The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1936-06-05
INVENTORS WERE
SHAREHOLDERS
Purpose Now to Use Me-
chanical Cotton Picker to
Spread Organization of
Farmers and Workers
Coop. Commonwealth
By HAROLD COY
Federated Press

Federated Press
For the first time in history,
the major proceeds of a great la
bor-saving invention will be used
to aid those whom it displaces and
to carry on education for a social
order in which machinery will be
blessing instead of a cause Of
misery and unemployment!
Such is the decision of John and
Mack Rust, two Texas-bred broth
ers who have invented machine
which promises to put an end to
the most monotonous, back-break-
ing and underpaid toll still left in
the world-picking by hand every
year some 25 million bales of cot
ton, about half of which grows in
the United States.
CAPITALIST
PARADOX
AS men of economic insight as
well as mechanical genius, the
Rust brothers realize that, under
one of those paradoxes peculiar
to the profit system, their wide
acclaimed machine, potentially an
untold blessing to the human race,
promises to uproot and drive from
their homes two thirds to three
fourths of the sharecroppers in
Americas cotton belt! Yet SCien-
tific progress cannot be halted.
Never before have inventors faced
so sharp a dilemma!
ORIGINAL
PLANS
John Rust, visiting New York,
has announced through Federated
Press the decision of his brother
and himself to divert most of the
proceeds of the invention to three
purposes: 1. To protect the living
standards of cotton farmers re-
manning on the land. 2. To re-
habilitate some of the people dis
placed by demonstration cO-Opera-
tives. 3. To encourage workers ed
ucation and help prepare the Am
erican people for system of pro-
duction for use. By granting short
term leases, rather, than outright
sales, the inventors will be under
position to influence conditions IN
der which the machine is used.
BOYHOOD
DREAM
Ten of the machines will go in
to practical use in the Arkansas
Mississippi delta this fall. Oper
ating on the principle of a mOis
tened spindle, the cottonpicker i
the fullfillment of Rusts' boyhooc
dream on a Texas cotton farm
when they swore to conquer thu
arduous labor of hand picking.
PRODUCING
UNEMPLOYMENT
"In our present economic order,'
state Rust brothers in their an
nouncement to Federated Press
chronological advance no longe
makes for the welfare of all tn
people, but tends to increase on
Insecurity. When these machine
begin moving into the cotton field
they will of necessity steadily
crowd, the sharecroppers and 9th
er hand pickers off the cottol
land. Consequently unless some ad
iustment is made to rehabilltat
these people, they will simply b
added to the ranks of the unem
ployed.
USE PROFITS
FOR SECURITY
eft stands to reason that tn
cotton picker has immense posi-
bilities as a source Of revenue an
It is our idea that as much as pos
sible of this revenue should be us
ed on the one hand for rehabll
tating the disemployed and on tn
other for carrying on educatlo
activities with a view of endln
unemployment poverty once an
for all. .4
owe will encourage the estai
ishment of cooperative entel
prises and such other organic;
tions as tend to raise the econonI
ic and moral status of the Peep
as a whole. We are also conslosI
inc the idea Of leasing our macl
ines onlv to those who will estal
hsh a system of fair wages Al