COMPETITORS OF COTTON 



caught his tongue in his cheek and relaxed to enjoy the 

 capital show he was putting on. 



"We are all forgetting," Carl Fritsche explained pas- 

 sionately, "that cotton is the miracle plant, the only 

 plant that gives man food and raiment, feed for his 

 cattle, fertilizer for his fields. Cotton is God's great 

 gift to the South, given us as a sacred trust for mankind. 

 Dare we repudiate Jehovah himself by refusing to grow 

 cotton for all the world even if our best fields are 

 gullied by erosion and our rich red clay impoverished 

 by overcropping?" He pounded the table and glared 

 at us defiantly. 



"Believe me," he concluded with a fine flourish, "we 

 shall continue to grow cotton at New Deal expense- 

 come the Republican party or a Red Revolution, until 

 death do us part and hell freezes over!" 



We all burst out laughing. Someone suggested he 

 should be an actor, and he protested, "Oh, no, not 

 that," adding modestly, "But why not a Congressman 

 from Mississippi?" 



Turning to me, he spoke very seriously. "Southern 

 politicians will hand you just such chunks of raw emo- 

 tionalism, but sober cotton men will also give you this 

 sentimental tripe in place of honest argument." 



And some of them did. During the next three months 

 this tirade, stripped of Fritsche's flaming grandilo- 

 quence, was repeated several times. Always I remem- 

 bered the sane comment Dr. Paty made to his warning. 



25 



