Bankhead Cotton Act
BANKHEAD COTTON ACT
BANKHEAD COTTON ACT, approved 21 April 1934, was designed to supplement the cotton-production control provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. While not actually placing limits on the growing of cotton by individual farmers, the act established a national quota and levied a prohibitive tax of 50 percent of the central market price (but not less than five cents per pound) on cotton ginned in excess of the individual quota. This tax was the essence of the act. The Kerr-Smith Tobacco Control Act of 1934 used a similar taxation strategy to limit tobacco production. Following the United States v. Butler (1936) decision of the Supreme Court invalidating the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Congress repealed the Bankhead Act (10 February 1936). Nineteen days later, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, which limited production by paying farmers not to plant soil-depleting crops.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Heacock, Walter J. "William B. Bankhead and the New Deal." Journal of Southern History 21 (August 1955): 347–359.
Saloutos, Theodore. The American Farmer and the New Deal. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982.
R. P.Brooks/t. m.
See alsoAgriculture ; New Deal .