National Affairs: Four to One

Growers of dark and burley tobacco, 240,000 strong, last week voted on AAA's proposal to impose compulsory marketing quotas on their crops for 1939. Result: 61.2% Yes for burley, 60.5% Yes for dark, both short of the two-thirds approval necessary for the quota. Since flue-cured tobacco growers and rice farmers turned down quotas last fortnight and cotton is the only major crop that has yet accepted one, for the next crop year AAA's score is one "victory," four "defeats." Result: an increase in the already flourishing crop of pre-Congress AAAttacks, AAAlibis (TIME, Dec. 19).

Pronounced AAAttacker William Edgar Borah: "The idea of production control is dead."

Best AAAlibi was that tobaccomen, who accounted for three of the defeats, needed compulsory quotas least—because as a result of this year's quotas tobacco prices are relatively better than those for any other major crop. Said AAAdministrator Rudolph M. Evans: "They decided the voluntary control program was all that's needed. Maybe they are judging the situation better than we at the Department."