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To the Members of the Farmers’ Un
ion Throughout the Cotton Belt:
Just after the annual convention
Little Rock had named 15 cents a
pound as the minimum price which
the Southern farmer should receive
for his cotton during the ensuing
year, the speculators in the cotton .
ranks have managed to depress the
market and to beat down the price.
I address to you this line as a fra
ternal appeal to hold steadfast to the
counsel of your annual convention,
and with heroic fidelity to abide its
ultimatum to the markets of the
world.
Hold your cotton for 15 cents, and
hold it until it brings the price.
The committee which fixed the min
imum at Little Rock represents all the
cotton States, and many of the best
farmers of the South.
The National Union, when it fixed
that minimum, knew more about the
situation than any cotton gambler or
combination of cotton gamblers. It
was not fixed upon an impulse or an
uncertainty, but after deliberate study
and investigation.
With all my heart and with all my
mind, I urge you to the last limit of
your ability to hold steadfast to this
policy adopted by your National Un
ion.
The present status makes a definite
and decisive crisis in the history of
our great organization.
Up to this date the farmer has
worked with unbroken harmony, and
has kept the faith of his councils in
the face of opposition and against
the possibility of defeat.
Points Way to Victory.
We have won victor}’ after victory
by this splendid policy. We stand
now face to face with a condition
which affords us an opportunity to
show the world that the Southern
farmer is resolutely determined to
maintain his rights. The eyes of the
world are upon him as never before,
and the history of the organization
in the future will depend in no small
degree upon the courage and fidel
ity with which he meets the present
situation. For three years you have
won out in every proposition that you
have presented to the business world.
Win once more in this important is
sue and it will be henceforth easier
sailing for us all. Loyalty at this
time will do more to attract the thou
sands who are outside the ranks than
any argument we can present, or any
appeal that we can make. Let us
win this victory and we will achieve
the fear of our enemies and the re
spect, confidence and admiration of
the world. '
The act of the last national con •
vention pulsed the whole union with
fresh and virile hope. Perfect har
mony and perfect unity prevailed in
all our councils, and the Farmers’
Union stands to-day as a solid phal
anx before the forces of greed.
Cotton is Key to Situation.
You hold the key to the situation.
You have the cotton, you have the
warehouses, and if to those you only
add the courage, the business stamina
and the common sense to hold your
own, you need not fear the future.
Do not be scared by the conspiracy
which has been begun to make you
part with your cotton for less than
the minimum price. You have behind
you the greatest power of the age in
which we live, the power of num
bers and the power of organization.
Only realize your strength, only be
faithful to your principle, only stand
with the shoulder to shoulder touch
with your comrades, and the victory
will more than atone for the incon
venience and the waiting.
I do not ask you to hold your cot
ton to the injury of your creditors.
Every farmer’s duty is to pay his
debts, but this is a period when the
individual farmer and the Farmers’
Union can use their influence with
their merchant friends to induce them
to bear for a little while with anv
farming debtor whom the local union
may recommend to their confidence
and regard.
Be Loyal to the Union.
In this emergency every farmer is
an evangel. Let him go out among
his fellows to cheer them up—to stiff
en their backbones —to show them the
way to the union warehouses and to
the friendly merchant and to the loy
al way of waiting. The year that is
before us simply waits to crown the
farmer who in this period is loyal to
his union, faithful to its messages and
resolute in maintaining the standard
which it has fixed for the price of
his noblest product.
I feel that rarely before has the in
tegrity and strength of the Farmers’
Union faced a greater crisis than in
the courage and character with which
he meets this assault of the conspira
tors to force surrender upon the mini
mum price -which it has declared.
Let every farmer face the situation
without fear, and as God has pros
pered him in other years, and as his
union has prepared for him in the
storehouse for his crop, let him put
his shoulder to the shoulder of his
brother and breathing courage, con
fidence and determination, let him re
peat to the world the statement that
the man who buys his cotton must
pay him 15 cents a pound!
C. S. BARRETT,
President Farmers’ Union.
FARMERS IN FORTIFIED POSI
TION.
Newspapers in the Southwest, in
the very heart of the heavy cotton
producing section, are deprecating
the demand for 15 cent cotton, on the
ground that there is no hope of get
ting growers to hold for that price.
That is quite true, but that is not the
point for discussion or agitation at
this time.
It is a fact that fifteen days ago
spot middling cotton was worth in
Southern markets about 13 1-4 cents.
It is worth just as much to the spin
ners to-day as it was then, yet the
price being paid is between $6 and
$7 less a bale. Now, if it is imprac
ticable to get producers to hold for
15 cents, itr should not be impossible
to get them to stand out for 13 cents
—which they were getting just the
other day—when spinners are able
and willing to pay 13 cents. The
slump in price is based on purely fic
titious grounds. There is demand for
the raw cotton; there is demand for
its product at prices that enable
spinners to pay 13 cents and to make
good profit. Some fanners may be
willing to sell for 12 cents, but the
South Carolina producers will be
about six million dollars better off if
they get 13 cents. The difference will
mean about $17,000,000 to Texas.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
If the farmer who owes the money
on which his crop was made, is to
keep his cotton off the market, the
merchants and the bankers will have
to help him, and that help will have
to be extended all the way from North
Carolina to Texas. It is the small
farmers whose cotton is now going to
.swell the daily receipts. If they were
able to keep their product off the
market for twenty days the price—
depressed by speculation, not by spin
ners—would bound back above 13
cents, and there it could be held.
But unity of action is necessary,
and active co-operation and instruc
tion by every newspaper in the cot
ton belt, daily and weekly. The
growers of South Carolina and Geor
gia should get accurate information
every day about the sentiment of the
growers in Louisiana, Texas and Ok
lahoma, and vice versa.
Every farmer that reads a news
paper that gives the news knows there
is no chance of the crop this year
coming within the over-production
class. They know that thirteen and
three-quarter million bales will be
used, if produced, and that there is
sale for the manufactured products at
good prices. So the farmers of the
country are safe in resisting this
movement to depress the price of cot
ton. A cotton grower said the other
day that the farmers would never
stand together until they got another
dose of 5-cent cotton. That is not
necessaiy. But they do need two
things: First, that those in debt shall
not be forced to sell at this time of
the year—the warehouses can help
them there; and, second, confidence in
the soundness, safety and intelligence
of their advisers and leader’s.
This week every newspaper
throughout the South should urge
farmers not to sell a pound of cotton
for less than 13 cents, and should
make clear their reasons for that be
lief.—The State.
DECLINED TO HOLD COTTON.
The rate at which cotton has been
marketed and moved to tide water
during the past few weeks is a cir
cumstance to arouse reflection. Ere
the cotton season opened the Farm
ers’ Union had served notice on the
public that the chain of storage ware
houses built west of the Mississippi
river would hold 1,000,000, or even
1,500,000 bales, and with this was
coupled the announcement that the
Union, having effected adequate ar
rangements for advances on cotton,
purposed the accumulation of cotton
in these warehouses and holding for
a minimum of fifteen cents per pound.
Then the Texas Farmers’ Union of
Texas met at Fort Worth, on August
5, and ratified the “stand pat for 15
cent” policy. On September 3 the
National Farmers’ Union took a like
step at Little Rock.
Those declarations and movements
impressed spinners and cotton buyers.
There is no doubt about that, and
with the prospect of strongly organ
ized and capable movement to hold
cotton for 15 cents the season opened
with conditions that put many buyers
on the anxious seat. Would the
Farmers’ Union be able to carry out
its purposed That was the auestion
that spinners and factors on both
sides of the Atlantic were asking. It
is not surprising that cotton opened
active and prices went up, especially
in view of the admitted shortage in
Texas.
But the cotton buyers are the
shrewdest men in the world—when it
comes to cotton. They were the first
to discover that there were weak
places in the walls of the Fanners’
Union fortress; that there was a de
cided disposition to disregard the 15
cent ultimatum and take what cotton
would bring. The buyers—we mean,
of course, the leading spirits of that
element—discovered the truth even
before the cotton growers themselves
did. There were several causes op
erating to lower the price of cotton,
but one of the most forceful of the
reasons was that the buyers were sat
isfied that while some growers would
be loyal to the Farmers’ Union pol
icy and hold for 15 cents, the ma
jority ivould not do so, and subse
quent developments have shown that
the conclusion was correct. As a rule
farmers have not held, nor are they
doing so. If able to get cotton at 12
or even 13 cents, why should a buyer
pay 15 or even 14 cents? He will
not do so until some other influence
oi force than the storage warehouses
and 15 cent ultimatum of the Farm
ers’ Union operate to compel him.
We are considering this, not in any
spirit of satisfaction at the failure
of the warehouse system, as a means
to forcing the price of cotton upward,
for we are glad to see the farmers get
the fairest return on their labor, but
as a development of the situation.
The warehouses are patronized, we
suppose, by farmers, but it must be
evident to the most casual observer
that the warehouses are not filling up
with cotton to be held for fifteen
cents.
Tn a word, the plan—if that was
the plan—to use the warehouses as a
means to the end, appears to have
failed, and farmers are selling cotton
right along at current prices.
The movement was watched with
keenest interest, for there was gen
eral doubt if farmers could be in
duced to join in a great movement of
practical co-operation, as was pro
posed. If the farmer had had the
nerve to back up the Union project
and hold cotton the price might have
been forced to fifteen cents by this
time.
But he didn’t “stand pat,” and in
his failure to do so just what the
cotton buyers expected has happened.
—The Tribune.
SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS.
The great development of the cot
ton milling industry in the South
within the last two decades is one of
the most notable evidences of South
ern progress. In 1890 there were 336
mills in the South consuming raw cot
ton, and at the close of the commercial
year just ended there were 814 cot
ton mills in operation, with new mills
still in course of construction. In 1890
the takings of the then existing South
ern mills amounted to 546,894 bales
of cotton, "while for the commercial
year just closed the takings of cot
ton mills in the South reached 2,439,-
108 bales. Tn 1890 Northern cotton
mill sconsumed 1,799.258 bales, and in
the last year 2,526,390. or only about
87,000 bales more than were used by
the Southern mills.—Nashville Barb
nor.
PAGE SEVEN