SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



row the politicians and bureaucrats will undoubtedly 

 defend their entrenched positions with all the courage 

 and resourcefulness of a suicide squad. 



For ten years now every move in the Government's 

 cotton program has made the plight of cotton more 

 desperate. Cotton producers have been greatly helped, 

 but the product, cotton, has been dangerously hurt. 

 On both the other fronts, foreign and synthetic, it is 

 extremely significant that the artificially high price 

 plays right into the hands of cotton's competitors. Every 

 cotton man I talked with, from North Carolina to West 

 Texas, admits that the only sound, permanent solution 

 of their problem is to get cotton out of politics. 



The politicians play the game the Southern farmers 

 are either too greedy or afraid to repudiate. Southern 

 men in Congress are intelligent enough to know that 

 high prices harm cotton, but they are smart enough to 

 know what their constituents want. 



At the very outset let us count the blessings of the 

 Government cotton program. They are tangible and 

 important. They have been costly, but surely no good 

 American begrudges any expense to help a tenth of our 

 fellow citizens achieve a more representative standard 

 of living. Ten years of relief measures have lifted the 

 burden of debt from many poor families and helped 

 them escape from the treadmill of the single cash crop. 

 Various conservation campaigns have taught better 

 agricultural practices, helping thousands to achieve 



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