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Senator NORRIS. What page?

Mr. SIMPSON. Page 50.

Mr. BROOKHART. I think, Mr. Chairman, that is all I have.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to state to the committee that this ends the hearings. The committee will meet in executive session in the morning at 10 o'clock and proceed to the consideration of such bill as it will report out.

Senator JOHN B. KENDRICK,

KIT CARSON, COLO., March 27, 1933.

Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Please lay this message before Senate Agricultural Committee as my protest against agricultural refief bill that is now before committee. Evidently the intent of this bill is to legislate value into commodities. If such a thing is possible then the economical problems of the world will have been solved. If it is possible to accomplish this desire by legislation it seems strange that through all the world's history that such a simple remedy has never heretofore been successfully accomplished. It is impossible and in the end will do more harm than good. What agriculture needs most is a good rest from agitation. The remedy lies in cheapening of the currency, lowering of taxes, railroad rates, and marketing expenses; lowering the cost of all governmental units, clear down to the local schools, and scaling down overcapitalization of all industries. If we must try out this wild experiment please leave livestock out for at least a year.

Hon. PETER NORBECK,

CHAS. E. COLLINS.

WATERTOWN, S.DAK., March 28, 1933.

United States Senate, Washington, D.C.: Our board of directors in session assembled urge you to use every possible effort to have the farm bill passed as reported from the House because every day's delay tends to undermine confidence recently created by passage of other major legislation. Delay in the passage of this farm bill at this seeding season is practically equivalent to a year's delay which will prove ruinous to agriculture and business.

Hon. ELLISON D. SMITH,

WATERTOWN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

J. W. GRIEST, Secretary.

GRAIN COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL AFFAIRS,
Washington, D.C., March 29, 1933.

Chairman Committee on Agriculture and Forestry,

United States Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR SMITH: Will you kindly have the record of hearings on H.R. 3835 show that I, as chairman of the grain committee on national affairs, requested to be heard and was given time on the schedule, but later my name was stricken from the list.

Having been denied a hearing in open session, I desire to transmit to you herewith certain suggested changes in the bill and request that you bring them to the attention of the committee for consideration.

First, strike out paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of section 8. This proposed governmental control over the marketing of farm products in the stream of interstate and foreign commerce will serve to narrow the market for farm products at a time when wider markets are absolutely essential to the restoration of agriculture.

Second, if the committee feels that paragraph 2 of section 8 is necessary to the proper carrying out of this act, then it should be amended by striking out the period after the word "parties" on line 18, inserting a semi-colon and adding the words "Provided however, That in making such agreements there shall be no discrimination in favor of any processor, association of producers or other agency so engaged." The necessity of this amendment must be apparent, with the Agricultural Marketing Act still unrepealed, if favoritism such as that under the Farm Board is to be avoided in the future. As a matter of fact, the interest rate should be a minimum instead of a maximum to guard against such gross favoritism as in the case of one group that now enjoys a rate of one-eighth of 1 per cent on nearly $16,000,000 borrowed from the Farm Board.

Very truly yours,

166630-33-23

THOS. Y. WICKHAM, Chairman.

PROGRESSIVE FARMER-RURALIST Co.,
Raleigh, N. C., March 27, 1933.

Senator E. D. SMITH,

Chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR SMITH: We earnestly urge you to support the general principles of the farm relief bill proposed by President Roosevelt. We are convinced that the large degree of latitude in its operation which the bill gives Secretary Wallace and the United States Department of Agriculture will be wisely exercised. He will consult with agricultural leaders in making such adaptations as will best fit in with varying or changing conditions, or that accumulating experience indicates should be made. We sincerely hope that the general plan will not be hamstrung by unfriendly amendments, but President Roosevelt instead given liberal authority to carry out the promises he made to American farmers and which these farmers expect fulfilled. A basic principle which should not be disturbed is that of restoring farm prices to their pre-war parity with other prices, and with this assured and the President's farm mortgage program enacted into law, the farmers of the South can win their way back to independence. Respectfully submitted.

W. KERR SCOTT,

Master North Carolina State Grange.
CHAS. F. CATES,

President North Carolina Farmers State Alliance.
CLARENCE POE,

Editor the Progressive Farmer and Member Executive
Committee North Carolina State Grange.

To the Senate Committee of Agriculture and Forestry:

GENTLEMEN: This testimony is in reference to bill H.R. 3835. Before going into the details as to whether or not the farm relief bill, as passed by the House of Representatives, is advisable to be passed by the Senate, I wish to draw to the attention of the Senate Committee of Agriculture and Forestry that the object of the bill is to levy a tax on basic agricultural commodities with a view of raising prices to the extent of the tax levied, which would be paid over to the producer, to enable him to acquire purchasing power for the necessities in industrial commodities.

The basic agricultural commodities mean wheat, cotton, corn, hogs, cattle, sheep, rice, tobacco, and milk and its products. You heard the objection of sheep raisers as to the inadvisability of levying a tax so as to advance prices on sheep, because that is not possible to apply to sheep, for the various reasons that were explained in the testimony.

I wish to point out that milk and milk products cannot be applicable to the general terms of this act for the very reason that it is not to be compared with cotton and grain of any kind. The cotton and grain commodities are produced once a year in the United States, and milk is a daily crop so to speak. Milk cannot be kept longer than the day it is produced, and has to be distributed when sold as fluid milk, and when a product is produced out of the milk, such as butter, cheese, etc., it has to be done within the week it is produced, and prices for any commodities produced out of milk are daily fluctuating because they are also fluctuating in quantity of production, and the seasons of the year and the weather at any given time, which makes a change in the prices of those commodities. As a matter of fact, butter is so sensitive as to advances or drops in prices that one fourth cent a pound makes a difference as to whether or not it could be sold quick, or it will have to be held for a time in storage, to be sold later.

When it comes to the season of surplus production of milk products, then the only way it is possible to sell those surpluses, is when there is a free way of trading in it. No one could be forced to buy it, because they do not have to buy it and invest money in a commodity that will be sold 6 months later, and one does not know whether or not he would be able to get his money back, out of it, even when a profit would not necessarily be the question. Very often the question is to remove the surplus from the daily tradings, so that the business of the day could go on without interference.

Therefore, interference by levying a tax or by having any Government agency interfere with this line of business, would be greatly detrimental to the producer

and distributor alike, and instead of a gain of any kind, there would be a loss to all, without doubt whatsoever.

As to the provision of the act covering all commodities produced by the farmer, will say that prudence would caution any man in authority, to add other complicated machinery to relieve a situation that has been sick for 4 years or so, and which has been caused by a complicated legislation that was not necessary, and the farmers and the country as a whole, are now paying the penalty for same. Another experiment is to be fostered on the farmers and the country with the idea that it will help them, when in reality it will destroy every possibility of recuperation through advancing prices of farm commodities.

It would seem that any Member of Congress would realize that since prices started to slide down, beginning with the passage of the Agricultural Marketing Act, creating cooperative marketing agencies in agricultural commodities, that there might be something wrong in that. The fact is that from the date of the passage of the Agricultural Marketing Act creating those nationally cooperative agencies with Government aid and nursing, every independent distributor of agricultural commodities was out of the buying or distributing of those commodities, and therefore the farmer has lost customers that he would have gotten if that act would not have been passed, since there were only a few dealers who tried to deal in grain or cotton, but they were not aufficient to buy up all the farmers' crops, whether cotton and grain, and therefore all those products were begging for a market. The organizations created by the Government under the Federal Farm Board wasted $500,000,000 to try to bolster up prices and hold the commodities for higher prices, and they failed to do that. Couldn't the Congress see that any interference that would be created again, would be more harmful than any possibility of attaining any good in it?

In the testimony given by witnesses on this bill at the Senate Committee of Agriculture, Senator Wheeler, of Montana, brought out points that the question of leaving business to its natural economic development, has been suggested before, but in the opinion of the Senator, nothing could come out of leaving things to natural consequences. I believe that the Senator was not correct in that statement. In the first place, in the case of farm relief, never was anything left to the law of supply and demand, but there was always interference by somebody, to help the farmer, while in reality the farmer neither wanted nor needed that help, but that so-called help has always been detrimental in doing harm to the farmer and to the Nation.

The present proposed farm relief bill is one of those measures that will harm the farmer as the Agricultural Marketing Act harmed him, and as any other acts supposed to help the farmer did him no good.

All that Congress needs to do, is to repeal the Agricultural Marketing Act, have cooperative marketing organizations take care of themselves the way independents are taking care of themselves, give notice to the people engaged in commerce in the United States that they will not be interfered with by any hampering laws, and this will be a signal for new enterprises and for advancing prices in all agricultural commodities.

I, therefore, suggest the repeal of the Agricultural Marketing Act especially the cooperative marketing feature thereof, and as for immediate help, all that the farmer needs, is to adopt measures to have the farmer on a farm retain same, and I believe that the bill recommended by the Hon. Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, with a few modifications or improvements in that bill, would just do the proper thing for the farmer to hold his farm, and the rest could be left to the laws of healthy economics where supply and demand govern prices.

Respectfly yours,

ARTHUR MEDWEDEFF. (Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the committee adjourned.)

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