Evening star., 1935-04-21
Cotton Is Symbol Of the New Deals
Difficulties in Hell ping Selected Groups

OOuLH ara less IIOf1 Clle oOutIl, uUlll
a serious problem has arisen. Loss Of
markets would force even more re-
Striction in this country. where TO-
O0O,o00 people are directly dependent
upon cotton for livelihood
In the midst of worry over that ex-
port situation. there began to be STIR
rings in another quarter. Reports
trickled in from Brazil, where cotton
had been just a minor crop. telling
OF budding cotton BOOM"
The Brazilian government was ac-
tive helping to expand cotton acreage
as a means of retiring coffee acreage.
American capital and American ma
chinery were flowing in to help build
up an industry TO compete with the
South. Where 100000 bales of cotton
were grown in Brazil during 1888, the
estimate is for 100000 this year
With adequate capital and labor. ex-
pansion prospects there are almost un-
limited.
Just about the time brows we're be-
ing wrinkled over the cotton boom in
Brazil. the cotton textile industry of
New England began to suffer new de-
flation pains.
Consumers were buying a smaller
amount of cotton goods, owing partly
to higher prices. Southern mills were
getting more and more of available
business owing to lower labor costs
and greater efficiency. N. r. A. came
into the picture with grant Of au-
thority to the industry, permitting it
to cut production Is per cent for three
months
BY this time most people had for
gotten all about processing taxes In
the general commotion attending cot
ton loans, Bankhead quotas, loss Of
export markets and Brazilian COM
petition.
Not so the textile people. They
wheeled out the 42-cent-a-pound tax
OH cotton and began to shoot at it
as the cause of the industrys troubles
and of the South's uncertainties. This
tax amounts to about s130.000,000 a
year on cotton and presumably sy-
phoned from the pockets of the con-
sumers to the pockets of cotton plant
ers as payment for their contract to
cut down acreage.
Now the very Southern Senators
who established the processing tax.
and who fought for the whole restric-
ton program, are out shooting at the
tax that pays for it. They want the
money to come directly from the Fed
eral Treasury in the form of a gift.
But if Southern farmers get a gift,
every other farmer will be entitled
to the same thing. The Treasury
would be strained. Secretary Wallace
thinks that would be the end of the
whole farm program.
| y
President Roosevelt. at least ten
tatively, has decided to 60 ahead on
the lines laid down. Price-fixing
loans are expected to be continued.
Processing taxes are to be continued
unless Congress orders otherwise.
The Government will do its best to
forget Brazil and hope that Europe
will start buying more cotton here
again.
II that doesn't work, a resort may
be had to using Federal funds to
dump cotton abroad. Southerners
are getting interested in ideas Of
that sort.
But essentially, as Mr. Wallace, Mr..
Hull and others point out, If the
United States is to continue to seek
recovery alone, without worrying
about the rest of the world, then
there must be a revolution in indus
tries, such as cotton, which depend
upon foreign trade for existence.
Cotton to them is just symbol Of
the difficulties that lie in the path
Of nationalism, Of which the New
Deal is accepted as an opening sam
pie. Once started with planning. the
! Government finds that one thing
| leads to another until there is no
stopping short of dictatorial control.
(Copyright. 1936)