MCNARY-HAUGEN MOVEMENT 397 



margin of 3,432 votes. In Minnesota the entire state Republican ticket 

 and ten Republican congressmen were re-elected. In North Dakota the 

 results were the same. In Iowa John Hammill and eleven Republican 

 congressmen were re-elected. In Wisconsin the entire ticket state and 

 national and Victor Berger, the Socialist, were swept into office. Only 

 in South Dakota was the Republican candidate for governor defeated, 

 and that because of opposition within his own party. A Democrat, W. J. 

 Bulow, was elected along with Republican Senator Peter Norbeck and 

 three Republican congressmen. 67 



Republican leaders, nevertheless, were still fearful of a possible alliance 

 between the western Middle West and the South, for in 1926 the cotton 

 crop was the largest in history and the prices very discouraging. On 

 January 5, 1927, the New York Cotton Exchange quoted the price of 

 cotton as 12.65 cents P er pound, a figure considerably below the cost-of- 

 production estimates of the Analyst of November 5, 1926. To stave off 

 the imminent rapprochement between the South and the West, President 

 Coolidge appointed a cotton committee headed by Eugene Meyer, direc- 

 tor of the War Finance Corporation, and including Secretaries Mellon, 

 Jardine, and Hoover. The task of this committee was to investigate the 

 cotton market and to help disburse $30,000,000 to aid cotton producers 

 store four million bales of cotton. 68 



The actions of the national administration, however, did not put to an 

 end hopes for a southern alliance. On November 17, 1926, southern and 

 western leaders met in a cotton and corn states conference in St. Louis 

 where they again endorsed the principles of the McNary-Haugen bill. 

 A bloc system in Congress was recommended "to express and work for 

 the economic interests of agriculture." The need for southern help was 

 apparent, but some southern representatives were reported "shying away 

 from the principle of the bill on the assumption that it would commit 

 them to a high tariff." 69 



Again a farm conference expressed the belief that programs intended 

 to control surpluses should make use of the existing cooperative market- 

 ing associations. The farm board that former Governor Frank O. Lowden 



67. The New International Year Boo\, 1926, 515-16, 487, 386, 782, 894. 



68. "The Cotton Deluge," Literary Digest, XCI (October 23, 1926), pp. 5-6; 

 The New International Year Boo\, 1926, p. 201. 



69. New Yor^ Times, November 18, 1926. 



