vista into the future
when foreign markets will be supplied
without us, because production will
have increased so much in other parts
Of the world.
Importance Of Cotton.
1t is interesting to look back q few
years at the cartoons in which cotton
Is always pictured as king. 1t is in
teresting to remember that the Civil
War was fought because Of cotton, the
Southern planters believing that it
could be profitably raised only with
slave labor. Because the textile mills
OF Lancashire had to have American
cotton the Confederacy was able to
prolong the war with the proceeds of
such portions of the crop as could be
run through the blockade.
Sherman, as he swept across Ten
nessee and South Carolina, burned
such cotton as he found stored there,
because 1t was the South's greatest
asset. Much of the invaluable staple
was smuggled through the Northern
lines, and the Government in Wash
lngton winked at the illicit trade be-
cause the cotton was SO needed in the
New England mills.
And a half century later, in the
World War, the South recouped its
fortunes through the sale of cotton to
Europe to be used largely in the manu-
1acture OF munitions. Cotton was king
ana the whole economic history of the
south revolved around the throne.
NOW that forcible hands have shorn
the king of power, have drugged those
VINO made their living through him
into believing that the less you have
OF anything the more prosperous you
Will De, one shudders to think Of the
future economic history of the South,
OF the new reconstruction period which
must come in some way be lived
through until some new and as yet
unseen prosperity may be achieved.
On this background let us look for
moment on what has happened to
cotton during the last two years. When
the New Deal took hold the price was
so low that the growers could not sell
their crop for enough to make living.
There is no question that for depres-
sion times too much was being raised,
that the farmers of the cotton belt
should have been urged to diversity
their crops both to prevent serious
over production Of cotton and to make
them less dependent on a single crop.
But the New Deal was out TO do
things in a big way. The professors
knew what must be done and did not
want to waste time merely advising
people. Cotton growers were re-