188 Cooperation in Agriculture 



agricultural interests. The members are elected by ballot 

 and are subject to blackball. 



A State Union must have a membership of 5000 men 

 before a charter is granted, and no union is organized with 

 less than five male members. The National Union is 

 composed of its officers and one delegate for each five 

 thousand members or majority fraction thereof. The 

 constitution declares: "The National Union, when as- 

 sembled, shall adopt and declare minimum prices on all 

 farm products which may be sufficiently in control of the 

 membership to give reasonable grounds for hoping to 

 maintain said prices." The National Union has com- 

 mittees on minimum price on both short and long staple 

 cotton and on various other products which its members 

 produce. It does not dictate the policy of the state and 

 local unions. It makes recommendations, and each mem- 

 ber is morally, though not legally, bound to follow the 

 recommendations made. 



Efforts of Growers to Reduce the Acreage of Cotton 



The cotton farmers have gone to greater lengths in 

 endeavoring to influence the price of a crop than any other 

 class of American farmers. In 1905 the price of middling 

 cotton was below 7 cents per pound. The President of 

 the Southern Cotton Growers' Protective Association, 

 Harvie Jordan, at the convention in New Orleans in Janu- 

 ary, 1905, urged that the acreage be reduced as a means 

 of improving the conditions in the cotton trade. In this 



connection Mr. Jordan said : * 



/ 



1 Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Cotton Exchanges, 

 V, pp. 329-330. 



