File No. 763.72112/104
Senator Owen to the Secretary of State
My dear Mr. Bryan : Can you not open negotiations through our ambassadors with Germany, France, and England, and arrange so that we might ship our raw cotton to these countries without its being regarded as contraband? I think if an arrangement could be made that raw cotton should not be regarded as contraband, that our ambassadors might find a substantial market for raw cotton that otherwise we cannot ship. It is evident that we will probably lose one third the value of our cotton crop, or somewhere near $20 a bale, or in the neighborhood of $250,000,000. I believe that your Department by energetic action might substantially enlarge this market.
Yours respectfully,