COTTON 
59 
Jordan sounded the same bugle-note which South- 
ern farmers had hitherto refused to heed. 
Now they heard him. 
A call was issued for a great mass meeting in 
New Orleans January 24-29, 1905. 
One of the most pathetic pictures in history is that 
of the faithful remnant of the old French nobility 
crowding around poor King Louis when his star 
had almost set, thrilled again by a deep loyalty to 
the ancient throne then tottering, and passionately 
swearing allegiance once more to their hapless 
king, while the touching strains of "Richard, My 
Richard, All the World is Leaving Thee!" floated 
through the ill-fated Parisian palace. 
It was with some such earnest loyalty, but with 
confidence the exact opposite of the French despair, 
that the followers of King Cotton met in New Or- 
leans that January day. What they said and did 
it is not our purpose to record here in detail. They 
did resolve that the South should reduce her acreage 
20 per cent, as compared with the previous year, 
and they organized the Southern Cotton Associa- 
tion to carry this resolution into effect. 
With a manifest overproduction, with cotton 
selling at the time for six or seven cents, and with 
five-cent prices confidently predicted by the bear 
leaders of the New York Cotton Exchange, it took 
considerable courage for the New Orleans Cotton 
Convention to declare that the remainder of the 
1904 crop should be held for ten cents. 
Such a resolution, however, was almost unani- 
mously adopted. And within six months the ten 
cent figure was reached — largely as a result of the 
success of the movement for reducing the cotton 
acreage. 
