retailer would be given an opportunity to charge anything he wanted to. In our proposal here we recommended further the elimination of all price ceilings affecting meat, with the exception of a ceiling at the retail level. By so doing you will protect the consumer and eliminate all chances of inflation in this industry. You determine the amount of the consumer's meat dollar. There would be no more than that meat dollar to be divided among all the rest of the industry, retailers, wholesalers, processors, and producers. The second point in my recommendation is: Make that retail ceiling uniform as between all retailers. Third. The ceiling price should be simple, one that is based on a simple plan, so that the average housewife could understand it. I doubt if even the O. P. A. understand their present regulations and can interpret them. I am sure there are plenty of retailers and processors that cannot, and I know that as a livestock producer I have been lost in the shuffle. Fourth. The retail ceiling when put into effect must be policed, so that the public will be protected and the unscrupulous merchant will not be permitted to sell above the ceiling, and by so doing outbid his competitor for replacement of supplies. We contend that the present ceilings, two of them, wholesale and retail, have neither one been policed. There has hardly been even an attempt made at it. Fifth. Control the demand by proper rationing of meat, a fair system of rationing meat to the civilian public. At no time should the rationing tickets be permitted to exceed the supply available for civilian consumption after the needs of the armed forces of this country and our lease-lend commitments have been met. In other words, by controlling the demand and balancing same with the available supply, there is a chance of solving this complex problem. With these suggestions you control the consumer's meat dollar, and by so doing protect the consumer. You also prevent inflation. You eliminate subsidies. You save the taxpayer's money and you reduce to a minimum the amount of the policing job, and no regulations will be worth very much unless it is policed. The whole proposal is embodied in the plan or program that is recommended by the industry and has now been endorsed-I substantiate the statement made a while ago has been signed, the document has been signed for the setting up of the program, by the Quartermaster General; by Prentiss Brown, of O. P. A., Administrator; and by Chester Davis of the War Food Administration. This plan-and I say this knowing that I am repeating-differs from the work which we have been having to do with O. P. A., in that it recognizes at the outset that you cannot regulate and control this whole industry by men in Washington who know little or nothing about the industry. The Board itself calls for experienced men in the business. It calls for representatives on there from the Quartermaster's General Office, from Lease-Lend, from O. P. A., and on the other side of the table for experienced men in the meat business, one from beef, one from pork, one from small stock, calves and lambs, and one from canned meat. And with that staff of men sitting on that Board, the plan does not wait for somebody else. The administrators have said they would welcome it for an advisory committee that carries clear back to the grower, to sit around the table and counsel with those men and tell them what we can do to supply meat and how we can supply it. We are now talking about numbers of cattle. Numbers of cattle don't mean anything. It is the meat produced. Live cattle running on the range, which are not finished and not prepared for killing, do not put meat on the consumer's table and the fact is, with all these uncertainties, with continued threats from O. P. A. in the past, it has put the feed lot man to a place where he doesn't know what he is doing. He doesn't feel that he can take the chance, so we are backing up these cattle on his range. They are just not moving into the feed lots, and meat is not being produced where the big amount of meat in this country must be produced, in the feed lots. Now, getting back to my previous thought, this plan proposes that men who know this industry from the producing standpoint, from the standpoint of assembling livestock, from the standpoint of fattening livestock, from the standpoint of knowing the numbers that are available and that can be turned into beef in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months from now, will sit around the table. They don't have to force their way in. We are strongly recommending, the industry as a whole, that this thing be given an opportunity. Now, coming into the picture when we thought we had this thing worked out is the roll-back and subsidy. The Board hasn't been announced. I think one reason for it is- -one reason that is holding it up, this involves another problem, delay, and it should be kicked out, withdrawn, and give this one industry a challenge-"You said you wanted it. Now make delivery." And you have the cooperation of the livestock producers, the market man, the processors, the retailers and all the rest to try to make it succeed. The CHAIRMAN. Well, I have listened to a very patriotic and interesting discusison of this subject. I feel very strongly that the public and I mean the consumer, the producer, the patron, and everybody else is fundamentally interested in this emergency and would use their best judgment immediately to attempt to carry it out. Take the producer. He says, "I want to raise some cattle. The cost of food has gone up. The cost of labor has gone up. Labor is scarce. All the other elements that enter into the cost of production have gone up, but I will take a chance and do the best I can." Then the purchaser of the cattle says, "Well, I am in the same boat. I am an American citizen, and I want to do the best I can." Then the processors—I take it every element of American life is interested in this program. Now, I think if we can devise a plan-I understand you have got that worked out pretty well in that program of yours that you say won't be operating and I am sure it won't-but I am hoping that the American public will wake up and put some life into this great body that we call the "Congress," which has degenerated at last into an appropriation committee-that is what they are. I have been here a pretty good number of years, and I have worked as hard as I knew how to bring about an appreciation on the part of the public of the situation-and I think they do appreciate and are willing and ready to meet it, but when a gentleman here in Washington steps out and says, "You are not patriotic. You just haven't got any sense. We will work this thing out to suit ourselves. You have got nothing to say about it"-I deplore that situation. I just wish I had the power to get an expression from the American peopleand I mean the American people-as to how they feel about all this regimentation and rationing and interference-"You don't know what you have got before you and I will tell you, and you do what I say, and if you don't do it I will put you in jail." If that came from Congress I would say, "All right. They are the representatives of the people, and they are responsible to the people." But all this stuff here- we are responsible for it, because we thought we were doing the fair thing when we delegated certain power to this administration. We had confidence in their ability, or we were too infernally lazy to tackle the job ourselves. Now we are trying to get back something that we have given out. Mr. WILSON. Senator, may I say this to you. The group of men that have appeared before you this morning have tried to express to you the feelings that they find in the country, these people who have a tremendous job now to raise enough food and deliver it. They have tried to bring you truthfully their feelings. The CHAIRMAN. I feel that, and I don't know but what it is a very good thing to establish the roll-back principle, and next year in the election, by Heaven, let's roll back the whole thing. The committee stands adjourned to meet on call. (Whereupon, at 12:25 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned to meet on call of the chairman.) FOOD SUPPLY OF THE UNITED STATES FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 1943 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 324 Senate Office Building, Senator George D. Aiken presiding. There were present before the subcommittee: Ezra T. Benson, executive secretary, National Farmers Council of Farmers Cooperatives. Hugh F. Hall, assistant director of research, Washington Office of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Munsey Building, Washington, D. C. Fred Brenckman, Washington representative of the National Grange. William T. Brown, manager, Southern States Wholesale Petroleum Services, Baltimore, Md. B. A. Fogg, president and general manager, Coopertive GLF Farm Supplies. Robert E. Allen, Assistant Deputy Administrator, Petroleum Administration for War. Walter Hochuli, Director of Marketing Division, Petroleum Administration for War. D. C. Aist, social assistant to the Maryland Department of Agriculture War Board. Raymond A. McGee, McGee Oil Co., Berlin, Md. A. Smith Bowman, farmer, Sunset Hills, Va. William R. Powell, farmer, Howard County, Md. J. E. Givens, director, petroleum division, Southern States Cooperative. W. I. Donohoe, Eastern Shore Oil Co., Salisbury, Md. Senator AIKEN. The committee will come to order. This hearing has been called at the request of representatives of farm cooperatives who have met with difficulties in procuring gasoline for farm uses, and without any further preliminaries I will ask Mr. Ezra Benson, who is representing the farm cooperatives to take the stand. Will you state whom you are representing, Mr. Benson? STATEMENT OF EZRA T. BENSON, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF FARMERS COOPERATIVES Mr. BENSON. My name is Ezra T. Benson, executive secretary, National Council of Farmers Cooperatives, and also secretary of the Na |