CLARENCE CANNON, Missouri THOMAS S. MCMILLAN, South Carolina J. BUELL SNYDER, Pennsylvania JOHN F. DOCKWEILER, California GEORGE W. JOHNSON. West Virginia JOACHIM O. FERNANDEZ, Louisiana MILLARD F. CALDWELL, Florida DAVID D. TERRY, Arkansas JOHN M. HOUSTON, Kansas J. BURRWOOD DALY, Pennsylvania ROSS A. COLLINS, Mississippi JOSEPH E. CASEY, Massachusetts JOHN TABER, New York ROBERT L. BACON, New York WILLIAM P. LAMBERTSON, Kansas AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL, 1939 HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE, MESSRS. CLARENCE CANNON (CHAIRMAN), MALCOLM C. TARVER, WILLIAM B. UMSTEAD, WILLIAM R. THOM, CHARLES H. LEAVY, WILLIAM D. MCFARLANE, WILLIAM P. LAMBERTSON, AND EVERETT M. DIRKSEN, OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IN CHARGE OF THE AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1939, ON THE DAYS FOLLOWING, NAMELY: MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1938. STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WALLACE, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, AND W. A. JUMP, BUDGET OFFICER GENERAL STATEMENT Mr. CANNON. We will begin the hearings on the Department of Agriculture appropriation bill for the fiscal year 1939. We have with us this morning the Secretary of Agriculture and shall be glad to have a statement from him at this time, if it meets his approval. Secretary WALLACE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my comments will deal, for the most part, with a consideration of a broad over-all picture. First, I want to call the attention of the committee again to the same point which I emphasized last year-that we now have a new Department of Agriculture which is quite different from the old Department. The old Department, especially previous to the war, was concerned with research, scientific activities, educational activities. There were some regulatory activities at the time, and later on more regulatory activities were added. There was also the job of custodianship and management of certain lands. Later on the Federal-aid highway program became an important matter. But the functions of the old Department of Agriculture today represent only a small part of our total activities. These activities. have come on especially since 1933, and for the most part have to do with action programs. The money spent in the older activities represented money spent largely for personnel, equipment, and the like. In most of the new activities, a smaller share of the money is for personnel; much of it is paid out in the form of grants in aid to individual farmers. NEW ACTIVITIES You are all familiar with the newer activities: the triple A, the Soil Conservation Service, the Farm Security Administration; the flood control program; land utilization program; and so on. |