"Drop-a-Crop"

(See front cover)

A loud rap-rap-rapping on his bedroom door late one night last month awoke Louisiana's red-headed Governor Huey Pierce Long from a sound sleep in the executive mansion at Baton Rouge. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, looked at his watch. It said 1:40 a. m. He said, "Come in." And in trooped legislative clerks, secretaries, photographers, newshawks. The Governor was handed a pen and a bill just passed by the night-sitting Legislature.

In his cotton night shirt, between cotton sheets, Governor Long signed a cotton bill designed to outlaw the nation's greatest cash crop next year. After cameramen had recorded the scene, Governor Long announced to the Press: "If the other cotton-growing States will follow Louisiana's lead, I will personally vouch for 20^ cotton. It's all right to call on Hercules but we must put our shoulders to the wheel ourselves."

At dawn that day an airplane streaked away to Austin, Tex. where a copy of what came to be known as Louisiana's "Drop-a-Crop" act was handed to Governor Ross Shaw Sterling with Governor Long's suggestion that Texas also prohibit 1932 cotton planting. Thus to a monster (250 Ib.) Governor of a monster (265,896 sq. mi.) State was passed a monster (15,685,000 bales) cotton problem.

Weevils & Records. Before the Civil War at a time when South Carolina's Senator James Henry Hammond first proclaimed Cotton King, the South was producing about 4,300,000 bales per year.* In 40 years the production had more than doubled. In 1914 the 15 cotton States of the Union brought forth an all-time record crop of 16,000,000 bales--and the South almost went bankrupt when the outbreak of the War blocked export. In 1892 Boll Weevil had crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico. The spreading infestation over-took expanding cotton production after 1914, reduced the 1921 crop to the smallest (8,000,000 bales) in a quarter-century. But planters learned how to fight this pest, increased their acreage, pushed their production up & up. In 1926 they set a new record of 18,000,000 bales. Last year they grew some 14,250,000 bales of which less than half found a market. To a carry-over of 9,000,000 bales the South this year is adding a crop of more than 15,000,000 bales. It is this glut of cotton, selling for about 6-c- per Ib. and far outrunning world consumption, which last week agitated not only the South but also the Federal Government and foreign countries.

No. 1 Cotton State. In 1859 Texas produced 345,000 bales of cotton or about 8% of the total U. S. crop, doubled its output by 1879. As railroads spread out and opened up almost limitless tracts of new Texas land for cotton cultivation, the State's production tripled in 20 years. In 1899 Texas was the No. 1 U. S. cotton State with 2,500,000 bales. This year its 10,000 gins will compress 5,000,000 bales or 33% of the U. S. crop.

"Save the South." Many and varied have been the relief plans advanced this summer to help the South out of its cotton predicament. The Farm Board, loaded down with 1,300,000 bales from the 1929 crop and in no mood for more speculation, proposed that every third row of the crop be plowed under (TIME, Aug. 24). Southern Senators tried to get the Board to buy more cotton, provided growers would promise reduced 1932 planting. The Army was seriously urged to purchase several million bales to use as ramparts about its forts. Conference after conference produced ideas but no action. Newspapers ran "Save-the-South" campaigns.

Extreme Drama. First to succeed in dramatizing the cotton situation was loud, extreme Governor Long. He called his Legislature into session, whipped through his bill prohibiting cotton planting next year under a penalty of $500 fine and 60 days imprisonment. The Louisiana law would be effective only when States producing 75% of the cotton crop took similar action. The economic theory behind this statute was that, if the South planted no cotton next year, this year's crop plus the carryover would more than double in value. Fantastic though the "Drop-a-Crop" scheme might be, it had one certain virtue: it focused public attention throughout the South on legislative remedies, pointed the way to some sort of united action among the States.

Governor Long was shrewd enough to know that his plan would stand or fall on Texas. As Texas goes on cotton, so goes the South. Therefore he rushed his new bill to Austin while other Governors of the South stood back to see what the No. i cotton State would do.

Invasion. Because he has all the economic conservatism of a poor boy who has become a rich man, Governor Sterling was hesitant about grappling the cotton situation Governor Long had tossed to him. For a week he hemmed & hawed. From Louisiana, Governor Long tried to stir him into action by radio appeals to Texas planters. Resentful of this political invasion, Governor Sterling exploded: "Huey Long's not running Texas."

Retorted Governor Long: "No, I'm not. but I wish Ross Sterling was. If he doesn't run other things any better than he's running Texas, he can't run any thing."

Governor Sterling thought most of his legislators were opposed to cotton relief legislation. He declared he would be a "boob" to call them into session. When he discovered that a majority did favor legislative action, he issued the call and remarked: "It will be a farmers' session and they'll have to ramrod it themselves. I'm going fishing."

Eyes of the Nation. Last week the Texas Legislature met. To it Governor Sterling sent a special message in which he said: "The farmers have risen in their distress and lifted their voices in the most widespread and concerted demand that has moved them during modern years. . . . Whether the situation can be reme died by legislation remains to be determined. The hopes and prayers of Texas are that it can. . . . These are abnormal, parlous times. . . . The eyes of the nation are upon us, watching and hoping for us to raise a torch that will light the way for the Southland out of the darkness that now engulfs it."

Ramrodders. To "ramrod the session" as Governor Sterling would not, thousands of overalled cotton farmers left their white-flecked fields and flocked into Austin. In the House they were admitted to the chamber floor, permitted to make little speeches about what they wanted. They jostled about the Capitol corridors, clamored for a "Drop-a-Crop" law.

Meanwhile Governor Long continued to agitate Texas from afar. One night last week a great rally of 7,000 cotton farmers was held in Austin's Wooldridge Park. Governor Long had planned to attend but at the last minute decided not to, lest Lieut. Governor Paul Cyr, his bitter political foe, seize the Louisiana Government in his absence and unmake the Long machine. The Governor's 12-year-old son Russell went to the Texas capital in his place, explaining that: "Papa couldn't leave because he was afraid Lieut. Governor Cyr might make a mess." From slangy William Kennon Henderson's troublemaking Station KWKH at Shreveport, La.. "Papa" Long addressed the meeting at Austin, declared that the "Drop-a-Crop" plan would increase Texas' cotton income this year from $125,000,000 to $500,000,000.

"If the lawmakers of Texas turn traitor." boomed the Long voice out of the loudspeakers, "and fail to prohibit cotton on Texas farms, the price of your crop will fall to 2-c- per Ib. next year. How do you vote on the cotton holiday plan?"

Three-quarters of the audience jumped to its feet, bellowed approval. When the noise subsided Governor Sterling lumbered up to address the overwrought crowd.

"What," he began sorrowfully, "would Sam Houston think if he would suddenly return to life and see the Governor of Louisiana telling the people of his beloved Texas what to do?"

"Hurrah for Long!" bellowed the crowd.

"When you take too much government into business," continued the big Texan, "you'll not be a free people very long."

"Hurray for Huey Long!"

"Long is right--like a fox. He is going at the wrong end of this thing. We should go to the fountain head--that spineless cactus at the head of the Government in Washington. Herbert Hoover and the Republican Party have brought you here today--"

"Who did you vote for? Who did you vote for?" challenged the farmers.

Governor Sterling ignored their heckling. "Governor Long is long on pajamas. I am informed he has more than any other man in America-- and not one of them is cotton."

"Hurray for Huey Long and his pajamas!" shrieked the throng. After booing their own Governor because he was not a "Drop-a-Cropper," the 7,000 Texas farmers adopted a resolution endorsing unqualifiedly the Long plan for no 1932 cotton planting.

First to Follow. In other Southern States last week cotton was also a major concern with Governors, politicians and planters. First to follow Texas was South Carolina (estimated crop: 929,000 bales) whose Governor Ibra C. Blackwood called a special legislative session for this week. It was the first extraordinary sitting of this assembly since 1914 when, in a similar crisis of 6-c- cotton, Governor Coleman Livingston Blease called the law-makers together.

Last month Governor Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia (estimated crop: 1,311,000 bales) talked confidently about how he would call his Assembly together to act on cotton just as soon as a call was issued by Governor Sterling for the Texas legislators. Last week, however, with the Texas Legislature sitting, he began backing away from the special session idea, declared he would wait to see what Texas accomplished first.

40,000,000 Hells. In Mississippi (estimated crop: 1,500,000 bales) Governor Theodore Gilmore Bilbo would no more call a special session for cotton than he would call one last spring for the State's fiscal troubles (TIME, May 4). His sine qua non for any special session: a written promise from every legislator not to impeach him. Declared Governor Bilbo last week: "I'll see the Legislature through 40,000,000 hells before I will call it without a pledge from each member."

Other States. In Alabama (estimated crop: 1,288,000 bales) Governor Benjamin Meek Miller frowned on legislative remedies to up cotton prices while in North Carolina (estimated crop: 715,000 bales) Governor Oliver Max Gardner turned his back on the South and appealed to President Hoover for a special cotton session of Congress on the ground that the problem was national and international. Governor William Henry ("Alfalfa Bill") Murray of Oklahoma (estimated crop: 1,254,000 bales) talked about a stiff tariff on long staple cotton, vaguely praised "uniform laws."

Hoover's Angle. Cotton weighed no less heavily on the mind of President Hoover last week than it did on the Southern Governors'. He opposed any idea of involuntary crop reduction or elimination, on the theory that the planters would be worse off than they now are, that hundreds of thousands of workers in gins, cottonseed oil mills, railroads, steamship lines would be rendered jobless by "Drop-a-Crop." The President attacked the problem from the export angle. How, he asked, could cotton surplus be sold outside the U. S.?

Biggest Factor. To answer this question the President summoned to the White House Governor Eugene Meyer of the Federal Reserve Board and William L. Clayton of Houston, head of Anderson & Clayton, largest U. S. cotton factors. In 1926 Messrs. Hoover, Meyer & Clayton had worked together to move the record crop out of the country and hold up the domestic price. Mr. Clayton then had his foreign agents induce spinners to buy heavily as a good investment, with the result that 15% of the 1926 crop was moved by the Clayton firm. At last week's White House conference a plan was under discussion whereby export credits might be established.

Tether's End. The Federal Farm Board had come to the end of its tether on cotton ideas. It was paying $5,200,000 per year to store 1,300,000 bales for which no market existed. Fortnight ago the Board formally renounced stabilization: "Continued purchase in the face of overproduction is not the remedy. For two years the Board has cushioned American farmers against price declines . . . has accumulated a considerable store of cotton which is virtually frozen. Stabilization is valuable in the face of temporary surpluses but it is futile in the face of continued overproduction." The Board also declared that it would ask Congress for no more money this year but would live out of its revolving fund.

Governor of Texas. All of these men and agencies in Washington could not do so much for the cotton planter as one big man in Texas. But Governor Ross Shaw Sterling was not inclined to use the full power of his position. It appeared as though he would veto any attempt of the Texas Legislature to prohibit cotton planting next year. Said he: "I wouldn't let a child burn itself with fire if I could prevent it. ... I have not been swept off my feet yet. There is too much hysteria in Texas and in the South." He said he feared the "Drop-a-Crop" idea would be unconstitutional. Besides, there was always the chance that Egypt, India, Russia and the other cotton-producing countries of the world would expand their production and gobble up the U. S. market if the South skipped a crop year. It seemed unlikely that the Texas Legislature, without active leadership from its Governor, would go as far as Louisiana's and outlaw cotton. As the House and Senate mulled last week, the legislation that seemed to have the most support called for a restriction of cotton to one-third of the State's available farm land, with a consequent cut of 50% in production.

Texas' two great industries are cotton and oil. Governor Sterling is an oil man. He was born 56 years ago into a large family impoverished by the Civil War. He left school early (his diction still shocks grammarians), started a small lighterage business near Galveston, opened a general store at the age of 20. He moved into the oil fields of Humble, made some money as a merchant and banker, in 1910 invested in two producing wells. Out of this venture grew Humble Oil Co. control of which was sold in 1919 to Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey for $16,580,000. It was to save the price of oil that Governor Sterling last month called a special legislative session, drove through a new proration act, closed the gushing East Texas field by martial law, drove up the price of oil from 10-c- to 68-c- the barrel (TIME, Aug. 24). Cotton planters openly wondered why he would not take the whip hand and do as much for them. Their only explanation was that, after all, he is an oil, not a cotton man.

Not one of the most adroit politicians of the shirt-sleeved South, Governor Sterling has worked long and hard to reach his present eminence. In his home city of Houston he made a reputation as a port developer, a Y. M. C. A. benefactor and the able publisher of the Post-Dispatch. In 1927 Governor Dan Moody named him chairman of the State Highway Commission. He did a good job reorganizing this politically mired department. He built new highways and spread his name & fame up and down every mile of them. It was on the strength of this road work that he was nominated and elected Governor last year in a rough & tumble campaign in which a prime issue was the number of bathrooms in his large and ornate home overlooking Trinity Bay.

He hunts and fishes, tells many a tall tale about both. Good-natured, easygoing, fairly industrious, scrupulously honest, he jokingly refers to himself as "the big fat boy."

Last week the South waited patiently for the "big fat boy" to throw some of his surplus bulk into the surplus cotton problem, to take up the "torch" for other States to follow.

*On March 4, 1858 Senator Hammond addressed the Senate thus:

"The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or even three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she were to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure that after three years' total abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King!"

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