9-to-1

Newsworthy indeed would it have been if last week the cotton farmers in the U. S. had voted 9-to-1 against continuance of the Bankhead Act for restricting cotton production by means of a prohibitive ginning tax. Instead the vote was 9-to-1 in favor of this form of compulsory crop limitation. The "election" was unique in that to polling places throughout the South went thousands upon thousands of Negroes who had never cast a ballot before in their lives.

To the polls also went as many as wished of 600,000 cotton farmers who grow less than two bales of cotton a year. Because President Roosevelt promised fortnight ago that next year those who normally raise two bales or less would not be required to cut their production, they had the privilege of voting to reduce the other fellow's crop without reducing their own. Result: 1,095,000 for continuing the Bankhead Act, 113,000 against it.

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