The Daily Worker

Few Cotton Farmers Benefit from Gov't Destruction Plan
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. With the boom of cotton prices over, the small farmers and share-croppers are beginning to realize that they were deceived by the promises of the administration which persuaded them to plow up their cotton. During the summer months, the landlords and speculators took advantage of the higher price to sell at a good profit the cotton they had stored since last Fall. Now that the small farmers have picked their crop they find a falling market. In desperation many of these farmers are refusing to carry out their contract to plow under. But stark terror is riding the cotton fields to force these farmers to destroy their crops. In Darlington County, S. C., night riders pulled up the cotton on about 30 acres of land belonging to farmers who refused to destroy their crop. In the ruined fields were signs reading, "Night Riders Administration."
Burn Farmers' Cotton On other farms, sheriffs and deputies have applied plow and torch to do away with the cotton of farmers who now refuse to destroy their one means of livelihood. Three Marion County farms in Columbia, Miss., were forcibly plowed under, and the cotton burned, by sheriff's deputies. Thirteen hundred pounds of seed cotton went up in smoke. The desperate plight of the small farmers and croppers is reflected in a telegram to President Roosevelt from the Alabama Merchant's Association, which finds that goods cannot be sold to farmers without money or crop. The telegram says: "Merchants throughout Alabama report farmers are protesting bitterly that the price of cotton is lower since the acreage plow-under. With 100 per cent advance in flour and cotton goods, farmers see no hope."