The Uses of Adversity

New Orleans, Aug. 9--(AP)--Cotton broke more than $2 a bale here today on selling induced by the Government estimate of 15,593,000 bales for the 1937 crop.

Franklin Roosevelt sitting in his study, was less than human if he did not smile. Nature, which allowed the cotton farmer 170 lb. for his average acre during the ten years preceding 1933, was about to bestow a bountiful 223 lb. per acre, equal to 151 S's, highest yield in U. S. history. Reasons: Abandonment of less productive acres in favor of cash benefits; scientific seed improvement. Results: The price of cotton had tumbled from about 12-c- last spring to 10-c-, cotton farmers' loud cries of "Do something!" were resounding in Southern Congressmen's ears.

Owners of those ears had already discovered that the only man who could very well do something was Franklin Roosevelt. In his Commodity Credit Corporation's purse he had $135,000,000 with which he could peg the price of cotton at 10-c- or 9-c-. Long ago Congress had turned over control of that purse to the Executive Department. Cotton-conscious Congressmen squirmed and realized that they were the very ones who had stood or tried to stand in the way of Franklin Roosevelt's pet Wages & Hours and Housing Bills.

President Roosevelt had the opportunity to take immediate advantage of his opposition's adversity and demand whatever he wished. Without promising to release any pegging funds, he had so far contented himself with a sermon on the need of crop control.

Meantime, two of the nearly-extinct Southern New Dealers, Senators Black* of Alabama and Bilbo of Mississippi, who have to do a lot of interpreting of their liberalism when they get back home, sought to soothe their farmer constituents by doing something now. They trotted around petitioning for a special Congressional session in October for the express purpose of enacting a farm bill. Calling a special session is strictly the prerogative of the President but it was understood that Mr. Roosevelt did not object to the petition. He cared not whether his comprehensive farm legislation (ever-normal granary, etc.) is enacted now, in October or early in January (provided Congress promises to take it up as first business of 1938).

Senator Ellison D. ("Cotton Ed") Smith, chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee, plans a committee junket this fall into the farm hinterlands to study conditions first hand, then report a bill for enactment next session. Therefore, when he learned that Messrs. Bilbo and Black had 40 names on their petition Cotton Ed stormed into the Senate: "Mr. President ... I think it is unfair to the committee. . . . We are studying the problem and doing the best we can to solve it. The farmer himself is only afraid of suffering because of the act of God. He has reduced his acreage but he cannot control the seasons. . . . There is a law which empowers the Commodity Credit Corporation to meet the emergency."

In high good humor all week, Franklin Roosevelt could chuckle as he read these words and repaired to Hyde Park, leaving Congress to stew in Washington. Nature and Franklin Roosevelt make a combination hard to beat.

P: Vetoing a bill to change the name of the Chemical Warfare Service of the U. S. Army to the Chemical Corps, the President expressed his views on the use of poison gas in general:

"I am doing everything in my power to discourage the use of gases and other chemicals in any war between nations. While, unfortunately, the defensive necessities of the United States call for the study of the use of chemicals in warfare, I do not want the Government of the United States to do anything to aggrandize or make permanent any special bureau of the Army or the Navy engaged in these studies.

"To dignify this service by calling it the 'Chemical Corps' is, in my judgment, contrary to a sound public policy."

P:When the Agricultural Adjustment Act was rewritten in 1935, it authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to arrange marketing agreements on almost every kind of farm produce except honey. Last week, bees were finally brought under the supervision of the U. S. Government when the President signed a special bill authorizing Secretary Wallace to enter into marketing agreements with beekeepers.

P: In 1928, a major U. S. diversion was trying to guess the precise significance of President Coolidge's famed "I do not choose to run." The Senate passed a resolution, introduced by Senator Robert La Follette, against Presidential third terms. On this precedent last week, Representative Hamilton Fish of New York, whose Congressional district includes Hyde Park, introduced a resolution that made interesting reading for his most famed constituent "that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the precedent established by Washington and other Presidents . . . in retiring . . . after their second term . . . has become by common concurrence a part of our republican system of Government and that any departures . . . would be unwise, unpatriotic and fraught with peril. . . ."

P: At Hyde Park, the President toured his well-grown fields in the small car which he drives himself, attended church, chose Dutchess County field stone for a new post office at Poughkeepsie. Most interesting visitor of the weekend was Bronx Democratic Leader and New York Secretary of State Edward J. Flynn. Correspondents guessed that Leader Flynn was trying to line up Presidential aid for Judge Jeremiah T. Mahoney in New York's mayoralty fight (see p. 12).

* Alabama opposition to Liberal Senator Black had grown so strong last week that some observers were predicting a Supreme Court appointment as the only means of salvaging him for the New Deal.

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