33 Ap 35 1976d CONTENTS Bliss, Dr. R. K., Director of Extension Service, Ames, Iowa.. Buckingham, S. McLean, president Connecticut Farm Bureau Fed- Edwards, Col. J. L., president Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, Farrell, Dr. F. G., president Kansas State College, Manhattan, Kans Karrigan, Frank R., county agricultural agent, Dubuque, Iowa- Munson, Dr. Willard A., chairman extension committee on organiza- Noble, Guy, secretary 4-H Club, Chicago, Ill_ O'Neal, Edw. A., president American Farm Bureau, Chicago, Ill- Pearson, Dr. R. A., president University of Maryland, College Park, Schaub, Dr. I. O., dean of agriculture, Raleigh, N. C. Warburton, Dr. C. W., director extension service, Department of ADVANCEMENT OF AGRICULTURE FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1935 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. Hearings on H. R. 6123 and H. R. 6981 were held, pursuant to notice, Hon. Marvin Jones (chairman), presiding, at 10 a. m. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. We will first hear Mr. Edward A. O'Neal, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. We have before us two bills, H. R. 6981 and H. R. 6123, which, in the Senate, have been combined into one bill, and which may be considered by this committee either as one bill or as two.. STATEMENT OF EDWARD A. O'NEAL, PRESIDENT AMERICAN FARM BUREAU Mr. O'NEAL. I feel honored this morning to come before your committee to advocate this bill, prepared by your chairman, gentleI think that this bill strengthens the most constructive agency that the Federal Government has ever organized in cooperation with the States and the farmers of the United States. men. Mr. Chairman, I do not think that we need to advance any arguments for it to you gentlemen. Each of you know what the agricultural colleges mean to your respective States, and the great and efficient service they have rendered to farmers through the years. Those services have been greatly increased in late years, and we farmers hope that they continue to increase and give effective service to agriculture and to the people of our States. So, I give my unqualified endorsement, Mr. Chairman, to these two bills, with the record of these institutions and the historical background. I would like to see, Mr. Chairman, before you adjourn today at noon, the unanimous vote of your committee to report out these bills as they are now written. Thank you very much. I would like to be able to file, Mr. Chairman, a statement with the committee. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered. (The statement submitted by Mr. O'Neal is as follows:) STATEMENT BY EDWARD A. O'NEAL, PRESIDENT AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION As a spokesman for organized agriculture, it has been my privilege to appear before this committee on many different occasions. I need not express my grateful appreciation to this committee for the many courtesies extended to me. The committee knows how much I value its friendship and cooperation. 1 On all different occasions when I have come before this committee, pleading for aid for American agriculture, none has been more important than this. Today I bring to your attention the sentiments and desires of American agriculture on a matter most basically fundamental to the welfare of agriculture, economically, socially, and spiritually. It may be bromidic to say that there is no substitute for education. It may be as equally commonplace to say that, the greater the facilities provided for education, the greater the progress of man. In providing facilities and opportunities for agricultural education, Congress always has been most benevolent and generous. This benevolence and generosity has been most highly appreciated by American agriculture. The wisdom of Congress, in this direction, has yielded splendid dividends in a richer, more prosperous, and a fuller rural farm life. Three great foundation acts symbolize the interest of Congress in the educational welfare of the American farmer. First, there was the Morrill Act, of 1862, by which the land-grant agricultural colleges, one in each State, were established. Second, there was the Hatch Act, of 1887, establishing the agricultural experiment stations. Third, there came the Smith-Lever Act, of 1914, providing for agricultural extension service work. To these, we must add the Smith-Hughes Act, of 1916, which gave the impetus for teaching agriculture in high schools. The sequence of these legislative measures was natural. Each dovetailed into the general program of providing opportunities for farmers and their families to acquire the technical and practical knowledge necessary for successful farming. Under the Morrill Act, the opportunity was provided for going to college to study the science and practice of agriculture. But, because of the very fact that agriculture is a science, the practices of which change correspondingly as new facts are established, the Hatch Act was inevitable. If the teaching of agriculture and correlated sciences was to prove practical, it had to be founded on research, experimentation, and discoveries of new facts. In themselves, neither the Morrill Act nor the Hatch Act would have completed the picture of a satisfactory agricultural education for American agriculture. Only a comparatively small number of farm men and farm women, particularly farm youth, could go to college to study agriculture. Then followed, naturally, the Smith-Lever Act, which brought the agricultural college and its agricultural experiment station to the front door of the farmer and his family. These agricultural colleges and their agricultural experiment stations and agricultural extension services, bequeathed to agriculture by Congress, are the farmers' own institutions. The farmers feel, and rightfully so, that they own these institutions. That is as it should be. These agricultural colleges represent, in my judgment, the best investment by the United States in education for the people. Above all, these agricultural colleges provide the greatest safeguards for preserving our American civilization. They are the bulwarks for our constructive and yet progressive conservatism. The key to that conservatism is a successful and prosperous agriculture. Its success and prosperity are indelibly associated with agricultural education. As agricultural extension service work developed, it tied the agricultural colleges right to the farms, in a way that could not be done through any other type of educational procedure. By bringing the findings and teachings of the agricultural colleges and their agricultural experiment stations directly into the farm homes, has been laid the beginning and foundation of a real national policy for American agriculture. Through this medium, John Jones' farm is now irrevocably tied to this policy of national agricultural improvement. I come before you today, in the name of the American Farm Bureau Federation, asking your support for the measures which are before you, the enactment of which would provide additional funds for expanding agricultural education to meet the exactment of modern conditions of farm life and farm living. I believe the provision of these additional funds would again represent, as it did in the past, the best and the most substantial investment for the future which the Federal Government could make. Now, it is not my purpose today to present to you the details of administration by agricultural colleges, involving their resident teaching of agriculture and home economics, their conduct of investigational and experimental work in agriculture and its related sciences, and their methods of projecting agricultural extension service work. All this, as well as the appropriation requirements now needed to expand these various educational services to meet the demands of modern agriculture, will be discussed with this committee by the eminent agricultural educators whom I have invited to appear before you. These distinguished men are most competent to discuss these subjects. I am sure that in saying this, I reflect the committee's opinion. I think it is appropriate, at this time, to call the committee's attention to the resolution adopted at the sixteenth annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation, held December 10, 11, and 12, 1934, in Nashville, Tenn. The resolution follows herewith: "The extension service of our land-grant colleges has definitely proven itself the best qualified agency to carry out the educational work in connection with Federal programs affecting rural people. Recovery measures brought about by the " new deal," particularly agricultural adjustment activities, rehabilitation of rural families, expansion of soil-erosion control activities, and rural finance, have enormously expanded the program of the extension service and its educational work. To execute these programs most effectively there must be added personnel in extension organizations. "We, therefore, favor an increase in Federal extension appropriations in sufficient amount to carry this greatly expanded program in counties where extension work is now being conducted as well as to complete the objective of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 by providing sufficient additional funds to make possible the employment of a county agent, a home demonstration agent and a boys' and girls, club leader for each agricultural county of the United States." If the measures, which we are discussing with you today, are enacted, and the funds are made available, I can easily visualize the creation of farm thought and farm leadership on a scale unparalleled in this or any other country. I can see, in my mind's eye, the development of our rural economy to the point where it will represent the soundest thinking, the best philosophy, the most constructive action, not only in its own interests but in the interests of all society. Prior to 1914, it would have been physically impossible to have put into operation the works of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This may sound dogmatic, but I believe it is true. At that time, there were no county agents. There were no home-demonstration agents. There were no agricultural-extension specialists. There were no extension workers to aid the farm boys and girls. There was no Farm Bureau. In short, there was no vehicle for translating into practice the beneficial provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The job simply could not have been done. And, I need not say, at this time, to this committee, that the task has been exceedingly well done, as farmers all over the country, in every section, North, East, South, and West, will attest. It is indeed a glorious thing to go into any State and see that one of the most important institutions is the land-grant college. As Secretary Wallace has so well said, "an institution that will carry on over the years, and in my mind, my friends, the only institution we have in American today that is really fundamentally democratic, close to all people of the Nation, not influenced in any way by small things, working with farm people and with city people and evolving the best there is in the economic, social, political, and I will say, spiritual affairs of men.' It is the hope of our leaders of organized agriculture that these institutions shall continue to be charged with the duty and responsibility of carrying out the program for agriculture as it will shape up in the future. I know of no other agencies so well equipped to do this. I think every extension agent in the country should squarely shoulder his share of the responsibility in carrying out this program, for our plans will not reach a successful completion until they are sufficiently localized to meet the needs of each individual community and commodity. The farm bureaus and the land-grant colleges, working together, have put over great programs very successfully in our various States, during the last 20 years. These programs were developed to meet the economic needs of the day and time. We gave our best to these programs. I wish to pay particular tribute to the masterly job of organization work which the men and women in extension work have accomplished. In an astonishingly short period of time, they have gone out with the thousands of stanch farm leaders on the farms of the Nation, mobilizing more than 3,000,000 farm people much more easily_and economically than our man power was mobilized during the World War. They also have borne efficiently and without complaint much responsibility for the direction of various other agencies set up under the national recovery program, including emergency relief, rural credit corporations, and public works departments. This national program has given them the opportunity to prove their worth, and their whole-hearted response has proven the faith and confidence that we have had in them over the years. Experience showed the increasing need of organized effort to meet other problems of agriculture. The individual farmer, guided by the scientific advice of his county agent, could cope successfully with the problems of production on his |