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Show EUROPEAN WAR SHATTERS SHAT-TERS KING COTTON'S THRONE FLEECY STAPLE MUST PAY RANSOM RAN-SOM INTO THE COFFERS OF WAR. I Nation Rings With Crlei of Stricken Industry. By Peter Radford Lecturer National Farmers' Union. King Cotton has suffered more from the European war than any other agricultural ag-ricultural product on the American continent. The shells of the belligerents belliger-ents have bursted over his throne, frightening his subjects and shattering shatter-ing his markets, and, panic-stricken, the nation cries out "God save the king!" People from every walk of life have contributed their mite toward rescue work. Society has danced before the king;', milady has decreed that the family wardrobe shall contain only cotton goods; the press has plead with the public to "buy a bale"; bankers have been formulating holding hold-ing plans; congress and legislative bodies have deliberated over relief measures; statesmen and writers have grown eloquent expounding the inalienable rights of "His Majesty" and presenting schemes for . preserving preserv-ing the financial integrity of the stricken staple, but the sword of Europe Eu-rope has proved mightier than the pen of America In fixing value updn this product of the sunny south. Prices have been bayoneted, values riddled and markets decimated by the battling hosts of the eastern hemisphere until the American farmer has suffered a war loss of $400,000,000, and a bale of cotton brave enough to enter a European port must pay a ransom of half its value or go to prison until the war .la over. . . - ' I Hope of the, Future. Lies In Co-opera- j - ' tp-. ;;.'.. -;4'.' j The Farmers' Union, through ! the columns -of the press, wants to thank ' the American, people for the friend- j ship,-sympathy and assistance given the cotton farmers In the hour of dis- j tress and to direct "attention to 'co- j operative methods necessary to per- 1 manently assist the- marketing of all j farm products. The present emergency presents as grave a situation as ever confronted j the American ' farmer and from the1 viewpoint of the producer, would seem 1 to justify extraordinary relief meas- j ures, even to the point of bendine the i constitution vand straining business I I rules in order to lift a- portion of the 1 burden off the backs qf the farmer, for unless something is done to check j the Invasion of the war forces upon the cotton fields, the pathway of the i European pestilence on this continent I will be Strewn with mortgaeed home3 and famine and poverty will stalk over the southland, filling the highways of industry with refugees and the bankruptcy bank-ruptcy court with prisoners. All calamities teach us lessons and the present crisisjsery.es' to jjfuminate j , the frailties of . our. marketin-g methods meth-ods and the weakness of our credit system, and out of the financial an-' guish and travail of the cotton farmer j will come a volume of discussion and ' a mass- of suggestions and finally a : solution of this, the biggest problem In the economic life of America, if, indeed, we have not already laid the foundation for at least temporary relief. re-lief. More Pharaohs Needed In Agriculture. Farm products have no credit and perhaps can never have on a permanent perma-nent and satisfactory basis unless wj build warehouses, cold storage plants, elevators, etc., for without storage and credit facilities, the south is compelled com-pelled to dump its crop on the market at harvest time. The Farmers' Unions in the cotton producing states have for the past ten years persistently advocated ad-vocated the construction of storage facilities. We have built during this period 2,000 warehouses with a capacity ca-pacity of approximately 4,000,000 bales and looking backward the results would seem encouraging, but looking forward, we are able to house less than one-third of the crop and warehouses ware-houses without a credit system lose 90 per cent of their usefulness. The problem is a gigantic one too great for the farmer to solve unaided. He must have the assistance of the banker, bank-er, the merchant and the government. la production we have reached the high water mark of perfection In the world's history, but our marketing , methods are most primitive. In the : dawn of history we find agriculture j plowing with a forked stick but with J a system of warehouses under govern-j govern-j mental supervision that made the Egyptians the marvel of civilization, ! for who has not admired the vision of Joseph and applauded the wisdom of Pharaoh for storing the surplus until 1 demanded by the consumer, but' in j this age we have too many Josephs who dream and not enough Pharaohs 1 who build. . , ' |