Monday will long be remembered by the farmers of this county as a big occasion fro them ofor on that day the largest gathering of farmers seen at Dobson in years assembled there to further perfect plans for handling the 1922 tobacco crop under the new system which is intended to dispense with the old way of auctioneering the tobacco off to the highest bidder on a warehouse floor. Every section, nook and corner, of the county was represented from the broad bottoms on the Yadkin river to the narrow mountain coves up in Bryan township. The day was a most ideal one for farming, but notwithstanding the lateness of many of the farmers in their work they laid down their plows for this one day and made the trip to Dobson in the interest of a cause that promises to break the leash of servitude that holds many to the soil.
Judge Harding adjourned court at noon in favor of this meeting, and the farmers immediately began to assemble. In a few minutes every seat in the spacious auditorium was occupied by some tiller of the soil, no standing room was left in the wide aisles and the bar was closely packed with a standing multitude. It was apparent that there was present the largest gathering of farmers seen in this county for years, it being estimates that there were more than a thousand present.
The audience was addressed by W.H. Swaim of Raleigh, who has spent the past several months organizing the farmers of North Carolina in this cooperative marketing movement. Mr. Swaim devoted the first of his speech to reciting the promises he had made in his former talks in this county and then proceeded to tell them how these promises dealing with the success of this movement were being carried out.
First, he said, some had feared that the organization would be unable to secure storage and handling facilities owing to the hostile attitude of many of the warehousemen. This he told them, has already been accomplished in most places. At meetings recently held in various parts of the state by the Board of Directors, of which A.L. Bunker of this county is a member, he stated that ample arrangements have been made for the successful handling of the coming crop. In some large centers the warehouses have fought this movement with every ounce of their energy, refusing to enter any kind of meeting looking to a successful agreement and in these places he assured the farmers the association would proceed at once to erect buildings of its own and be independent of the warehouse facilities in those places. In some counties there are no places available, citing Stokes county as an instance, and in some cases like Stokes, he said the association would erect buildings at some convenient station on a railroad. In this county the association has leased a large warehouse at Elkin for a period of years and the business people of that town are said to have entered heartily in the movement and are lending the leaders all the assistance within their power. In Mount Airy no definite arrangements have as yet been consummated, however the association has in view several propositions, and a committee will visit this town within the next few weeks and make ample provisions for this section. It was stated that if suitable quarters cannot be obtained at a reasonable rental or purchase, a building will be erected at some point on the railroad by the association. And so, Mr. Swaim told his hearers, he felt like this first promise made by him months ago on the part of the association has been successfully fulfilled. As to the finances, the speaker says the leaders from the beginning have known beyond any kind of doubt that there would be no embarrassment in financing this cooperative movement as they say that all cooperative movements all over this nation have always been heartily endorsed and aided by the financial institutions of our county.
Mr. Swain said that he had heard a great deal of talk about no one being able to grade all this tobacco except the tobacco experts who handle it for the big tobacco companies. And he reminded them of the news items that have been going out to the press for the past several weeks telling of the association employing many of the biggest and most successful tobacco buyers and brokers in the south. He told them that the matter of getting capable men to look after the handling, grading and management of the leaf departments has been the least problem the association has had to face.
And so these three salient points—warehouse facilities, financial backing, expert tobacco men—so necessary in the operation of this enterprise, he told them, had been carried to a successful completion.
As to the measure of success this movement has attained he told his hearers he had only to refer them to similar movements in operation in various sections of the United States. He explained at some length the movement started in Kentucky prior to this one in our midst that has practically done away with the selling of tobacco by auction. He said that 85 per cent of the burley tobacco produced in Kentucky last year was sold through the Cooperative Marketing Association. Scattered about over the state were farmers here and there who were doubtful about the success of the plan, and these made up the 15 per cent who failed to come into the movement. He told of the way the plan worked out there in regard to the selling of the tobacco to the companies. He said that the head buyer of Liggitt & Myers one day noticed that their supply of burley was running low, and they needed a large quantity to blend with their brands. This man also knew that 85 per cent of this particular tobacco was pooled in one big enterprise and that he could not buy it on the auction floor. So not wanting to take any chances of not getting a sufficient quantity to supply their needs for months to come, he wired a representative located in the city where the cooperative association had offices to place an order for 22 million pounds of burley tobacco and that he would arrive on the first train and discuss the price. The sum and substance of the transaction was that the cooperative association named a reasonable price for both farmer and manufacturer and sold the entire 22 million pounds in 30 minutes at a price nearly double what the same grade brought the year before. Mr. Swaim says he figures that for Liggit & Myers to have gone on the warehouse floors and bought this 22 million pounds at auction pile by pile would have entailed the employment of a large number of buyers and months of time at a cost of approximately one-quarter million dollars. And he said this one-quarter million was saved to the farmers who grew this tobacco in the advance price they received over that of the previous year.
He denounced as untruthful the statements being made by those opposed to the movement that the manufacturers now have a two-years’ supply on hand. At times Mr. Swaim lapsed into bitter denunciation of the methods he says are being used to thwart this effort to better the farmer’s lot, and he had no apology to make to any one who should take offense at his remarks addressed to those who were guilty. He informed his audience that the time has come when the association is going to assert the same right that every other man, business or corporation has and see that the perpetrators of these false rumor are brought to justice. He says that as the Cooperative Marketing Association is now a vast corporation just like a giant manufacturing enterprise that it is going to assert its rights and invoke the strong arm of the law on those who persist in trying to injury the work of the corporation as it has now become, just the same as an individual would when some one started a false and misleading report calculated to injury this business. He gave warning that the association in naming men in every township in the three states whose duty it is to report to headquarters the names of parties who are circulating false and misleading statements that are untrue and injurious to the cause of the association.
Some months ago Congress passed a national law dealing with the cooperative movements and giving them certain privileges and concessions to meet the conditions that arose from these efforts that sprung up and are springing up all over the country. One of these provisions is that it is a $500 penalty for any person, firm or warehouse to sell or handle the product of a person who has entered into a signed agreement with a cooperative association. And Mr. Swaim gave notice that no warehousemen in the three states—North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia—could violate this law and claim ignorance of who were members of the association for he says that they intend to furnish every warehouse and warehouseman a list of the members of this association in these three states. He says that the time has come for the crossing of the Rubicon and that from henceforth on there is to be no compromise or middle ground on the part of the association with those who persist in doing all in their power to destroy or deter the operation of this movement.
Mr. Swaim closed his remarks by appealing to those who had not signed up the contracts to do so at once in order that they should be able to share in the pool of the tobacco this year. The time, he told them, is rapidly coming when the association will have to close its books for this year.
After the meeting the members from the various townships of the county met together and elected a board of county directors composed of one man from each township. The following compose this board:
Bryan township, W.L. Haynes.
Dobson township, F.T. Lewellyn.
Eldora township, W.L. Chilton.
Elkin township, John Cockerham.
Franklin township, Emmett Isaacs.
Long Hill township, Joe Samuels.
Marsh township, Allen Stanley.
Mount Airy township, J.M. Parker.
Pilot township, Frank Dodson.
Rockford township, H.C. Norman.
Shoals township, P.G. Scott.
Siloam township, Harvey Norman.
Stewarts Creek township, Geo. Arrington.
Westfield township, J.M. Chilton.
From the front page of The Mount Airy News, Thursday, April 27, 1922
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