AGRICULTURE: Cotton-Picking Loans

Price supports for cotton are necessary, so the politicos say, to protect the nation's host of small farmers. But last week Delaware's Senator John Williams dug out facts to show that the gravy goes to a few big farmers. Williams inserted in the Congressional Record a list of 297 cotton farmers who in 1958 received price-support loans of more than $100,000.

Among them, the 297 accounted for almost a tenth of the $1,185,000,000 in cotton loans for that year. Three of the farmers, said Williams, received more than the Government lent to all...