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access to The Arkansas Historical Quarterly
^ete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and R
Cultures since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 18-22; Henry I. R
ards, Cotton under the Agricultural Adjustment Act: Developments up to July 1
(Washington: Brookings Institution, 1934), 4.
Keith J. Volanto, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of History at Texas A&M University. He
like to thank the staff of the National Archives, Southwest Region in Fort Worth, Texas for al
help in researching this project. The article is based on a paper delivered at "The Southwest: A R
in Transition," an interdisciplinary conference in Fort Worth, Texas, February 17, 2000. The a
would like to acknowledge the panel and audience at the conference for their feedback and sug
tions.
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2David E. Hamilton, From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from
Hoover to Roosevelt, 1928-1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991),
95.
3Henry I. Richards, Cotton and the AAA (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1936),
1; Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), May 13, 1933; Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 13,
1933.
would agree to sell the option cotton at any time designated by the p
ducer, should the price rose above six cents per pound.8
Because Secretary Wallace issued a July 8 deadline for the South' s
million cotton acres to be pledged before he would authorize the plow
farmers needed to be signed up very quickly. After the sign-up, farms wo
then have to be inspected, yields estimated, and portions of fields selected
plowing. Once the plow-up had taken place, farms would have to be re
spected to ensure compliance before the AAA would approve the payments
The AAA assigned each state a cotton acreage quota, based on a
percent reduction from 1931 production figures, which for Arkansas mean
1,002,300 of the 3,341,000 acres planted in cotton that year. These qu
were to serve as a working guide during the sign-up.10 All pledges were ir
revocable until July 3 1 . After that date, if the government had not yet
formed growers that their pledges had been accepted, the farmers co
cancel their offers to plow up their cotton.11
To oversee the implementation of the plow-up, AAA officials decid
to use the Agricultural Extension Service. The AAA had to act quickly
educate farmers about the benefits of the plan, and the Extension Ser
already had agents in place in a majority of southern counties. Cully C
the head of the AAA's Cotton Division and himself a former Mississ
state extension official, strongly desired that the AAA utilize the Extensio
Service because there was simply no time to organize, train, and pla
new field force from scratch. With Roosevelt's approval, Wallace draf
the Extension Service to oversee AAA work in the localities.12
8The Cotton Section favored equal acceptance of the two plans by cotton farmers
AAA Cotton Section head Cully Cobb wired state Agricultural Extension Service direc
"Desirable that we obtain equal number of contracts for both plan number one and plan n
ber two. We believe limitations and element of risk surrounding option on cotton will
the all cash plan number two more attractive to the smaller producers than plan number
Neither plan should be sold at the expense of the other." Cobb to state extension direc
June 26, 1933, Cotton-Blanket Wires file, Box 24, Subject Correspondence Files 1
1935, Records of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Record Group 145, Nat
Archives II, College Park, Maryland [hereafter cited as SCF, AAA, NARG 145].
Press release of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (cited hereafter as A
P.R.) 140-33, Box 1, Entry 6, AAA, NARG 145.
As Cully Cobb reminded all state extension directors, the quotas were "merely f
guidance and ... in no way to limit the campaign" to any minimum or maximum figu
He stated further that the campaign had to continue until every farmer had the opportu
to pledge reduction of acreage. Cobb to state extension directors, June 27, 1933, Cot
Blanket Wires file, Box 24, SCF, AAA, NARG 145.
UAAA P.R. 1421-33, Box 1, Entry 6, AAA, NARG 145.
12Roy V. Scott and J. G. Shoalmire, The Public Life of Cully A. Cobb (Jackson: U
versity and College Press of Mississippi, 1973), 211-212. The Extension Service, e
lished in 1914 under the Smith-Lever Act, was responsible for disseminating rese
information from the various land-grant colleges to the farm population.
13 On associationalism in general, see Ellis W. Hawley, The Great War and the
Search for a Modern Order: A History of the American People and Their Institutions,
191 7-1933 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979). For the clearest explanation of how Wil-
son's views on associationalism influenced his domestic allotment plan, see the work of
Hawley student David E. Hamilton in From New Day to New Deal, especially ch. 9.
14Cobb to T. Roy Reid, June 17, 1933, Cotton-A.R. (Acreage Reduction) file, Box
20, SCF, AAA, NARG 145; Richards, Cotton under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, 18.
Arkansas, was typical of the state as a whole and the entire South: the larg
est landholders tended to predominate.15
On June 22 a statewide meeting of county agents and county comm
teemen was held at the Federal Building in Little Rock. Dan T. Gray,
dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of Arkansas, and
Roy Reid, the director of the Arkansas Extension Service, led the proc
ings. The two men explained the upcoming campaign to the agents a
committeemen, detailing how the AAA expected the agents and coun
committeemen to go back to their counties, form their local commit
and lead local educational meetings for the farmers. The local commit
were to perform the basic tasks of enrolling farmers, inspecting pled
acreage, making yield estimations, and checking compliance with
plow-up agreements. The extension agents and county committee
were to verify that local committees made reasonable estimates of the
ducers' average yield, insure that all paperwork was completed correc
and investigate and settle complaints. Reid announced that the AAA w
provide counties that lacked regular extension agents with temporar
"emergency agricultural assistants" to assist with the campaign. The A
also pledged funding for temporary assistant county agents to help out re
ular agents in heavy cotton-producing counties. Following the Little R
meeting, the extension agents and county committeemen returned to t
respective counties and formed local committees. In most cases the ag
followed protocol and appointed farmers to the posts, but in at least
county (Hot Springs) the emergency agricultural assistant later repor
"At each community meeting we set up the qualifications for local c
mitteemen and let the farmers select them. This seemed more satisfac
than appointing them."16
The county agents and committeemen had from June 26 to July 8
sign up enough farmers to meet the state's acreage quota. With the he
the statewide and local press, extension agents and committeemen eng
in a massive publicity barrage to kick off "Cotton Week," as the AAA
beled the first week of the campaign. Roy Reid and the Arkansas Ext
15Jeannie M. Whayne, A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favo
Twentieth-Century Arkansas (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 160
Arkansas Gazette, June 22, 23, 1933; Memphis Commercial Appeal June 22-2
1933; annual narrative report of Phillip Anderson, emergency agricultural assistan
Hot Spring County, Box 0078, Federal Extension Service-Arkansas Annual Rep
1917-1970, National Archives and Records Administration-Southwest Region,
Worth, TX [hereafter cited as 1933 Arkansas Extension Agent Reports, NA-SWR] (qu
tion). The AAA implored the Extension Service to keep the estimated average yield
the counties in 1933 within each county's five-year average for the 1928-1932 period
compiled by the USDA Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates. See, for exam
Cobb to Reid, June 27, 1933, Cotton-A.R. file, Box 20, SCF, AAA, NARG 145.
nate the program and the speculation would come to nothing. The A
extension agents, committeemen, and the cooperating press had to wo
doubly hard to convince farmers that the artificially-inflated prices broug
about by speculation would disintegrate if enough farmers held out.
Roy Reid told reporters in a July 8 interview:
. . . the only way that any appreciable price for cotton this year
or in the immediate future years can be expected is for some of the
growing crop to be removed.
21 Arkansas Gazette, July 9, 1933 (quotation). See also another interview with Reid
Arkansas Gazette, July 12, 1933. For more information on the speculative rise in cot
during this period, see Perkins, Crisis in Agriculture, 101-103.
AAA, P.R. 36-34, Box 1, Entry 6, and Cobb to state extension directors, July
1933, Cotton-A.R. file, Box 20, SCF 1933-1935, both in AAA, NARG 145.
could not convince him to plow. The agent wired state headquarters
the Washington office for instructions. Cobb wired back for the agen
do what he instructed all such inquirers to do: destroy the cotton for
farmer and deduct the cost from his check.32
There were undoubtedly instances in Arkansas as there were else
where in the South where mules flatly refused to trample over the pl
for fear of reprisal. Many of them had often been trained at the whip no
do what their owners were now asking of them: to pull the plows o
growing crops.33
After the plow-up deadline passed local committeemen went back
the fields to inspect how well growers had adhered to their pledges. T
committeemen typically found that the growers had done a good job in
stroying the crop the first time around, but, as the emergency agent for
Spring County reported, "it was necessary for some local committeem
to make three trips . . . before the Performance and Certification sheet [s
nifying compliance] could be approved." In Jefferson County, the em
gency agricultural agent recalled some of the difficulties encounter
while trying to ensure compliance: "In many cases farmers plowed up
tle more than was pledged although when we started measuring land
found that most every one was from ten to twenty-five percent sho
what they thought they had in cotton. This caused our local committe
to have to go back the second and third time to many places before
acreage pledged was destroyed."34
Committeemen also investigated farmer complaints against ot
growers, especially accusations that producers had not plowed up their
share of the crop. In one instance, an Independence County farmer
caught after someone leaked word to the county committee that the farm
actually picked cotton he claimed to have plowed up. The committee
viewed his contract and told him, for openers, it appeared that his co
37 Arkansas Gazette, August 25, September 12, 1933; annual narrative report of W
Owens, extension agent for Lee County, Box 0076, 1933 Arkansas Extension A
Reports, NA-SWR; Cobb to state extension directors, August 22, 1933, Cotton-A.R
Box 21, SCF, and AAA P.R. 401-435, Box 1, Entry 6, both in AAA, NARG 145.
33There is no mention of any incidents involving "balky mules" in any of the Ar
sas extension agent reports or in the Arkansas Gazette or Memphis Commercial A
but they most likely did occur to some extent. For some examples of reports of relu
mules during the plow-up in other southern states, see: New York Times, August 10,
Dallas Morning News, August 27, 1933, Houston Post, August 27, 1933, and Mich
Holmes, New Deal in Georgia: An Administrative History (Westport, CT: Greenw
Press, 1975), 219.
Annual narrative reports of Philip Anderson, emergency agricultural assistant
Hot Spring County (first quotation), and W. D. Ezell, emergency agricultural assistan
Jefferson County (second quotation), both in Box 0078, 1933 Arkansas Extension A
Reports, NA-SWR; see also reports from agents in Clark and Miller Counties, ibid.
agents reported that on December 1, the day their reports were due, t
were still many farmers (on average about 5 percent of the county to
who had not yet been paid.38
Despite their burdens, most county agents viewed their added AA
responsibilities positively. Though they worked long hours, often g
ing up their weekends and holidays to do work for which they were
trained, a great many of the agents actually saw their AAA duti
something that could benefit their normal extension work. Numero
agents reported that the cotton reduction campaign gave them acces
farmers who were formerly hard to reach, allowing them to spread
formation about regular extension programs. They were confident t
the campaign would greatly benefit the Extension Service in the futu
As the Crittenden County agent reported: "This program . . . broug
the agent in contact with many farmers throughout the County that
ular extension work had never been able to reach, and as a result
same, other extension programs in the future will be much easier to
into effect because of the confidence gained in extension work due
the manner in which all details were handled in the cotton acreage
duction program." The Phillips County agent agreed:
While the work this year has been more strenuous than ever
before we feel that Extension work has proven itself and that
we are in [a] better position to render real services to the people
than ever before.39
has the power, but also has the disposition to put the farmer in a bet
position than he has been in for a number of years."42
Many Arkansans had reason to be unhappy, however. Tenant farm
and sharecroppers protested to government officials that they failed to re
ceive fair treatment under the cotton program. In their complaints to
AAA and USDA, many stated that even though they supported the gov
ment's plan, they could not sign up because their landlord forbade the
do so. As one tenant from Dell wrote to Cobb: "Dear Sear I thought
write you conserning the plowing up of the cotton in this sexion. I v
the semment of my peoples, we all wants to plow up a poshion of o
crope. But the lanlord wont let us. He is plowing up 2 or 3 hundred a
[of his own land] an leaving all the teners crop stan. An we dont think it
fair I dont Believe that you are gonto let them treet us that way. If o
teners have a write to plow up theirs we have a wright too."43
Under the law, landowners were to divide government payments w
their tenants and sharecroppers, but many tenants and croppers would
participate when planters demanded a larger portion of the governm
benefit checks than the normal division of the crop. Still others who
participate in the plow up were denied their checks when unscrupul
landlords simply pocketed the money that was due them.44
In these situations, there was little that tenants and croppers could
This was one of the glaring limitations of M. L. Wilson's "association
citizen committees. When complaints arose, AAA officials in Washing
simply directed them back to the county agents and committees to be
tled at the local level. Because a majority of the committee members
landlords themselves, committees resolved most tenant matters in fav
the planters. Most county agents were no help to tenants and cropper
42 Annual narrative reports of A. Raybon Sullivant, county agent for Poinsett Cou
and H. K. Sager, county agent for Dallas County (quotation), both in Box 0076,
Arkansas Extension Agent Reports, NA-SWR; see numerous other county agent re
for comments on the improved attitude of the people toward the government, and li
general, as a result of the plow-up campaign. Cotton farmers also benefited from
Roosevelt Administration's efforts to maintain cotton prices at or above the ten-cent
level through price-support loans administered by the Commodity Credit Corpor
(CCC) and by inflationary monetary policies. Despite these added efforts, withou
plow-up, the additional supplies of cotton, when added to the record carryover, woul
tainly have prevented the favorable price increase enjoyed by southern cotton farm
1933. For a discussion on the drop in cotton prices after mid- July 1933 and the creat
the CCC, see Perkins, Crisis in Agriculture, 168-174.
43 Will Jones to Cobb, July 28, 1933; see also William Barrington to Wallace, July
1933, both in Cotton-A.R. file, Box 21, SCF, AAA, NARG 145.
See, for example, E. D. Hartsell to Wallace, n.d., J. R. Roophard to Wallace, J
13, 1933, John T. Spikes to U.S. Department of Agriculture, July 24, 1933, and John
to Wallace, July 24, 1933, all in ibid.
45See Cobb to J. O. Green, October 19, 1933, A. Raybon Sullivant to T. Roy Reid,
December 15, 1933, Reid to Cobb, December 21, 1933, Mr. L. Hainks and twenty others
to Cobb, January 4, 1934, and E. A. Miller to Reid, January 22, 1934, all in Arkansas Uni-
versity-T. Roy Reid file, Box 45, AC, AAA, NARG 145.
Donald Grubbs, Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers ' Union and the
New Deal (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971); Howard Kester, Revolt
Among the Sharecroppers (New York: Covici-Friede, 1936); Whayne, A New Plantation
South, 184-218.