The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-02-22
BY HUGH r. FRASER
written for NEA Service. Inc.)

guished certain fundamental ques-
/ lions.
They are:
l. How can the government bene-
fits for the cotton planter be ex-
tended to the sharecropper?
2. How can the sharecropper,
evicted from plantations for any
cause, be provided for other than
by direct relief?
8. What must be done to COM
bat the greatest menace of all -
the sharecroppers utter lack of
education?
All these questions must be an
swered in some way, and by some
responsible agency, if nearly 8,000,-
900 people in the South are to
emerge from what economists say
is a condition Of economic peonage.
Bankhead Comes to Aid
So far only one voice of far
reaching power has been heard IN
answer to these questions. That is
the voice of Senator John H. Bank
head of Alabama, a wealthy man,
! behoIden to nobody, certainly not to
the great interests.
For his own initiative he has
taken up plan for the benefit Of
the man at The bottom of the
Sonth's economic strata-the share
cropper.
The sharecropper, Senator Bank
head admits, is without rights of
any kind. Owning nothing but his
own labor, he can enforce nothing.
First, he would extend Federal
aid. He. would extend government
loans to worthy sharecroppers and
tenants to enable them to emerge
from their status by ownership of
small plots of land.
The loans would be amortized
ever long period-say, 30 years.
Would Set Up Agency
A great loan agency, similar to
the Home Loan Corp. would be set
up to handle the loans, and care
full investigation would be made of
the financial responsibility and
character of the thousands of share
choppers and small tenants to whom
the loans would be made.
Such plan, the senator believes,
would do more than any other one
project to revitalize the cotton pro-
ductiOn outlook in the South.
The reaction of the union leaders
to Senator Bankhead's proposal is
not enthusiastic.
IL
acres and a mule is thing to SUI
plant the present slave system" says
H. L. Mitchell, executive secretary
of the Farmers Union.
Urges Community Farms
Mr.. Mitchell believes that the an
sWer is community farms rather
than individual ownership.
The attitude of the great plant
ers-those who own thousands of
acres-is equally critical.
Hiram Norcross, one of the larg-
est plantation owners in the South,
who has 270 families on his prop
erty, says:
There is not one sharecropper in
ten who, if given farm tomorrow,
free of Indebtedness could make a
60 of it. In five years he would no
longer own it,"
Vernon Paul of Parkin, Ark, an
other great landowner, said that
since many of the sharecroppers can
not even write, few of them could
ever manage farm.
Government Only Hope
The one hope of the sharecropper,
whether still on the land eking out
nothing but the barest of living or
evicted and homeless, is the govern
ment of the United States.
Recently an ace government in
veStigator Mrs. Mary Conner Myers
of the legal department of the AAA,
visited the Arkansas district, seeing
the situation at first hand.
Red-haired quiet hammered, she
witnessed evictions taking place with
under her own eyes. She talked
with planters and business men and
lawyers.
Two days after she returned to
Washington to submit her report,
her superior, Jerome A. Frank
general counsel Of the AAA, was
fired. Mr.. Frank was known as
liberal, and close friend of Sec
rotary Wallace. (Ousted with him,
and also reputed to be a member of
the Brain Trust group in the AAA,
was Fred Howe, Consumers counsel)
The cotton interests Immediately
sent out the report that the ousting
of Mr.. Frank was due to- his reputed
readiness to defend the share
choppers and to prosecute the
planters for any violation of their
contract with the government.
Hoover More Radical
The truth is that Jerry" Frank
and Fred Howe had long been out
| of sympathy with Secretary Wal
lace's ideas, and the fact that Mr..
Howe was replaced by a man known
to be far more radical than he was
convinced the best Washington OBJ
servers that the arrival of Mrs.
Myers in Washington the day they
were olsted was only coincidence.
Certainly Mr.. Howe's successor,
Calvin B. Hoover, a professor at
Duke University, has written more
books of a radical tendency than
either Mr.. Frank or Mr.. Howe ever
dreamed Of Mr. Hoover is the
author Of study made for Wallace
on the effect of the crop reduction
program on the sharecropper.
The sharecropper, knowing Moth
ing of the meaning OF the incident,
cares less. He believes, and believes
deeply, that sooner or later the
government will come to the aid of
/ the union.
And his leaders never forget for
one moment that the only hand