mittee that will do something real, in place of this peanut provision; but I am going to go along with the "peanuts" even if you will not give them a sack of flour. Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. LEMKE. Yes. Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Then I presume that since the gentleman wants to do something for agriculture he will be willing to try to help put this item back in the farm bill which is coming up. Mr. LEMKE. I do not think that the gentleman means that that will be sufficient. We are just giving them a drop in the bucket. If you want to go the whole way, there is a petition on the Speaker's desk with over a hundred signatures on it, which provides a method. But I will go along with these "peanuts" just the same. But, just the same, your party has made the statement and all parties have made the statement that the American farmer is entitled to parity. You believe that, don't you? Hoover made the promise that he would put the farmers on an equality with business. He succeeded, because he put both of them in the soup line. And you promised cost of production and refinancing, and you have not done so. We have seen the foreclosure of farms under both administrations. I am nonpartisan. I am not concerned with any politics. I am concerned with doing something that will really help agriculture; and when we get through fooling them, I think that we will get down to business. Mr. ZIMMERMAN. You are not abandoning the fight at this stage? Mr. LEMKE. No, no; never. I am just going forward. I am willing to give 75 percent if I cannot get 100 percent. The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further? Mr. LEMKE. Just one question I want to ask. Are you familiar with the rehabilitation in North Dakota at all? Mr. BALDWIN. Generally: yes, sir. Mr. LEMKE. I find that that is just the opposite from this bill that you have. They restrict the farmer too much. You take a mortgage on his chickens and everything that he has, and I feel that some of those restrictions are too severe. You should not try to limit a person so as to destroy him. In the mortgage under rehabilitation you say that all increase of whatsoever nature, so that if the farmer eats an egg he is a criminal, because he is eating some of the increase. Mr. BALDWIN. I do not think that it has gone quite that far, Mr. Lemke. Mr. LEMKE. It is in the mortgage, you know. Mr. BALDWIN. Of course, that is an administrative problem we always have to contend with; but, generally speaking, there are no restrictions on the food that the individual consumes at home. We take the best security that is obtainable. Mr. LEMKE. I know. Mr. BALDWIN. We do not make these loans, rehabilitation loans, if the family can get credit from any other source. I think in that we are helping Mr. LEMKE. I can see your purpose, but at the same time it is in the mortgage, and there was no waiver there. The Farm Credit used to tell us that they did not mean that, but they went down and took the last thing that the farmers had. Now that the Farm Credit is under the Department of Agriculture, I hope that you will use a different attitude. I am simply suggesting that. I am familiar with the other end of it. You know this end. Mr. BALDWIN. Yes. Mr. LEMKE. I want to get those two ends together if I can. Mr. BALDWIN. Well, I would be glad if you would bring any specific case to our attention where you think our organization has been unduly harsh about foreclosures. Occasionally we have instances. Mr. LEMKE. I want to say, so far as your Bureau goes, I have never had any trouble with it and have always gotten sympathy and sympathetic cooperation, but, as a whole, the thing does not seem to be working out, because there has been too much restriction, and it has been hampered by law rather than, perhaps, by your Department. Mr. BALDWIN. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, the committee desires to thank you gentlemen. Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ferguson. Mr. FERGUSON. This turns the power as to the tenants over to the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. OPPENHEIMER. That is right. Mr. FERGUSON. To be delegated theoretically, we suppose, to the Farm Security that duty which is now carried on under the Farm Tenancy Act. Mr. OPPENHEIMER. That is right. Mr. FERGUSON. That is, we are to assume that the Farm Security will carry this out? Mr. OPPENHEIMER. Yes, sir. Mr. FERGUSON. Is there any basic legislation that creates or says that the Farm Security Administration shall exist after the end of this fiscal year? Mr. OPPENHEIMER. You are thinking about the rehabilitation program, are you not, Mr. Ferguson? Mr. FERGUSON. I am thinking about the law and administering of this act. Mr. OPPENHEIMER. Well, of course, there is basic legislation covering it. Mr. FERGUSON. I understand that there is legislation. Mr. OPPENHEIMER. That is right. Mr. FERGUSON. And this turns the tenants over to the committees for supervision by the Department. Mr. OPPENHEIMER. Yes. Mr. FERGUSON. But that still leaves this power entirely in the hands of the Secretary. There is no permanent organization within the Department of Agriculture to entrust with the execution of this? Mr. OPPENHEIMER. If I understand what you are suggesting or asking, I believe that the problem you raise could be taken care of by a provision in this bill similar to that in the relief bill which will continue the Farm Security Administration during the life of this bill for the purpose of its administration, although I do not believeMr. O'Brien can check me again on that-that such specific provision would be necessary as a matter of law, since the Secretary is the head of the Department of Agriculture and will be authorized to utilize any agencies within the Department of Agriculture for this purpose. Mr. FERGUSON. That may be, but the Farm Security passes out of the picture and it may go to some other bureau in the Department of Agriculture. I would like to know, since this is a new activity for farm security, what the condition of the Farm Security funds are; what condition the Farm Security funds are and what its activities are now. Do you have sufficient funds to take care of all of the needy farmers to the end of this fiscal year under your program of relief?" Mr. BALDWIN. No, sir; I do not think we have, Mr. Ferguson. We have never had sufficient funds to take care of the entire needs. Mr. FERGUSON. Let me put it a little differently. Have you got sufficient funds to do as good a job as you have been doing for the balance of the fiscal years? Mr. BALDWIN. No; I do not think we have, sir, this year, because we have been hit by droughts, floods, excessive rains, gales, and now by this freeze which has hit Florida very hard and some of the neighboring States, which has created quite a problem for us, and I do not think we have sufficient funds. We would have had sufficient funds to take care of the clients already on our rolls fairly well, but this means that a lot of other people are now knocking at our door and asking for loans, and many of them have to be turned down. Mr. FERGUSON. From personal experience I know that this recent storm and freeze has increased the cost for caring for livestock two or three times. In other words, the winter bill, you might say, for your livestock will be two or three times as much as it costs ordinarily. You have a tremendous amount of money loaned, too, as rehabilitation loans on livestock. Are you going to be able to supply these clients with the necessary food for themselves and for their livestock to protect this investment that you have made in these rehabilitation clients? Mr. BALDWIN. Yes; speaking generally, we would have; but in certain sections of the country-your State is one of them-there is very serious doubt as to whether we can protect the investment we now have in these funds. And the same thing is true in perhaps 15 States. Mr. FERGUSON. I think it is perfectly reasonable that you can anticipate that the costs will double and treble and that you might find yourself in a very bad situation without sufficient funds to take care of the whole program which you have built up and the farmer is liable to have such heavy expenses that he will absolutely go broke, because he cannot get the money to feed the cattle that you have provided him with, or the horses, or whatever he has, other animals; and do you feel that that situation might easily develop rather quickly? Mr. BALDWIN. That is right. Mr. FULMER. Is it not a fact that where you operate in areas where they have insurance on their wheat crops, where you have these disasters, that those farmers are in much better condition than where they have not had an opportunity of securing insurance on cotton crops, for instance? Mr. BALDWIN. Well, I think that is going to help them considerably. The farmers who have taken advantage, particularly, of wheat insurance, last year, will naturally be in much better shape than those who have not taken it, and they are going to be in better shape, Mr. Fulmer, than the farmers who are raising other crops on which there is no insurance available. Mr. FULMER. In other words, in a good many of the cotton Stateswe will take down in Mississippi, and in my friend's district, where the cotton crops were destroyed, they did not have an opportunity of getting insurance like the wheat people, and the demand on the Rehabilitation Administration for relief and grants are greater, and a demand for assistance has been piling up considerably more than you or any other agency would be able to take care of. Mr. BALDWIN. Our job would be much easier if those people had had some way in which they could insure their crops. Mr. FULMER. As a matter of fact, because they have no insurance it is bringing about unemployment, many of them cannot pay their taxes and obligations, and their farms are becoming tax delinquent, and they are losing their farms. Mr. BALDWIN. That is right. Mr. FULMER. Whereas if they had had the advantage of insurance, that would have permitted them to carry on and retain their farms and would have relieved your administration to a great extent. Mr. BALDWIN. It would be very helpful. The CHAIRMAN. We desire to thank you, gentlemen. The committee will stand adjourned. STATEMENT OF FARM RESEARCH, INC., PRESENTED BY HERBERT LEBOVICI This statement is submitted by Farm Research, Inc., which as its name implies is a research organization devoted to the servicing of other agricultural organizations. Independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan, Farm Research services such organizations as the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, farmer cooperatives, and the New York and Wisconsin Dairy Farmers' Unions. In this statement, however, Farm Research presumes to speak only for itself. We recommend and support the passage of Senate bill 1836, entitled “An act to promote farm ownership by amending the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act to provide for Government insured loans," etc. We do so with the full knowledge that the bill will hardly provide that panacea which will immediately and completely banish the vast tenancy problem, a problem which grows annually larger by 40,000 additional tenant farmers added to the ranks of those that already exist. To those, however, who are seeking a constructive program rather than a panacea, the program herein considered presents a necessary and practical approach to the problem, and we so consider it. Indeed, this inadequacy has been one of the focal weapons of the opposition. Under the previous operation of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act about 6,100 tenants have become owners and by its terms about 7,200 more would so become through direct purchase money loans made by the Secretary of Agriculture. Under the new feature of the act, otherwise substantially the same, instead of a direct loan, the Secretary of Agriculture would insure private loans up to the amount of $400,000 made prior to July 1942. These loans, amortizable over this period and bearing interest at 3 percent, would thus require no capital outlay by the Government except in the amount of default. Particularly desirable is this bill at this time when armament appropriations at the farmers' expense would seem the apparent order of the day. More striking testimony in this respect could hardly be had than the failure of the House to appropriate the paltry $25,000,000 recommended by the Budget. Now. more than ever, does the private-financing feature of this bill make its passage imperative. Inasmuch as 42 percent, or 2,865,000, of the farms of this country are tenant farms, it can readily be seen that rehabilitation of tenants under this act, at the rate of about $5,000 a tenant farm, will not immediately halt the downward course of our farm population and set all of them climbing toward success and prosperity the farm ladder. But that the bill suffers only by reason of what it leaves undone; this constitutes reason for its expansion, not its rejection. Concededly, a thriving farm population of owner-operated farms constitutes at once the soundest foundation for our national industrial economy and the strongest pillar of our democracy. It should hardly be necessary to demonstrate to this committee the extent of the menace that increasing farm tenancy presents to our Nation. Nevertheless, for purposes of orientation we may well be permitted to brush hurriedly over some of the striking figures. Thus it is generally accepted that in 1935, 42 percent of the farmers working the soil were tenant farmers. Nor is this a sectional problem, limited as it is often supposed to the South, but rather it is a growing national problem that is gradually engulfing all of agriculture wherever it is practiced. Thus in the East North Central States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, farm tenancy has increased to almost 30 percent. In the West North Central section the percentage has increased from 20.5 percent in 1880 until in 1935 it was 42.6 percent. In the Mountain States, where the problem has been deemed nonexistent, the percentage has increased from 7.4 percent in 1880 to 26.6 percent in 1935, and to indicate how rapidly the menace is increasing, 15 points of this tenancy increase dates from 1910 and 11 from 1920. Less has been said about the effect of this growing problem in terms of the tenants themselves, in terms of the creation of rural slums, and in terms of the loss of human resources. Even so, the problem has not passed entirely unnoticed. In 1930, and the problem has become more acute since, the net cash income of these tenant families for the entire Nation average only $21 a month. In 1937 the President's committee, appointed to study this subject was compelled to report that: "The extreme poverty of one-third to one-fourth of the farm population reflects itself in a standard of living below any level of decency. "Large families of tenants or croppers or hired farm laborers, are living in houses of two or three rooms. The buildings are frequently of poor construction, out of alinement, weather-beaten, and unsightly. The doors and windows are rarely screened. Often roofs are leaking. The surroundings of such houses are bleak and unattractive. Many have even no outside toilet, or if one is available, it is highly unsanitary. "Many of these families are chronically undernourished. They are readily subject to diseases. Pellagra, malaria, and the hookworm and other parasites exact heavy tolls in life and energy. "Suitable provisions for maintaining health and treating disease among these families is lacking or inadequate in many localities. "Clothing is often scarcely sufficient to afford protection to the body, much less to help maintain self-respect." Similarly, one study of 500 families sampled E. A. Schuler in a study of social status and farm tenure from tenants of the cotton, tobacco, and corn areas found that two-thirds were found to be lacking in running water, kitchen sinks, or indoor toilets. In 1936 a subcommittee of the House Committee on the Public Lands stated in a report to the Seventy-fourth Congress : "Struggling against these odds the American farmer is being driven into a condition of tenantry. "Even now 3,000,000 farm families are settling down to a social status of serfdom heretofore foreign to our country. "Almost 2,000,000 more, with their farm homes heavily mortgaged struggle on under the burden of debt, hoping that a kind providence will save them from a like fate. "Less than 2,000,000 of the Nation's once proud group of independent homeowning farmers remain, and their ranks are thinning every year. The independent home owner is rapidly vanishing." Nor should we forget, Mr. Chairman, the concomitant approach of monopoly farm production. Who can forget the spectacle portrayed by John Steinbeck in his Grapes of Wrath of the soulless corporation bodily disenfranchising and throwing from the land whole sections of the Oklahoma population. Many of these are no longer even tenants but rather homeless families, constantly moving from pillar to post in a desperate quest for a meager livelihood. Nor is this picture only the product of Steinbeck's pen. In 1930, 58 percent of the value of land worked by American farmers belonged to absentee owners. And the end is not yet. |