Seven Answered

In Montgomery County, Alabama, the cotton bolls hung heavy on the plants. If they were not picked in a hurry, September rains would ruin the crop. In New Jersey an appeal for volunteers to unload freight had brought 2,000 volunteers in 48 hours (TIME, Sept. 6). Now the Alabama planters staged their own campaign, for a modest 400 men, women & children cotton pickers.

Five times a day radio stations called for volunteers. Newspapers, Negro ministers and schoolteachers, white sheriffs and policemen blanketed the county with appeals. The wage offered was $1 for each 100 lb. picked, as high a rate as the region has ever known. Workers would be transported from the city of Montgomery to the fields without charge.

On the first hiring day, the planters sent down their trucks to pick up the workers. Representatives of the U.S. Employment Service and of the Agriculture Department War Board, white and colored farm agents were on hand to handle the crowd of workers. The volunteers: seven white boys, ten to 13 years old.

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