April, 1942, 1942

At the request of Will Alexander, Mitchell undertook a study of the operations of the Farm Bureau Federation in the South. The papers include his letters to Alexander (1,17)) and a lengthy report with attached statements from 98 small farmers claiming they were forced to join the Farm Bureau in order to continue receiving their government subsidy payments (17). The Southern Conference for Human Welfare met at Nashville on April 19 to 21; some correspondence relating to the Conference appears, but the program and Proceedings do not. There is a press release on the STFU marketing cooperative in Alabama (n.d. [April]), and a letter from Clayton to Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, asking him to help arrange a $90,000 loan for a group of black farmers near Austin, Texas who wish to purchase a plantation (21)