Mr. WHITE. You mean if it gets through like it left the House. It is still in conference, you know. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Of course, promises are all we have ever lived on when they came from this end. We are hopeful to that point. Mr. POAGE. Wait a minute. You are actually getting price support, are you not? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes. Mr. POAGE. It is not simply a promise. You are actually putting it in the bank, are you not? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I do not know. I am kind of like an old boy up there who played poker. They tried to get him in the grand jury and they said, "You was gambling for money, wasn't you?" He said, "No, I was gambling for chips." They said, "Well, you cashed your chips in, didn't you, so your were gambling for money." He said, "Well, I don't know whether I was or not because I didn't have any chips when I got through." Mr. POAGE. How many bales did you grow this year? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. About 570. Mr. POAGE. Have you sold that cotton? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir. Mr. POAGE. Did you put any of it in the loan? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. No, sir. Mr. POAGE. You did not have to because the price was up to the support price. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is right. Mr. POAGE. You do not suggest that the price would have been that high had there been no support price, do you? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes; but listen, Mr. Poage. Mr. POAGE. Just that question first and then explain your answer. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Well, gentlemen, I will say it this way. Mr. POAGE. We had a witness here the other day who told us if we would take all controls off acreage and all price supports that cotton. would sell for 75 cents a pound. You are not trying to tell us that, are you? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. No, sir; I am not. Mr. POAGE. You are not trying to tell us that the cotton would have brought 25 cents a pound this fall had there been no Government support price, are you? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. No; I am not trying to tell you that. Mr. POAGE. Then you actually sold your cotton at the price you got because of the Government support price, did you not? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is right. Mr. POAGE. Then did Congress keep its word? Were you able to cash in on what you were told or did you just get promises, as you said? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I was able to cash in. Mr. POAGE. We made good, did we not? Then why do you charge us with just making false promises and not keeping them? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. On acreage allotments, I have a history. Mr. POAGE. You said a minute ago that all you ever got from Washington was promises. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I did not say that. Mr. GATHINGS. He said that in a complimentary vein, Mr. Poage. Mr. POAGE. I did not take it as any compliment to be told that we were deceiving the farmers of the United States. Mr. GATHINGS. No; he just said that the bill apparently was going to pass. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. And it would take care of me. I made that statement. Mr. POAGE. I understood you said the Cooley bill. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Then you added the false part of it, that we had not gotten it yet. So I said, "Well, we had the promise." Mr. SUTTON. You realize the opposition we do have in passing that resolution which will take care of you is the Farm Bureau of America, which is opposing that resolution, do you not? Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I am not up here as the Farm Bureau. Mr. SUTTON. But they are opposing that resolution which we adopted in the House of Representatives. Now, it is in conference. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I am fully in accord with you as far as trying to correct those inequities, but how can you explain why I was allotted what I was originally allotted? Why do I have to come up here? Could it not have been plain enough that I would have been taken care of on history instead of issuing it out in counties; in Lamb County, the adjoining county to me, we had just a few over 6,000 acres. Give me the figures, will you? Mr. PACE. 6,536. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Lamb County, the adjoining county, 185,000; is that not right? Mr. PACE. Lamb County had 188,000. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. Then you move on down to Lubbock and you get their allotment. Mr. POAGE. 248,000. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I grow more cotton per acre over a period of years than either one of those counties grows. Mr. PACE. Congressman George Mahon is sitting back there and may not agree with you, but go ahead. Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I am not objecting and I have not objected. I have good friends. I live within a half mile of the line of Lamb County. I have good friends in Lamb County that said they wished they had some way they could give me some of their acreage after I had been treated the way I had. Mr. PACE. We will try to take care of you. Is there anything further you want to add? Mr. WORLEY. Mr. Carpenter, do you have anything to say? Mr. PACE. There is no more time. Mr. HARTZOG. Mr. Pace, you can see there is a divergence of opinion. These boys are friends of mine but you are good friends with your wife and you have had some really big arguments. That is all. Mr. WORLEY. I would like to thank my constituents for their appearance here today. Mr. PACE. Gentlemen, we are greatly indebted to you for coming here and giving us the benefits of your views. Gentlemen, we have present our distinguished colleague from the State of Missouri, who desires to submit a statement for the record. Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to take this opportunity to present this statement from the Missouri Cotton Growers Association in which they express their appreciation for the consider ation that has been given and to file their views with respect to the legislation. Mr. GATHINGS. Does the Chairman wish you to highlight it in a brief sentence or two? Mr. JONES. I am going to submit a copy to each of you in your offices. Mr. PACE. Thank you very much. The committee is delighted to have the benefit of this statement from the constituency of this area. (The statement referred to is as follows:) STATEMENT BY MISSOURI COTTON PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION, PORTAGEVILLE, MO. To: The Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. (Attention: The Honorable Stephen Pace, chairman of the Subcommittee on Cotton.) GENTLEMEN: The board of directors of the Missouri Cotton Producers Association, recognizing the inequities of distribution of cotton acreage allotments under the present cotton quota law, passed a resolution by unanimous vote, instructing their executive vice president, Ronnie F. Greenwell, to go to Washington with a delegation from Missouri and use every effort possible to bring about the passage of an amendment to the cotton quota law that would clear up much of the dissatisfaction that now exists in the State of Missouri, as well as throughout the United States Cotton Belt, caused by inequitable distribution of the cotton allotments under Public Law No. 272. It is our opinion that the amendment should provide that no farm should be allocated less than 70 percent of the average planted acreage of the years of 1946, 1947, and 1948, or 50 percent of the highest 1 year of 3, whichever is the highest, provided it does not exceed 50 percent of the total cropland on the farm, all to be figured on actual acres determined by proof of the farmer and approved by the county and State PMA committee. The present law provides that all farms within a county or administrative district shall be allotted an equal percentage of acres, provided the farm has planted that percentage 1 year of the 3 years of 1946, 1947, and 1948. For example, if the county factor is 40 percent and using two farms with 100 acres cropland in each farm, one farmer planted an average of 80 acres of cotton and the other farmer a 40-acre average, the first farm would receive only 40 acres, which amounts to a 50-percent cut, whereas the second farm would also receive 40 acres, amounting to no cut at all. The county factor of the cotton counties of Missouri ranges from 14 percent to 47 percent, yet there are farms in the lowest-factor counties that have been growing constantly 80 to 90 percent of the cropland in cotton. You can easily see the hardships this would bring about. We fully realize the intent of Public Law No. 272 was not to penalize so many farmers, but in many cases a law must be put into operation before the inequalities present themselves, and we believe this is the case of this law. We urge you to fully support an amendment that will correct these inequalities. We list the following facts and figures for your information: Hardship case No. 1 This is the set-up on the 1,200-acre Lee Hunter farm near the city limits of Sikeston, Mo., and located in Scott County, Mo. This farm had 800 acres of cotton in each of the years of 1946, 1947, 1948. This farm is operated on a share-cropper basis. It has 28 sharecropper families. Each family had 25 to 30 acres of cotton during these 3 years. Under Public Law No. 272, this farm of 1,200 acres was allocated 171 acres of cotton for 1950, or about 6 acres for each family. It is impossible for a family to produce enough cotton on this small acreage to support a family, which means about 20 families will have to be without a crop on this farm. Hardship case No. 2 The attached schedule of facts and figures is presented in an effort to represent the past history of a farming operation located in Mississippi County, Mo., known as Story Farms, Inc. This schedule reflects the growth of a specific cotton farm from the year 1946 forward, giving total farm acres, cropland 71642-50-ser. rr-12 acres, and actual cotton planted acres for all of these years. These respective farms were joined together to form the farm combination as it is today. This farm is traditionally a cotton-producing farm supporting a total of 70 families interested in the actual cotton crops raised upon this farm. With the present allotment of 540 acres for cotton for the year 1950, the owners will of necessity have to reduce the farm families to a maximum of 25, as the present allotment of cotton for this farm will not provide sufficient for these 70 families to maintain a livelihood, without becoming hopelessly in bankruptcy. The only redemption for the economy of the section represented by this farm and for the people living in this area is a revisement of, or amendment to, the present farm crop-allocation system which will allow the allotments of farm crops upon the basis of the past history of the crops produced on that given farm. The people of this section realize and appreciate the necessity for farm crop control in the case of cotton for cotton crop reduction, but feel that the unfairness of this situation is brought about by the means of distribution which has been applied. This report is conscientiously submitted with a hope that these facts and figures shall be of some constructive aid in bringing about some legislative measure of relief in order that the people being affected may be able to survive economically and socially in the future farm program. In Stoddard County, Mo., there are a good many small farmers who have cleared their land and are farming it in the Little River drainage district bottom. This land has a drainage tax of approximately $1.40 per acre. In addition to these small farmers who own their own places, there are a large number of small, or 40-acre, renters who plant cotton as their cash crop and rotate the rest of their land to corn and beans (beans where it has been cleared long enough to be free from stumps). These small farmers have been growing from 15 to 30 acres of cotton on their farms and make and harvest that crop with their own families. The farm history of these farms shows that the farms have been planted mostly to cotton and, therefore, will not show either a very large acreage of corn or beans, so consequently there cannot be a corn or bean history on these particular farms. If we have a corn and bean program, this small farmer will not have enough of any crop, as his farm history is only cotton and he was not given a cotton allotment sufficient enough to support his family. The following farms are examples of many typical small farms in Stoddard County and their crop history: The figures in parentheses were planted but lost because of too much rain and drainage ditches overflowing There are numerous small farmers who are in this same condition and who must be financed on these small farms. Under the present acreage allotment, the above two farms have an allotment of 8.6 acres of cotton per farm. One of these farms, No. 6-861, still has stumps on it and cannot be planted to beans, so the tenant must plant all corn. Few of these small farms are fenced and the wet land will not allow these farmers to go into the livestock business. The above hardship cases are just a very few of the several hundred in the State of Missouri and furnished to us by reliable sources. We would like to further recommend: 1. That there should be a national reserve for new farm allotments in an amount not to exceed 1 percent of the national allotment, and such amount to be deducted from the national allotment prior to apportionment of national allotment to States, for old growers. 2. Since the elimination of 1949 as a basis for cotton allotments has already served its purpose, we would like to recommend that any farm that was already cleared and prepared for planing by the normal plainting date of 1949 of that locality should receive an allotment from 1951 and subsequent years of not less than 30 percent of the 1949 harvested acres. We appreciate very much having had the opportunity of presenting this statement to the honorable committee, and also extend our sincere thanks to Congressman Paul C. Jones, from the Tenth District of Missouri, for cooperating with our group by presenting this statement. We would like to impress upon the committee very seriously that the matter of inequities in cotton-acreage allotments are causing much suffering and financial disaster throughout the country. Unless it is corrected it will seriously affect the entire farm program. We feel that generally Public Law No. 272 is very good, and with the suggested amendments should be fully satisfactory. Respectfully submitted, MISSOURI COTTON PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION, Executive Vice-President. We further recommend that in consideration of the history, for the purpose of establishing cotton-acreage allotments, full credit shall be given to land diverted to war crops and failure of plantings due to acts of God. MCPA: RFG. Mr. PACE. We will now hear from a witness from the State of Arkansas, Mr. H. R. Adams of West Memphis, Ark. Mr. Adams, time is running out. Go ahead. STATEMENT OF H. R. ADAMS, WEST MEMPHIS, ARK. Mr. ADAMS. I am H. R. Adams, secretary-manager, Agricultural Council of Arkansas. My statement will be very brief, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am going to address my remarks to the pending House Resolution, 398, which our executive committee met last Monday to discuss. As most of you are aware, it has been my privilege to serve on the so-called area committee. While the recommendations |