Delta Empire by Jeannie Whayne

Author:Jeannie Whayne [Whayne, Jeannie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Science, Environmental Science, Business & Economics, Labor, General
ISBN: 9780807138557
Google: r8QRGyon7qUC
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2011-12-05T16:04:28+00:00

These figures are probably much lower than the losses actually sustained in the county. The Flood Control Association’s estimates run uniformly lower than those reported by the Red Cross, probably because of the way they were collected. The Red Cross secured their figures from the Red Cross volunteers and from county agricultural agents. The Flood Control Association merely consulted “prominent men” in the flooded communities. In any case, the figures suggest that Critz was probably wildly optimistic about conditions in the county, but there was a grain of truth to his assertion that conditions were, in fact, better than they had been in years. The previous two years had been difficult ones, with the prices received for agricultural products barely keeping pace with the cost of production. Given the aid rendered by the Red Cross and the higher prices for crops, the year 1927 looked pretty good in comparison. Prices rose from twelve cents per pound in 1926 to twenty cents per pound in 1927. Planters like Lee Wilson, who experienced only a modest amount of flooding, planted nearly as much cotton as they usually planted and benefited from the short crop of 1927.49

Wilson also benefited from a government program designed to enable farmers and planters to recover from flood damage. He became one of the directors of the Arkansas Farm Credit Company, formed late that summer. Federal authorities like Herbert Hoover, the U.S. commerce secretary who was assigned by President Calvin Coolidge to oversee the relief effort, seemed to be supremely unaware of the boon to cotton growers. As part of the effort to encourage economic recovery from the flood, Hoover advocated the creation of farm credit associations throughout the region. The Arkansas Farm Credit Company, formed late that summer, included some of the most prominent names in Arkansas, including A. B. Banks, a leading banking mogul in Arkansas; Harvey Couch, the president of Arkansas Power and Light; and Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas’s senior senator. Lee Wilson, who was among the original stockholders along with Banks, Couch, and Robinson, also served as an elected director. The directors selected W. A. Hicks, chairman of the American Southern Trust Company, as president. Capitalized with a total of $676,815, with $250,000 coming from the Flood Credits Corporation of New York, the Arkansas Farm Credit Corporation made in 1927 a total of $361,063.65 in loans to 2,566 families in Arkansas. They continued making loans in 1928 to the tune of $217,007.50 to 1,445 families. Of the Mississippi County families, 102 received $23,239 in 1927 to plant 3,802 acres of cotton and 1,846 acres of feed crops. In 1928, 57 Mississippi County farmers received $10,345 to plant 1,724 acres of cotton and 886 acres of feed crops.50

The operation of the Arkansas Farm Credit Corporation was not without controversy. The president of the corporation, W. A. Hicks, insisted that all successful applicants for loans from the corporation provide sufficient collateral. It appears that not all of the directors agreed with him. Harvey Couch characterized Hicks’s appointment as president as “one of the biggest mistakes made in this disaster.

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