SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



social gifts, not with docile gratitude, but in a spirit 

 of resentful criticism. Most Southerners, in all sections 

 and from every stratum, reject scornfully the entire 

 New Deal philosophy. They do not hesitate to ques- 

 tion openly both the lofty aims and the tangible re- 

 sults of its policies. 



From Lubbock, Texas, to Raleigh, North Carolina, I 

 talked with many cotton men big planters and little 

 sharecroppers; ginners, oil crushers, and compressors; 

 brokers, exporters, and mill men; scientists in labora- 

 tories and experiment stationsand without exception 

 they agree that the Government's efforts to help the 

 cotton grower are strangling cotton. All maintain stoutly 

 that every Government move in crop restriction, price 

 maintenance, and export bounty has hurt American 

 cotton either as a fiber in industry or as a commodity 

 in world trade. I found not one among them who openly 

 repudiates the Government cotton program. Most of 

 them admit, "off the record," that they are working 

 actively to secure extensions of the conservation bene- 

 fits, higher parity price and greater loan values, bigger 

 bonuses for every bale exported. Whatever they be- 

 lieve, they act to get while the getting is good. As for 

 the future, one of the wisest, shrewdest of them an- 

 swered for all when he shrugged his shoulders and 

 quoted Louis XV, "apres nous le deluge." 



This flat contradiction of thought by deed is, of 

 course, not peculiar to the South. It is a form of mental 



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