Returned from a trip to Washington, Samuel C. Lamport yesterday declared the proposed plan to sell surplus American cotton to Nazi Germany has definitely collapsed. Lamport, a major New York cotton exporter, with offices at 511 Broadway, is a member of the American Textile Exporters’ Association.
The deal, under which Germany would receive 500,000 or more bales of cotton in exchange for goods produced in the Reich, has been spiked, he said, as a measure that is “economically and financially unsound.”
“Rejection of the proposal has nothing to do with the Jewish question,” he asserted. “Sentimental reasons don’t enter into the matter at all.”
Consummation of the plan will not materialize, Lamport pointed out, because it has been determined that increased domestic prosperity would be furthered by retaining the cotton here.
MEANS OF EMPLOYMENT
At the capital Lamport held a conference with former Senator Smith W. Brookhart, special economic adviser to the Agricultural Administration, and other government figures.
“The really constructive thing to do with an American surplus such as cotton is not to turn it over to the Nazis, who might utilize it as textiles and then again might turn it into munitions, but to use it as a means of increasing employment in this country,” Lamport said.
He declared the Southern growers will lose nothing by rejection of the barter plan and, by turning the product over to mills in this country, weavers, spinners, finishers and merchants here will benefit.
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