Home Photo Gallery Classroom Documents Statement of Clarence R. Bitting, President, United States Sugar Corporation, Clewiston, Fla. Clarence R. Bitting
My name is Clarence R. Bitting. I am appearing here in my capacity as president of United States Sugar Corporation of Clewiston, Fla. I understand we have been requested to present our views on the question under consideration and to outline the means and methods used by us in meeting the problems involved in large-scale agricultural employment. Only recently a Federal official, testifying before Senate Civil Liberties Committee, said—"The standard of living of the sugarcane workers employed by the United States Sugar Corporation is higher than the standard of most agricultural workers in the continental area. The seasonal migration of cane labor to Florida does not appear to present any problems except possibly that of controlling the supply so that the maximum amount of employment is available for the year-round workers and for those employed only during harvesting. On the whole, sugarcane workers in Florida constitute a relatively privileged class of agricultural workers." We have consistently made profits during the time when most producers of the same crop were complaining of their inability to make ends meet because of low market prices. The problems being studied by this committee are today probably more serious than at any time in the history of our Nation. These problems have always received some attention from thinking persons because of the American emphasis upon living standards and protection of the ordinary man from exploitation. In recent years that emphasis has been accentuated, and such accentuated emphasis undoubtedly is, and has been, a healthy thing for America. For an understanding of our accomplishments to date we believe it advisable to outline briefly the problems and conditions we originally faced; the philosophy underlying our approach to the problem; the means and methods used to achieve the results obtained; and the presentation of existing conditions on Florida sugarcane plantations. Such approach will, of necessity, deal with the past and present aspect of the problem under consideration and must at times touch upon the broad general agricultural problem, with which the present problem is closely intertwined. Before stating our problem and how we solved it, perhaps it might be well to touch upon the basic general problems which affect the particular problem under consideration at this hearing. If our Nation is to endure, people are entitled to, and must have, certain basic things. These basic things are both spiritual and material. Man lives not by bread alone. Every man wants the satisfaction of performing a useful and worth-while service in exchange for the things he needs or desires; he also wants the pleasures of making a secure home and of rearing a family; self-respect requires that he provide his family with all the necessities and some of the fundamental comforts of life; he needs congenial companions, an outlet for religious aspirations, and availability of education and recreation, all these things produce spiritual and mental satisfaction. On the material side there are also basic needs; these are fundamental if we are to have a healthy, happy people, such needs include housing that wil1 keep out the weather, clothing that will protect his family proper and adequate food to keep them healthy, sanitary and medical facilities to ward off disease, and facilities for religious worship, education recreation, and companionship. These are all simple and basic needs; to produce satisfactory living they need be neither elaborate nor expensive. The basic phenomena of interstate migration of destitute citizens have been present since colonial days. Poverty, wanderlust, love of adventure, restlessness, and resistance to restraint, as well as the search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, have all combined to cause the migrations which opened the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Closely allied with such migrations and often a part of them was the itinerant worker. The itinerant worker is probably as old as mankind. In colonial days we had itinerant cobblers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths clockmakers, tool grinders, and others; during the Middle Ages they had the wandering minstrel. Interstate migration of our people in search of health, recreation, adventure, or the hope of improving their economic condition is not something new, nor is it something inherently evil. Our forefathers faced hardship and suffering during their migrations when this continent was opened to civilization. The evils in migrations of our people in search of employment have become aggravated during the past decade by reason of absence of homesteading lands as well as unusual economic and social conditions forced upon them, but the evils, hardships, and sufferings are not generally as deplorable as the overdrawn picture used as a background for recent inexcusable widespread retailing of dirt, smut, and depravity. The problems associated with migrations of a substantial portion of our people in search of employment are not restricted to rural areas. In both number of itinerant or seasonal workers, and the seriousness of their problems, our large industrialized urban centers present an even greater need for solution. Insofar as the problem in our rural areas is concerned, it is closely bound up with the problems of farm income, farm indebtedness, farm tenancy, sharecropping and kindred facets of our farm problem as a whole. No one angle of our agricultural problem can be solved without careful consideration of all other angles, properly solved, the solution of any one angle of the problem will help to solve the other angles. In a sincere effort to soften the harsh problem of the seasonal worker in both industry and agriculture one of our best known and most successful industrialists has both advocated and practiced the theory of combining work in both fields through the use of small factories for the production of automotive parts during the slack farming season. An adoption of such method by many of our large industrial enterprises, which can afford to carry substantial inventories of standardized parts, would be of great assistance in helping to solve the problem of the seasonal worker and thus reduce the necessity for migration. The relocation away from our overpopulated and overlarge cities of small seasonally active industrial plants in rural communities where the agricultural peak and industrial peak do not coincide, will also prove very helpful. The problem of migratory, seasonal agricultural workers is bound up in the solution of all our economic problems, both industrial and agricultural, but more immediate relief will undoubtedly be found in a solution of our agricultural problem. For years and years we have talked farm relief and we have legislated farm relief; in recent years we have spent billions for farm relief. Based upon remarks of those in authority, the farm papers, the heads of farm organizations, and Members of Congress, we are further away from realistic relief for our farmers than ever before. Surely such a condition indicates we have been on the wrong course. Perhaps we have substituted words for thoughts and in so doing the words have been worn smooth because the thoughts expressed are worn empty. Our agricultural economists have completely and utterly failed our farmers; instead of finding ways and means to cure the problems causing migrations of destitute farm families, they have apparently wandered over the earth with their heads in Olympian clouds. To illustrate, permit me to quote from one of the papers presented at the annual meeting of the American Farm Economic Association held at Philadelphia, December 27, 28 and 29, 1939. "Part of the income from farming to the small owner-farmer, is the opportunity to accumulate through investing spare-time family labor in clearing land, fencing, construction or improvement of buildings." That statement probably sounded deliciously nice when read in the cozy warmth and luxury of a big city hotel on a cold, wintry day. The starry-eyed, long-haired, flowing-tied idealist could have been extremely helpful had he described how the trash from the cleared land could be served as a delicious and nourishing meal to a growing family, how the fencing could be used to replace the worn-out tire on the tractor or car; how the building improvements could be made into attractive and serviceable clothing for the family; and how all the left-overs could be used for cash to pay the hired man. Before outlining the early conditions of sugar production in the Everglades a brief description of the area will help to build a mental background for tbat which follows. Unlike the usual illustrations in school geographies, the Everglades is a vast, almost perfectly flat area; that portion of the area with which we are now concerned is to the east and south of Lake Okeechobee; a line running east and west and touching the southern shores of Lake Okeechobee would reach from West Palm Beach on the Atlantic to Fort Myers on the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 120 miles, the highest natural point on such line is scarcely 20 feet above sea-level; excepting on what are termed "ridges" on which grow some few stunted custard-apple trees, all trees in the area have been brought in by mankind for shade, decoration and as fences along canals, which canals have been provided for the purpose of draining the rich humus muck land, the grade of which is not sufficient for natural drainage. In 1925 an ambitious plan for the reclamation of large areas in the Everglades and their planting to sugarcane was undertaken. For various reasons this resulted in failure during 1930. Shortly after the appointment of receivers for the Everglades cane sugar development in 1930, creditors and substantial stockholders of the old company requested Bitting Incorporated, a management organization, to make a study of the situation to determine the desirability of reorganizing the properties. As a result of studies and recommendations made by us the sugar-producing properties in the Everglades were acquired by United States Sugar Corporation. During the examination and survey of the properties we found low wages, poor housing, and almost complete absence of recreational and similar facilities; we found a labor peak, lasting but 3 months, equal to more than three times the labor requirement during the balance of the year; we also found what might well be expected-a dissatisfied force of employees and extremely high labor turn-over. In only one of the operation's many plantation villages were these conditions not present, although, as elsewhere on the property, low wages prevailed. To accomplish the aims we set for ourselves—namely, a successful sugar-producing property in the Everglades—we knew that one of the first objectives had to be a satisfied, healthy, happy field organization. As most of the work during the harvest was on piece-work rates we made slight increases in these rates; knowing there were right and wrong ways and methods of cutting and loading cane we hired an expert to teach the men proper working methods, which instruction is now continued through the group leaders; without further changes in the piece-work rates the men were enabled to double their daily earnings and we made no attempt to cut wage rates. We rebuilt the villages so we now have weather-tight cottages, the exteriors of which are sheathed with gray-white asbestos shingles; to improve village appearance we offered prizes for the best lawns, flower gardens, and vegetable gardens. As we do not permit child labor we insisted that the children attend school. These aims were not achieved overnight, nor were they achieved without costs; we knew it would take time and cost money. The time has been well spent and the money cost has paid excellent dividends. Today we have a happy, healthy, contented labor force with a turn-over that would make many able industrialists green with envy. Please do not misunderstand me. We were not interested solely in the welfare of the field laborer; we knew we had to have a good crew or we could not be successful; the labor angle was but one of our problems, the solutions of which all meshed together for the achievement of our aims. As previously stated, at the time we acquired the properties the harvest season extended for a period of but 3 months and involved a peak labor force more than three times that required for the balance of the year. The last published report of the company covers the 1938-39 harvest; during that harvest we operated for 174 days, almost 6 months, practically double the period of harvest when the properties were acquired. This longer harvest season means proportionately greater demands for labor during the balance of the year with the result that today more than half the peak labor requirement is on the property throughout the year. The harvest season was extended for other reasons than creating work for employees, but creation of more continuous work helped tremendously in the solution of the labor problem. To achieve this much longer harvest season it was necessary to improve our methods of water control and we had to develop new and improved varieties of sugarcane to mature over a longer period. A sugar house costs approximately $1,000 per ton of daily cane capacity; our average daily capacity is in excess of 5,000 tons; forgetting all factors but capital investment in sugar-house facilities, doubling the length of harvest season increases the capacity of the sugar house to the same extent as if the harvest season remained the same and the sugar-house facilities were doubled save one exception, and it is an important exception; there is $5,000,000 less fixed capital invested in sugar-house facilities. As sugarcane culture and harvesting in the Everglades requires substantial capital investments in both field machinery and equipment, savings in capital investments for these items in the field are equally as important as the savings described for sugar-house facilities. Private research in the development of cane varieties and improvements in methods of water control have substantially reduced the amount of necessary capital as compared with methods in force when the properties were acquired; such achievements have released much capital now used and useful for other purposes. If it were not for the iniquitous provisions of the Sugar Act of 1937, which prohibits Americans from supplying their own needs of a nonsurplus necessary and vital food, Florida could extend its harvest season for a full 7 months or more, which would give at least 7 months' work to peak labor requirements, and year-round work to more than two-thirds of the peak requirement, and, further, equally if not more important, would permit more extensive cane raising, on an efficient and cooperative basis, by the independent farmers of the area and thus provide good wages and high standards of living for thousands and thousands of skilled and semiskilled white men and for tens and tens of thousands of southern Negroes. So far, I have touched but briefly upon the achievements which have made possible the statement that our employees were in many ways a privileged class of agricultural workers. Permit me to now describe our methods. Agricultural operations of United States Sugar Corporation are spread over a 50-mile front, around the eastern and southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, from a point just north of Canal Point on the east, around the rim of the lake to a point just south of Moore Haven on the west. To serve these operations and keep the employees close to the center of their activities it is necessary that provision be made for housing and maintaining employees throughout the property. The plantations are not in one solid block, but are interspersed with the cane and vegetable plantations of numerous independent growers; several good-sized towns, ranging upwards to 5,000 inhabitants, including Canal Point, Pahokee, Belle Glade, South Bay, Lake Harbor, Clewiston, and Moore Haven are located within the general area in which the Corporation conducts its activities. Plantation employees reside in 11 villages strategically located throughout the property, often close by a city or town located in the general area. Besides clean, sanitary, weatherproof cottages for employees and their families, each village contains accommodations for single employees, office, store, shops, and equipment sheds, as well as schools, churches, recreational and first-aid facilities. Employee hospitals are maintained at Clewiston on the west and Canal Point on the east. The plantation villages, actually small towns in themselves, have attracted much favorable comment from official and casual visitors not only on their sanitary conditions and attractive appearance but on the many conveniences provided. Company stores are clean, attractive, well stocked. and are equipped with modern fixtures; annual sales are in excess of $750,000 and the stores are operated at a small loss, varying from a low of $2,300 in some years to as much as $12,000 in other years. The stores are operated on a strict cash-and-carry basis without compulsion of any kind on the employees to patronize them; these stores are operated as a convenience for the employees, the sole purpose being to insure availability of good merchandise at reasonable prices. The question has been raised at various times as to the reason for the excellent cottages furnished rent free to field workers and their families. The answer is simple. The asbestos shingle used for siding is not only weatherproof and fire- resistant but is also relatively inexpensive to maintain and to keep clean and fresh looking; a good, substantial roof adds to weathertight qualities; screens make life more healthy and more comfortable. It is poor economy to use shacks for housing employees; the field worker and his family who reside in a good house are healthy and happy; illness is commonplace in shacky construction; thus two shacks are necessary to house two ill, miserable, and unhappy families, as against one well-built cottage to house one healthy, happy family; the well- built cottage costs no more, if as much, as two shacks; the total labor requirement on the plantation is less; and those employed, by reason of steady earnings, can enjoy a much higher living standard. As we rebuilt the plantation villages the uplift in morale was quite apparent; the workers and their families took more pride in the appearance of their homes and gardens; they were personally cleaner and wore cleaner and better clothes. All these things combine to make better workmen, and good workers are one of the secrets of success. In practically every village, school buildings have been furnished by the Corporation to the local school boards; in the few villages where schools have not been provided company transportation is furnished to carry the children to the school in the next adjoining village. As the colored teachers are recorded the status of a company employee insofar as perquisites are concerned we have been able to attract college graduates as teachers; domestic science is a required study for girls and extension courses are given for the older women; some of the schools now have manual-training courses for the older boys and our plans contemplate extension of this training to all village schools; the manual-training courses were an experiment during the past year and have proved very successful. We insist that all children in company villages attend school; children have never been permitted to work on the company's operations. Choral groups and bands, amongst both children and adults, are encouraged, the Corporation supplying both instruments and instruction. Methods employed in connection with seasonal workers are of interest. Personnel supervisors being active in all recreational work as well as dealing with all problems affecting employees, are usually known to all who have ever worked on the plantations. Our problem on seasonal employment is fairly simple as we now have more than 85 percent of seasonal force returning year after year; our chief source of concern today is preventing an oversupply of labor coming into the plantations. Shortly before beginning of harvest a determination is made of the number of seasonal employees required; this number is then roughly allocated to the various localities in which the seasonal employees work during the balance of the year. It might be here noted that the seasonal peak for employment in the Everglades is during the slack season for present crops in northern Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina and thus fits ideally with requirements of those areas. After the determination, already mentioned, has been made, the director of personnel or his assistant, visits the different localities, checks up on the number available and indicates to one of the leaders, or straw bosses, the number of employees who will be acceptable from such locality. A "cane-cutter's special" is operated at beginning of the harvest season by Atlantic Coast Line and the Sugar Corporation advances railroad fare to all old employees; in some instances the men themselves make arrangements with a local operator to transport them, previous experience telling the operator the Sugar Corporation will protect his fare if reasonable, in other instances cotton plantation operators provide transportation in both directions at the beginning and end of crop for their employees who are thus afforded an opportunity for year-round employment. Upon arrival at the plantations the employees go directly to the "receiving station" where they are given a physical examination, those who do not pass such examination are furnished return transportation, those who pass the examination are housed and fed, without cost, until assigned to regular work. Immediately upon passing physical examination they are supplied with paper envelope, and stamp and instructed to write the home folks of their arrival. All employees, either permanent or seasonal, are permitted to choose the overseer under whom they desire to work. When overseers are moved from one plantation to another the families and personal effects of all employees who desire to follow him are transported at company expense. Seasonal employees are credited with a full year's service for each season in computations relative to wage dividend participations. Every now and then we uncover some more or less surprising situations. During recent long harvests we found some seasonal workers toward the end of the harvest asking for right to additional withdrawals of approximately $1 per day. Inquiry developed the fact they were hiring a home-town boy to do the early work on their cotton acreage at $1 a day while they stayed on in the Everglades and made $3 a day or better. Recreation and opportunity for companionship are important elements of life in a plantation village. Movies and home-talent entertainment are regular features; plantation boxing and interplantation bouts are also regular features which often take the entire population of a village on a visit to another village; interplantation baseball and football leagues make Sunday afternoons a joyous occasion throughout the property. Pool, checkers, dominoes, and the bridge experts help to while away rainy afternoons. The village choral societies of mixed voices, are establishing an enviable reputation for their rendering of Negro spirituals. The religious instincts of the employees and their families are given full opportunity to develop. The harvest celebration, or barbecue day, is the big event of the year. On this day, following the close of the harvest, the many and varied prizes are awarded. Prizes include those for length of service, daily turn-out for work care of equipment, best record in various and sundry instances, etc., etc. Athletic events are held on this day and numerous prizes are awarded in connection therewith. So that everyone may have a chance on some prizes the pay-roll numbers of all employees are placed in a huge box, a number of prizes set aside, and as the number is called the lucky employee takes his choice of prizes on the table. The big event of the day is the barbecue, usually personally cooked by the plantation overseer. On last barbecue day more than 22,000 plates of lunch were served on all the plantations, glasses of lemonade and dishes of ice cream exceeded this number by far, so the suspicion exists that repeaters showed up for these items. The cash wages received by workers on sugar plantations in Florida are but a part of their compensation, as they also receive, without any charge whatsoever, the use of a well-built, weather-tight, sanitary cottage, fuel, running water; outside laundry facilities; space for vegetable and flower gardens medical care and hospitalization for employees and members of their families except medical care and hospitalization for "social accidents"; churches, schools. and community facilities built and maintained by the Corporation in each plantation village; wholesome entertainment and recreation for workers and members of their families, conducted by experienced and capable persons employed by the Corporation solely for such work; modern and clean stores conveniently located in each plantation village where the staple needs of the family may be secured substantially at cost, on a cash-and-carry basis, but complete and total absence of compulsion upon employees to trade in such stores; full protection and benefits of the State compensation statutes, to which the Corporation voluntarily subjected itself; participation in wage-dividend fund and eligibility to win a number of valuable annual prizes. In addition to all these valuable prequisites, the average cash wage of harvest workers during the past harvest was well over $2 per day, the better workers exceeding $3 in cash per day. The day is 9 hours over all, which means less than 8 hours actual working time. We have tried various methods and periods of wage payments, including weekly, semimonthly, and monthly payments, and the use of company money. Our present methods have been found to be the most satisfactory. Each and every employee is entitled to draw down $2 on Mondays and Wednesdays and $3 on Fridays; additional withdrawals, or advances, can be had upon written order of plantation overseer. On the first Saturday of each month final settlement is made in cash for the previous month's earnings. When pay periods were on a weekly basis the contents of pay envelopes were quickly frittered away, when we used company money we found it being used in trade off the plantations at tremendous discounts. Today the employees draw what they need for their day-to-day expenditures, and when pay day rolls around they have sufficient funds, so they are interested in using a part to buy things for the family and saving the balance; many employees have postal-savings accounts, and others, more particularly the seasonal workers, buy postal money orders to send home. In an effort to provide more and more year-round employment for peak-labor demand we have conducted extensive research. Two definite results have been obtained. We now have the only commercial plantings of lemon grass and are endeavoring to obtain planting stock for citronella grass; these grasses yield essential oils now imported, and the "spent" grass, being high in proteins, makes excellent cattle feed. We are now growing other high-protein crops for the purpose of mixing with blackstrap, a byproduct of cane sugar, for production of mixed stock feeds. These endeavors are for the primary purpose of creating additional employment during slack season; nevertheless, we expect to make a profit. The detailed explanation of employee relationship has so far dealt exclusively with colored employees, because approximately 90 percent of the employees are Negroes. The white employees, mostly skilled mechanics, timekeepers, foremen, storekeepers, overseers, and clerical force also receive their full share of attention. The center of their social life is the Clewiston Inn; they have their own barbecue day at the sugarhouse, with dancing in the evening; the Clewiston baseball team plays throughout south Florida, and the Sugarland Band, consisting of company employees, has long since ceased to fear radio broadcasting. Another group closely allied to our operation consists of independent farmers having part of their acreage planted to sugarcane and holding contracts for sale of such cane to the Corporation. The price paid for cane is determined by its sugar content and the quoted price for raw sugar. These independent growers have full access to our research and development work and freely call upon our various experts for advice, counsel, and guidance. In smaller groups, whose operations are contiguous, these farmers cooperation in the purchase and use of the more expensive units of equipment. Under the methods just outlined these independent farmers have all the advantages of large-scale operation, and, as a result, they are consistent money makers. Plans are now being developed for establishment of Everglades Sugar Institute, an extension technical school, supported solely by the Corporation, to be open to all white employees not only of the Corporation but also white employees of independent farmers holding contracts with Corporation for sale of sugarcane. There have been sketched, in broad outline, the accomplishments in the Everglades, the philosophy underlying the approach of the problems presented, and some detail of method used in achieving success in southern agriculture. Based upon knowledge and experience gained in this and other endeavors principles applicable to a solution of the problem before this committee may now be outlined. It is fundamental that neither agriculture nor industry can long continue to pay out more than comes in. Agriculture quite justly claims it cannot pay better wages or give greater employment because of short seasons and the existing relationship of prices and costs. Until and unless these conditions are corrected there is little hope for ending destitution and migration amongst our agricultural population. Agricultural relief has faced the wrong direction—all endeavor has been directed to raising prices, or making good out of the Public Treasury the difference between current price and a statistical "parity." In our search for panaceas for the ills of agriculture we have overlooked the fact that a cost reduction of $1 is a much bigger dollar than the dollar obtained through a boost in price. Most people think all dollars are the same size; the contrary is true. A dollar that stays with you is, effectively, a much larger dollar than the one which must be shared with others. Naturally, when all our people are well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed our aggregate agricultural costs will be greater, but our unit agricultural costs should be lower. When speaking of cost reduction we mean reduction in unit cost All food, most clothing, and a large part of our housing, the three fundamental material needs of mankind come from the farm. We are told that one-third of our people are ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed. Industry has fully demonstrated the ever-widening demand opened by each reduction in selling price made possible by reduction in unit costs. Ignoring for the moment the great present-day cost of distributing agricultural products, which cost must be very substantially reduced, we have the basis for a constructive agricultural policy. A reduction of cost of $1 yields an immediate return equal to more than an increase of $1 in selling price; the dollar of reduction in cost all goes into the pocket of the farmer, whereas a dollar increase in selling price must be shared with all the long line of middlemen. The second dollar of reduced costs, passed on in selling price, means a reduction of more than a dollar to the consumer because all the middlemen have to give up their percentage, too. A $2 reduction in cost of production thus gives an immediate dollar to the farmer, and the other dollar, applied to reducing selling price, opens up a wider consuming market. To obtain such reductions in unit cost of production and thus make greater profits while at the same time opening ever-widening markets requires some very basic changes in the viewpoint of many persons, particularly some in high authority. That size of operation has a very distinct bearing upon our agricultural problems was thoroughly appreciated during 1929 by a person who later became a leader of the "brain trust" and very active in directing agricultural policy, although not along the lines he advocated in 1929. His attitude can best be expressed by quoting selected sentences from an article published in 1929. I quote: "The operating units of the future must be larger than those of the present. A dozen miserable farms, which pay their operators poor returns, might be made, if they were combined and expertly managed, to yield a good return. The really disturbing thing is that this whole range of considerations never enters any discussion of proposals for relief. The probabilities for the new agriculture are that it will be carried on in larger units, but on less land and with a smaller personnel; it will be more highly capitalized, there will be fewer proprietors and more workers. It is not use we have to fear, but abuse. Certainly those industries which have been most profitable are the ones which now exhibit the best technique, the greatest devotion to efficiency, and consequently the lowest costs. Perhaps the first step necessary in agriculture is to make it likewise profitable; its present backwardness is not only a disgrace to those actively engaged in it, but a gross reflection on American ability and a significant drag on the whole economic system." Our experience in the Everglades bears out, in part, the quotations just read. Fifty men on our property rate as key executives, and through our executive bonus plan each year increase their interest, or equity, in the Corporation, their current earning ability is much greater than would be the case if they operated a portion of the Corporation's property as an independent farm. If the property were equally divided amongst our executive staff, each would direct the operations of 500 acres, have 50 permanent employees, and 50 seasonal employees. It is extremely doubtful if such an operation would produce a net profit after all charges including the operators' present salary, equal to one-fiftieth of our present rate of earnings; certainly such an independent operator would have difficulty raising one-fiftieth of the capital now employed; such an operation could not afford to carry on the research work that has resulted in improved methods of water control, development of new cane varieties which helped to double the length of harvest season, and the finding of new crops for the area; unit costs of production would undoubtedly be higher. Larger operating units will practice more intensive cultivation, and while cutting down the total acreage under cultivation may well increase the number of workers in agriculture, other advantages of the large operating unit will be the available resources and ability to conduct private research looking toward new uses for old products and production of new crops, as well as the ability to acquire ways and means of reducing unit costs. Some of these advantages can be obtained by closely knit cooperation of a number of farmers in the same locality, as has been definitely proved by some of the independent sugarcane farmers in the Everglades. A large unit, having a substantial reserve of seasonal labor, has a much better opportunity to develop subsidiary operations to take up the seasonal slack, work out a plan for joint use of labor with another area whose peak-labor demand fits into the slack period of the first-mentioned operation, and is in a position to deal with an industrial concern for development of industrial production during slack agricultural labor demand. The points just developed all deal with large-scale farming units, but it must not be inferred that we do not believe in the family-size farm. The family-size farm has a very definite place in our agricultural economy, modern methods have made the family-size unit much larger than in earlier days; much work formerly performed on the farm is now performed in city factories. Unfortunately Messrs. Currier and Ives, through their famous lithographs, have implanted an erroneous impression of family farming—the day of their self-sufficing unit is gone, our family farmer has to raise a larger proportion of cash crops. The family farm should and must be encouraged, we should have more of them, but to survive they must cut their unit cost of production and distribution. The family unit and the large unit can live side by side and support and supplement each other, but the family unit must avail itself of cooperative activities to an extent probably undreamed of today. More thorough understanding of, and more complete participation in, cooperative enterprise will not only assure the continuation of what always has been, and always will be, the backbone of our country—the family-size farming units—but will make such farms a more satisfying means of livelihood. Please note that I called farming a means of livelihood, not a mode of life. I am weary of listening to smug-voiced hypocrisy state farming is a mode of life in such a way as to imply that farmers, having a mode of life, should be happy to slowly starve to death. Farming is a mode of life, but so is practicing law, operating a hotel, running a retail store, driving a taxicab, working in a factory, managing a railroad, and running a bank; but only the farmer is expected to be satisfied with a return limited to "a mode of life." The surprising thing is that farmers have complacently accepted this attitude, although good farmers usually have greater ability and more capital, and certainly have a great deal more common sense, than the smug-mugged occupants of leather chairs in club windows who conduct so-called knowing discourses on the welfare of the Nation. It might be well to direct attention to possible injury from overextension of a plan fathered by some persons deeply interested in the welfare of our agricultural population. There are many sharecroppers and tenants who do not have either the ability or the desire to operate their own property; these people would be much better off as farm workers on a large operating unit conducted along lines similar to sugar production in the Everglades. We all know numerous laborers, croppers, and tenants upon whom would be perpetrated a most ghastly joke if they were set upon a farm of their own through Government assistance. The tragedy would not only be disillusionment and discouragement, but even worse, human failure. Based upon both study and experience, we believe suggestions we now offer will be helpful in solving the problems confronting our agricultural economy and aiding in reducing the misery of migratory, seasonal farm labor. These suggestions are not offered in the spirit of a cure all; they will fit into and help in broader solutions and need not interfere with any present or future plans for agricultural relief; they are worthy of careful consideration because they have been proved successful. First. Encourage larger operating units. This may be accomplished individually, corporately, or cooperatively, or by all three basic methods working in close harmony in each locality. Second. These large operating units could cooperate with similar units in other parts of the country whose peak-labor demands do not coincide. Such method would tend to provide continuity of employment for seasonal labor requirement by definite and continuing groups of employers. Third. These larger units, either individually or cooperatively, could afford to undertake private research looking toward lengthening seasonal peak labor requirements: development of subsidiary crops to provide additional employment in slack season; development of new crops, the peak labor demand of which will fit into slack labor demand on existing crops; finding and encouraging rural location of small industrial plants which can absorb some labor during slack agricultural seasons; ways and means of reducing costs so as to increase profits and broaden markets; increasing the effectiveness of agricultural labor to the end that earnings of agricultural workers may be increased without increasing unit costs of production. Federal and State agencies can well afford to give realistic assistance to such a program, although our own experience clearly indicates that initiative in such an approach must come from the farmers themselves. If encouragement, either tacit or otherwise, is to be given other countries to usurp our foreign markets and, at the same time, we are prohibited from supplying our own needs, in favor of the produce of foreign peonage or worse, the outlook for our people is dark, dull, and dismal, as destitution is bound to increase. A realistic approach to our own problems, for the benefit of our own people, means a future for our country greater and better than anything ever witnessed in the world. In closing my statement I cannot resist the temptation to direct attention to a most glaring, unjust, and unfair accusation made against the South. For years the South has borne the cost of educating her youth, only upon maturity to find them grabbed by the industrial, commercial, and financial North and East; this condition has placed an unfair educational burden upon most Southern States; in addition, it has prevented the South's utilizing the genius, ability, and capability which she cradled and fostered. The South has the most abundant supply of two of the three essentials for plant life—rainfall and sunshine, she has an adequacy of the third essential—soil. Every agency but nature has apparently combined to stifle the resources and capabilities of the South, we, in the Everglades, have shown that the highest standards of living in agriculture can be maintained in the South; we are sure this same condition can be proved in industry; we are satisfied that once equality with the rest of the Nation can be obtained, the South will forge rapidly to the lead. Most emphatically the South is not a problem, economic or otherwise, to the Nation, unless such problem be to find ways and means of continuing her subjection.
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