Senator LUCAS. I do not agree with you. We can eliminate poultry from the Steagall amendment by just a couple of words. Senator AIKEN. You are going to get into trouble if you eliminate too many of the commodities. Senator LUCAS. I do not think so. Mr. KLINE. I would like to make two comments at that point, Mr. Chairman. One is that the reason we have suggested 1 year rather than agreeing with these various suggestions of 2, 3, or 4 years, is because we recognize the difficulties into which support gets in some cases on some commodities of which there is not really a shortage, or where there may be a tendency to accumulate a surplus. It is just serious enough so that we think we should do this thing for 1 year. Secondly, I should like to make the point that we have stated before that we think these things should be conditional on the farmers cooperating on a program of adjusting production to effective demand, or any other reasonable program which might be outlined, in case we do get into difficulty, in order to prevent exactly the thing you suggest, an unreasonable program which the public would react to in such a way that agriculture would get a black eye. Senator ELLENDER. Would you want to do that if you extend it 1 year? Mr. KLINE. Yes, sir. Senator ELLENDER. I did not so understand your statement. Senator AIKEN. Have you any suggestions as to how to enforce compliance? That seems to be the trouble in supporting prices on potatoes and certain other crops, that the noncomplier benefits from the support level just the same as the fellow who complies. It has been suggested, I think, that benefits which are gotten for soil-improvement practices be withheld from noncompliers. Have you any suggestions as to how compliance can be brought about when necessary? We hope to avoid acreage controls by this bill, and the Secretary said yesterday that he thought that it would minimize the needs for acreage controls; but we realize there are times when they may be necessary, and we should have that law on the books. Certainly, if we are to support the prices of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, there should be some means of controlling production. Have you any suggestions here? Mr. KLINE. The first suggestion would be that on the basis of the 1-year suggestion of the Steagall Act, and extending this sort of control all over the board, the difficulties involved are too great. The second would be that we have some techniques which may be applied in the particular instances where we get the trouble, the marketing-agreement technique, something of that sort. Third, we ought to do everything possible through voluntary adjustment and things of that sort to get people to understand the difficulties into which we will get if there is abuse of this act or the extension of the Steagall which, after all, was designed to give an opportunity for reconversion, and not an opportunity to raid the Treasury, or something of that sort. Then I think that when we get right down to the facts, we shall have to make some provision for some elasticity on the part of its administration. Senator LUCAS. I want to make one more statement and I shall cease and desist. That if the Congress of the United States continues to support these commodities over which they have no control, just merely inviting every farmer in the country that is in that line of production to go out and produce all he can produce and the Government will support it at a certain price, there is no reason why the Government should not start supporting every other industry, whether it is farming or any other industry in this country, on a certain basis. Just tell the laboring man he is going to get a certain amount of support in this country from the Government, and tell every other industry in this country that they are going to get a certain amount of support from this Government, regardless of whether they cooperate or not. On all these basic commodities we are getting the cooperation that is necessary under the law in acreage allotment, in quotas and what not; but these commodities that cannot cooperate, that are unwilling to cooperate, are not entitled to any support of the Government in time of peace. Senator YOUNG. The whole trouble is that many other commodities are not competitive, at least to a large degree, as in the case of steel, where they can raise the price of steel $5 a ton straight across the board. You cannot call that industrially competitive. Senator LUCAS. There are times when they would like to have some Government help, too. Senator YOUNG. If the farmers were so well organized that they could control their income as industry and labor do, then there would not be any need for this legislation at all. Senator AIKEN. In proposing to bring the parity formula up to date, I do not recall that you mentioned anything about the inclusion of hired labor. Mr. KLINE. That is right. We did not. Senator AIKEN. Has the Farm Bureau taken any position on that? As I recall it, at one time they requested that. I am not sure, but I think they did, a couple of years ago. Mr. KLINE. Yes. We have suggested that if labor were included, it should be the inclusion of hired labor only in order to maintain the relationship between costs and selling prices, rather than getting mixed up in a rather different idea there. On the other hand, our position currently is the one which I read in the resolution. Senator BUSHFIELD. Did we not try at one time to include the cost of labor? Senator AIKEN. It is not included in the bill. We discussed it, and then we decided we would determine it after. Senator BUSHFIELD. I mean a year or two ago. Senator LUCAS. It has been around here. Senator AIKEN. It does make the parity price slightly higher in the case of most farm commodities-not very much higher. I think wool is an example of where it would raise the parity price of wool about 3 cents or so a pound. It would raise the price of lambs about 3 cents a pound and increase the price of sheep a little bit. I have not figured that one out yet, but I understand it is really so. Mr. KLINE. There are no formulas exactly perfect when you apply it to a great many commodities. There is, in the case of hired labor, the difficulty, if you apply it all across the board, that some commodities use a great deal and other commodities use relatively little. If, on the other hand, one attempts to apply it by commodities, commodity-wise, then he gets, into difficulties between different regions in the country and, in addition, gets into the difficulty of having a lot of little formulas, because he takes a single factor and varies it. I am sure the Farm Bureau's position would be on the inclusion of labor, that we would try to set up an over-all parity formula, not a parity formula which would be one thing for one commodity and something else for others. Senator BUSHFIELD. You generally agree there was a surplus of potatoes last year, do you not? Mr. KLINE. Especially the year before. Senator BUSHFIELD. The year before. We got into serious difficulties about it, too. Mr. KLINE. That is right. Senator BUSHFIELD. The Department had no logical solution of it, did they? Mr. KLINE. No. I think that the farmers are regretful of what happened with regard to potatoes, especially all the publicity which they got. On the other hand, there was considerable investment in the proposition. We did try to get all the potatoes we could during some of the war years, and it makes fairly good sense to have some kind of reconversion program. With the experience we have had, I am sure our people would be greatly disappointed if the potato folks engineered something which could be interpreted as a raid on the Treasury. Senator BUSHFIELD. I seem to recall the burning of several hundred thousand bushels of potatoes. Is that not true? Mr. KLINE. They do not burn very well. I did not see the fire. Senator BUSHFIELD. Well, we saw pictures of it. Senator LUCAS. The Secretary of Agriculture got all the blame for that. Of course, he was acting purely under a congressional mandate. Senator BUSHFIELD. I understand that. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you have made a very helpful statement and we are greatly obliged to you. Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. We will adjourn now and resume tomorrow morning, when the executive secretary of the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives will appear before the committee and will make a statement on the pending bill. (Thereupon, at 11:45 a. m., an adjournment was taken until Wednesday, April 14, 1948, at 10 a. m.) AGRICULTURAL ACT OF 1948 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1948 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in room 324, Senate Office Building, Senator Arthur Capper (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Capper, Aiken, Bushfield, Young, Thye, Thomas, Ellender, Lucas, and Hoey. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We are here this morning to resume the hearings on S. 2318, to provide for a coordinated agricultural program. We have with us today Mr. John H. Davis, executive secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. STATEMENT OF JOHN H. DAVIS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NA- How long has this organization been in existence, Mr. Davis? The CHAIRMAN. Is it getting stronger all the time? Mr. DAVIS. Well, we hope so. Do you remember Judge Miller? The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Mr. DAVIS. He was president of the organization. The CHAIRMAN. My first experience here in this committee was working with him. He was a great character. Mr. DAVIS. Yes, he was. He was a statesman. The CHAIRMAN. Do you come from his part of the country? Mr. DAVIS. I am from Iowa. My name is John H. Davis, executive secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, an organization of farmer marketing and purchasing cooperatives serving over two and one-half million farms. The CHAIRMAN. How long did you say it has been organized? The CHAIRMAN. How many groups are there in your organization? Mr. DAVIS. We have 113 direct members. Most of them are regional cooperatives. Many of them are federated and have affiliated with them and owning them about 5,000 local cooperatives to which these two and one-half million farm families belong. |