RISKS OF THE COTTON MARKET 141 



mercy of the market and falling prices, in the toils of 

 the creditor, the supply merchant, the middleman, and 

 the "anaconda" mortgage, going out to do battle against 

 the solid South and the Democratic party, has been en- 

 gagingly told for one southern state by A. M. Arnett. 64 

 In the field of cotton economics the object of the 

 farmers' particular wrath was the New York Cotton 

 Exchange. It was believed that speculators established 

 the prices ruinous to the cotton planters, and a partic- 

 ularly popular unwritten plank in the platform of the 

 agrarian revolt was the extermination of the New York 

 Cotton Exchange. A low price for a good crop of cotton 

 was the result of the malign influence of speculators. 

 The farmers were exploited. The attitude is well repre- 

 sented in an address delivered by Tom Watson at a 

 cotton convention held during the crisis of 1905: 



What a singular situation is ours, my brethren. The world 

 has never seen one similar to it. Famine has its millions of 

 victims in India because the crops have failed. We sent the 

 offerings of our charity a year ago to Russia because her 

 crops had failed. Tonight in Ireland starvation clamors for 

 its victims throughout the length and breadth of that afflicted 

 country, and it is because they didn't make the crops. 



It is a curious state of affairs. I starve to death, not be- 

 cause I have no crust to eat, but because the table is bounti- 

 fully spread. If we make no crop it is ruin, and if we do make 

 one it is ruin too. It's the old predestination cry! You can 

 and you can't, you will and you won't; you're damned if you 

 do and damned if you don't. 55 



The speculators set the price of cotton. They lowered 



54 The Populist Movement in Georgia, chap. II. 

 85 Cited by Henry K. Webster, "Slaves of Cotton," American 

 Magazine, July, 1906, p. 305. 



