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GEORGE H. SALLEY
- A AMVOICIR IAN. QUILCNIOD
ISO BDUINQOI' VNDDO WNUI
NM! FLORIDA
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July 26, 1960
Honorable Farris Bryant
P.C. Box 1773
Ocala, Florida
Dear Farris:
In re: Florida Su uota
The situation in regard to additional sugar
production in Florida is breaking so rapidly that, unless
you take some positive action immediately, I fear you will
not be able to capitalize on the publicly proclaimed stand
taken by you during the campaign.
Let no mention a few things that Justify this
apprehension:
There are presently two sugar producers in
Florida: v.3. Sugar Corporation, at Clewiston and Okeslanta
Sugar Refinery Inc., with two mills, one at Okeolanta, near
South Bay, and one at Fellsmere, near Vero Beach. Last year
their combined production was reughly 167,000 tons, of which
0.8. Sugar produced 125,000 (1a,ooo tons of this was physically
made in Okeelanta's factory from cane owned by 0.8. Sugar after
Okeelanta had processed its own crop or 26,000 tons) and about
13,000 tons was processed at Pellsnere. By year after next.
if not next year, Okeelanta will have so increased its pro-
duction that these two mills alone will be, barring unforeseen
events, turning out more than 200 000 tons of sugar each year.
This forecast is based on cane being planted and land prepared
by the two organizations at this very moment not on vague
possible action in the future.
On May 31st, I went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and,
on behalf or a client, closed the purchase or Longwood Sugar
factory, a small mill with the capacity or grinding some 00
tons of sugar cane a day and producing 9 or 10,000 tons of
sugar a year when moved to Florida and reassembled at the site
purchased for it a few miles East of Belle Glade, where 2,000
acres of land are Eresently being planted in cane by its new
owners. However, ore commend ng o smantle Longwood the
Honorable Farris Bryant 2 July 26, 1960
said owners discovered that Evangeline sugar factory at St.
Martinville, La. a 1,500 ten per day mill was available and
a tentative date of August let has been set for me to travel
to Louisiana again and close the purchase of that mill.
Negotiations alreggz in progress have as their aim the resale
of Lonzwood m o a group 0 cans and vegetable growers
owning land in the South Bay area, who would set it up some-
where near there and operate it as a co-op.
week before last officials or the 0.8. Sugar
Corporation with others Journeyed to Puerto Rice for the
purpose of surveying every available mill in search of some-
thing to purchase and install in the Canal Point area, upon
lands owned by it where a great deal of cane is already grown
and transported to Clewisten for processing. Having already
examined every mill in Louisiana present indications are that
0.8. Sugar Corporation will not acquire any used factory but
will buy and install all new equipment and in the meantime
contract with Okeelanta to process up to a couple hundred
thousand tons of cane per year for it. To this end, Okeelanta
has this year installed additional equipment at a cost of a
half million dollars to step its capacity up from 3 to 4,000
tons a day and will, under present plans, add another thousand
tens of ca acity next year. By the following year, that is,
for the l 2 crop, though, Okeelanta's own crop should be
approaching its maximum of sixty-five thousand tons of sugar
in the Okeelanta mill (all that is ossible without more lands
and s maJor mill rebuilding program and it will not be possible
for it to handle any sane for 0.8. Sugar Corporation. Hence the
need and present plan to install a second 0.8. Sugar Corporation
mill, whereupon that Company alone will have an aggregate capa-
city or better than 200,000 tons ol sugar per year,
All or these things are actually rapidly being accom-
plished under the present quota laws, only temporarily suspended,
and despite the fact that Florida marketing quota in the last
full quota year (1957) was only some lho,000 tens or sugar. In
other words, within three years from new, operations presently
in pregress in Florida will result in the production or more
than twice the amount or sugar last allotted to Florida as its
quota.
Florida's average sugar production per acre of cans
harvested has long been more than three tone with optimum lands
producing more than 5 and some small fields as high as 8 tons
of sugar from one acre of cane. This is the chief reason why
our mills can make sugar more cheaply than any other domestic
area (with, according to the Sugar Branch of the Department of
Agriculture a month ago, the possible exception of the Red River
Valley area of the beet sugar industry) which includes the beet
sugar states, mainland cane (Louisiana and Florida), Hawaii,
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and even more cheaply than
Honorable Farris Bryant o 3 July 26, 1960
Cuba. These are verifiable but little known facts. Taking as
an average production a figure lower than that actually in
existence, via: 3 tons per acre, this would require a crop of
but 00,000 acres of land (600,000 gross acres to allow for a
four year replant schedule and more than 15% waste for roads
and ditches) and there are more than 800,000 acres of prime
muck lands within the so-called agricultural area of the South
Florida Flood Control District alone to produce one million
two hundred thousand tons of sugar, or more than six times
Florida's present production.
The tremendous sums of money involved, about twenty
million dollars for a 3.000 too a day, 50,000 tons of sugar a
year, will and the necessary cultivated lands to produce the
cans to grind in it, prevent much more of an increase in pro-
duction facilities without the assurance of a guaranteed per-
manent increase in Floridas quota. Should such a quota inc-
rease be enacted by Congress, money and mills would surge into
Florida in a flood. How do 1 know? Because having represented
Cuban and Puerto Rican sugar interests for more than twenty
years, the following events have transpired to my personal
knowledge:
1. The owner of one of the largest mills in Puerto
Rice has asked me to obtain 50 acres of seed cane now so that
he can plant 500 aoroo of cans upon the thirty thousand sore
farm he owns near Okeelanta in Palm Beach County, from which he
can hex: year plant 5,000 acres of cane and the following year
process it into sugar in a new will to be erected on this land
by the owner of another large mill in Puerto Rico. who was per-
sonally encouraged so to do by the 0.3. Department of Agriculture.
The cane can be planted but the will won't be built without quota.
2. The American owned company of 80 million dollars
worth of sugar mills confiscated by Cuba the other day has made
enquiries, through me, of where it can get available land upon
which to erect a mill in Florida if quota is available.
3. The Board of Directors of another American owned
Cuban sugar mill, long ago intervened, have requested me to
appear before their next meeing, in early August, to answer
their questions about the construction of a sugar mill in
Florida if they can get quota.
u. The Cuban individual owner of a large mill taken
by the government is negotiating for the purchase of 18,000 acres
of land, Just East of Belle Glade, so that he will be in a posi-
tion to commence the building of a will immediately when he can
be assured of quota for the mill.
5. At least three other potential sugar mill opera-
tions have been proJecteo by persons residing either in the Miami
Honorable Farris srysnt u July 26, 1960
or Palm Beach area contingent only on a: assurance of available
quota.
6. One of Men Yorks largest investment banking
houses has asked as to refer to it for ready financing any
sound prospect to erect a sugar factory in Florida.
All these are personally known to we and there are
surely dozens more. At least two already nulti-nillion dollar
Aaerican investors in Florida have evidenced far sore than a
passing interest in .t.ting into the sugar business in the state.
that can be done? During the leer 1959. on three
occasions. last in Sweater, I told the representatives 0 the
donestie sugar industry, and twice this year I have told the
to; six officials of the Sugar Division of the Counodit) Sta-
bilization Service of the Departaent of Agriculture (charged
tn the enforcement of the Sugar Act) that the sheer pressure
of Florida's economical and efficient sugar troducins potential
could not be forever bottled up and that that potential was at
least one million tons more than zresent production. This figure
has ceen concurred in by the president of the 0.3. Sugar Corpora-
tion and nest others familiar with the facts.
Prior to the recent rapid deterioration of conditions
between the 0.8. and Cuba and the consequent temporary extension
of the Sugar Act under which all cubsn quotas were suspended (and
resllotted) the boot sugar industry representatives seemingly tank
the View that if they could not get sore quota no one else should,
and for that reason alone opposed sore quota for Florida. Sow
the 5335 area, as Give Ell other donestic areas, has received
more quota than it can fill. It, therefore, is in no position
to oppose Florida's request for a permanent and substantial
increase. No other segment of the industry should object. The
refiners want and need sore raw cane sugar to refine. neither
Puerto Rico nor auaii could nope ever again to nest their quotes
as they foneerly existed. Louisiana is limited according to its
can spokessen to a acre 5 increase or another 25,000 tons.
Florida alone, except for foreign countries who never before
enjoyed any substantial quotas at all, is in a position to in
crease its production within a few years by as such as a million
tons and if given the guota would do so.
The mood of Congress and the people of this nation at
this time would welcome, I believe. the knowledge that legislative
encouragesent was to be given to substituting the continental
United States for Cuba as the source of supply of an additional
one aillion tons of sugar. Although the Congressional Delegations
of every sugar reducing area in the United States, and the repre-
sentatives of l producers for the domestic market except Florida
exhibit far sore interest in sugar legislation than does our dele-
gation. we did ouster s united effort for the 1956 extensions.
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PAGE 1
u -|i. GEORGE H VALLEY .3.. 5.....:.., s.:1 ..mn:. m.ex..s MIAM 32,FLQillDA J-;l'/ '~~-.., j fi i I Oral .Farris -y,.r.1 G tr I F T e ;31-.-.1rii'. n 1:1 rara to .=aditioral -:u :ar -s. SOrl-ja it[-r e:tz: ifit" Ge: 2-syidl-atwi'., :.'-. I 03.1 re pos1Live ic (ira i:Dedi:=-.el:. I f!ut;: ou ut al -tc ::a;ita-:1:-e a afe pati-,2 217 proe]aLe: na:n -s.2 diJ"'-in-.|10 C1:"j.3 [71, 't '-f: ["'?00100 3 fate -:".1'-:3 tr.-t-a ,jJ.1--if'. '.51.1 he-'O "t."O [--'53':011_. I Ws.it1 P f. P---dlJC(:03 1:. -3. 3|i':ta;' 00:'j.ON.1;,si, at 0]Er:13( 3 3|-,0 4r-CO]:2::1..I .nery ine., eit.:, M :ll]]s, 3:2 at Gr.eela:ia, ;,e.ir ., an:: one 2: F.:lim:s, a:e arc Feacft, 1:e .:e.e .s COD-'iGd [:rDT.;3-,iD'' 'f.2:1 t'ed ;.I ] 03 '.0:15, ".C '/!:16|: .!.5. Su.. a:' produced 3 2<:.,031 ( 3 -'s,'~:-~-:3 -.c:a cf tide '33:1 94:350:211_. P:htir. fa-]Pr.Mi's faci n:'.. f;tr. ca: .Omitti 2.7 !!.0, l'.1. :.:s -ift:-t' ce:er l ana -:32 przess its 7:e a:n a:' 21:. C' ten:s } ans :ELim-. j a:) D Lor.s wa:: preconc a i Fel Iree .D:year af04-7 stat, if reo'iext sce, Cheena 1-;13: t--m oc ',rspecoed it.-prod'..CliOfa t!!al '"jlso ".WO ||.11..:3 a)Gft D, 2.3Pria..: i;rJf:W-:::tL'''!) t:':--:fit2, -t.GFDirl.-:'U-: |li'';P(t||M 2003:7 0003 Of 50.-"32 ('301: "st~-22. Tr.is foroCG't'. in huse-i r.n cas ,: |<:Ar ir ,06 'And ';3r||-, rn-c;-yed [12, 11-31: LWt--IP.f:lij'.iti:11:3 ;it !!.13 Ve .QDCT'.t -nOu <-2, mi -G-: !.:M31I'19 -dC LIGE it'l L.a l's; ".!JPR :-m .:aa 3] a 6 I wem to ater Rouga, J.outaiana did, Or. Lena] E n C 3 0 ] inrg c] ry:y:d 1.ii,pyr;ham of Ec:gwec.d 'M.x factor3 a :9|:211 :ril ] ] v:J ul L:s camin of neinaln.' MTac '.& '.OfiB Of 3UOLP CM16 :i dag illd EPCGL10liill e Or 33,003 LD:aG .JC 3!.130 "L '/ear Wjle'.r:ot;ed to F]0T'lda trici e.-aiy:oiid ed ai: L:le Gi'.c unrased for i e a :'ew 11.131-:3 Z:sst af Eml] to Glade #2.or-:: 2, _LENO of 13.;10 33 p'''00."::ltly t'eifl,pldDLed 111 C'313t' by ll-S rieLe carriers. II;m;ver, tofore corriencirs to distre:Rie Loligwr>ca '.ne
PAGE 2
said ognera discovered that Evangeline sugar factory at St. Martinoille, La. a 1,500 ton per day mill was available and a tentative date of August let nac been met for me to travel to Louisiana again and close che porchase of that mill. Negotiations already in progress have as tr.eir aim the resale of Longwood mtal to a group 01 care and vegetable growere ograr.s land in the South Bay area, who would set 10 up somewhere near there and operate it as a co-op. Week before last offleials of the U.S. Sugar Corporation with mother jourreyed to Euerto Rice Dor the purpose of surveylag every available mill in search of comethir.g to purchase and install in the Canal Point area, upon lands owned by it where a great des) af cane is already grown and transported to Clewis ton for processing. Having already oximined every n121 in Louisiana present indications are that U.S. Sugar Corporation will not acquire any used factory but will buy and install all new equipment ar.o in the mearitime contrae t with Okeelanta to process up to a couple hundred thousand cons of cane per year for it. To tais end, Okeelanca has bwla yests installed additjonal equipment at a cost of a half mi'lion dollars to step its capacity up from 3 to 4,00C tone a day and will, under present pilns, add another thousand Cons -f capacity next year, By the following yene, that is, for the 1962 crop, though, Okeelan-ala osr. erop should be approgening its maximum of sixty-fin thousand cons of suiar in the Okeelanta mail (all that 13 possible without mcre .anda and a major mill rebutiaing program and it will not be possible for it to handle any cane for "J.3. Sugar corporation. Hence the need and present plan to install a second U.S. sogne Corporation al]!, whereupon tnat Company alone will have ar iaggregate capaeity of be tter than 200,200 tons os dusa see --se, all of theae things are au tually rapidly being accomplished under :he present quota laws, only temporarily suspended, and despite the feet thaFlorida marketing quets in the last full quota year (1997) was only some 140,000 tone of pesar, In other words, withL, thrac years from now, operatiores preserely in progress in Florida wi31 result in the production of more Lhail twice the imotint of stigar 1200 aJletted to Florida 66 100 quota, Florida rs average sugar production per acre of cana harvegeri han log t-Gen more than te.Pee tem with opilnium landS producing more than 5 and some amall fields as high as 6 tons ol' sugar from one acre of car.e. This la the cale f reason why our mille can make zusar more cheaply than any otner domestic area (witu accordire to me Swar Branch of to Dem'tment of Agriculture a ococh ago, see possible rg/reption of the led Riocr Valley area of the bees augar industry) which indlUdes the beet sugar states, mainland cane (Louisiana and Florida), Hawail, Puurto Rico and the Virgin lalaras and even were cheaply Enar,
PAGE 3
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PAGE 4
url C -Jul e --.-:. SE 3-:-i:".G" 2 .!i 2 ." -C. -. } -j.L LaT -: .-22 ---d ---a ~~C ~: -.'l. ~-C -: ---t -.di*~ --.. -1 .-.----~ --M ..c -.-.. ... t -:J 1-.4] ". -0 en a ne --..--::-:2-c --.-.... -1 r:1 1 --e di-i: .3 0 -. x......cc..06 --cral c. t u .e .! ... --u e ---d -c -.-: --:.:-1 -L t ( .C ( 6 -d a 0 --3 ~ '. -G ~ -.c -o *s-n I L -3 a C..d G s ----[ 1 CC c. -a t ---s a .C C C & C Su s ) .5 1 3 C S ----0--t --c -7 e 1.0 0 ; ex.-. -s' .W('. :r'-. ". 1 -au--. 3 0... -'.:0 n .22 a 0-11.---e -t'i. (( -C -%27:3 --"-3.
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