lates pretty inclusive, or I should say he postulates pretty exclusive Federal control of every farm in the United States through the agencies of the various State Governments.

That has got to come. If I may give an analogy, in 1909 or 1910, I went abroad and got material on city planning, and I came over here and wrote the trip in a book, and organized an association, and all of the large cities have city planning now, in which every property owner has to follow out the regulations of the Government, and the Supreme Court-pardon me for referring to it but the Supreme Court has not upset a single one of those regulations.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. You don't think the Supreme Court would hold that we have the right to force every farmer in the country to buy insurance?

Mr. MARSH. I am not sure whether it would or not, but we haven't had the decision, if I can remember correctly, on the general security act.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. No.

Mr. MARSH. And like you, Senator Schwellenbach, if I understand the purport of your question, I agree that the Congress has got a right to determine what is necessary and in its wisdom it will devise methods of seeing that whatever is necessary becomes a law.

I didn't mean to raise the Supreme Court issue at all, except to refer to the fact that they have upheld all of those city and State zoning laws.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. It is pretty hard to keep away from that. Mr. MARSH. I apologize, and it may be stricken from the record if it is so desired.

Senator POPE. That is all right.

Mr. MARSH. But I do think that this question needs to be followed up, or studied more carefully, before a precedent, if this is to be a precedent for crop insurance, be established. For instance, in my judgment, supplementary measures are necessary-such as the bill to which you referred, that Senator Frazier's Government marketing corporation bill, upon which they are starting hearings tomorrow, the object of that being to reduce the spread between what consumers pay, and farmers get. Last year the Department of Agriculture reports roughly $12,000,000,000 were paid by the consumers, for farm products for which possibly $6,000,000,000 was received by the farmers. Another purpose of this measure is similar, though with different technique, and that is to assure the farmer of a reasonable income currently, and in other words, to try to get him an income, but if you have a limited area, that is regional insurance, or limited area, and limited regional insurance, instead of much wider area insurance, you are going to put a terrific cost upon the fellow who can least afford it.

This plan has got to be taken into consideration with the suggestion of Secretary Wallace, that ultimately 100,000,000 acres of this ruined farm land be withdrawn from cultivation, but in the meantime, it apparently is the purpose of this bill to try to insure the farmers who are raising wheat on part, at least, of that relatively worthless farm. land, and I think that it is doomed to failure under those conditions. I therefore personally suggest that the committee ascertain whether the Government, which is going to set down certain requirements for farming, cannot itself assume more of the responsibility.

And one other question, what is going to be the relation under this bill in the payment of crop insurance, as between the land owner, and the tenant farmer, in the case of a tenant wheat grower?

Is the tenant to pay the premium, if there is a loss, or is that to be adjusted?

Senator POPE. That undoubtedly would be adjusted. The Department has had considerable experience in dealing with that in the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and perhaps in other measures, and undoubtedly that would be adjusted so as to be fair between the tenant and the landlord.

Mr. MARSH. But in view of the rather vigorous statement of the one spokesman for a nonowning farm organization, Mr. Blackstone, on the President's Farm Tenancy Committee Mr. Blackstone is president of the Southern Farmers Tenant Union, "that he thought that the Department had discriminated very heavily against sharecroppers and tenants," and I am quoting it seems to me that it would be fair to have at least the general principle laid down here, in this act. I don't blame the Department so much, perhaps, as Mr. Blackstone does, because having been here several years, I know the pressure brought to bear, as he points out, by the big land owning political-pressure lobbies upon the Department of Agriculture, but I do think that it would be well to incorporate specifically in this bill that it isn't the tenant alone who is to bear the responsibility of paying for the insurance of his crop.

I thank you very much for your courtesy in letting me make these suggestions.

Senator POPE. Thank you very much, Mr. Marsh.

As indicated before in this hearing, I think there are no other witnesses ready to testify tomorrow, and if during the rest of the week someone should appear that I think the committee should hear, I will call the committee together.

Otherwise, we will meet at 10 o'clock next Monday morning to finish the hearing.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee adjourned until 10 a. m., Monday, Mar. 8, 1937.)

FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE

MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1937

UNITED STATES SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, in the hearing room, 324 Senate Office Building, at 10 a. m., Senator James P. Pope presiding.

Present also: Senator McGill, Senator Schwellenbach, Senator Frazier, and Senator Hatch.

Senator POPE. The committee will be in order.

As I am advised, this morning we have a number of representatives of farmers from, I believe, 12 States. Mr. Thatcher is chairman of the committee that was set up some time ago, I think in December, following a conference here in Washington, and I suggest that since he is acquainted with the witnesses who appear this morning, he introduce them to the committee.

May I say to all who have gone to the trouble of coming this far to be heard, that the committee appreciates very much your appearance. Mr. THATCHER. Mr. Chairman, our committee is very grateful for the courtesy extended by you and your committee in recessing the hearing to permit time to bring these representatives from the 12 farm States who make their appearance here, and we will try to get through within a couple of sessions.

As a matter of background, Secretary Wallace called to Washington as of November 7 a large group of representatives of different farm organizations to consider the question of crop insurance and its application to different farm commodities. It appeared at that meeting that no commodity group had given as much study to the question of crop insurance or was so interested as the wheat growers.

Following that conference of November 7, at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture another conference for the wheat growers was called, to give them an opportunity to be heard with respect to the question of whether or not the Federal Government should undertake the program of crop insurance for the commodity wheat.

Those hearings were designated by the Secretary of Agriculture, and the farm folks came in and were heard about the matter on December 2 and 3, at which time they set themselves up to form an association designated as the Wheat Conservation Conference, to work with this session of Congress in the matter of a crop-insurance program for the wheat producers and some other related legislation that they feel is necessary to give full treatment, rather complete treatment to the commodity wheat.

135

The witnesses who will appear before you are coming from 12 States. To economize the time of this committee and keep the record as clear as possible and avoid repetition the representatives of the whole Wheat Conference group have read over the hearing as you have received the presentation up to date, and there are particular matters that they would like to offer testimony about, although they support the bill almost entirely as drawn.

These people represent farm organizations and regional cooperative associations.

The first witness we should like to have appear will be Mr. C. C. Talbott, of Jamestown, N. Dak., president of the Farmers Union of North Dakota, vice president of the Grain Regional Farmers Union Terminal Association.

Senator POPE. We will be glad to hear Mr. Talbott. I think you have been introduced, so you may just go right ahead and make your

statement.

STATEMENT OF C. C. TALBOTT, JAMESTOWN, N. DAK., PRESI

DENT, FARMERS UNION OF NORTH DAKOTA AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE GRAIN REGIONAL FARMERS UNION TERMINAL ASSOCIATION

Mr. TALBOTT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I want to say in opening what few remarks I have to make that I really marvel at the completeness of the bill as drawn and the clearness with which its purposes are expressed. It shows such thorough understanding of the purposes that it seems there is very little to be added, but I would like to call attention to one or two things, not necessarily to make them mandatory in the bill or the legislation, but just to have it in the minds of the Senators who will have to conduct this bill through the sessions of Congress, and I am not unmindful of the fact that there will be many people called upon to vote yea or nay on this bill who do not understand farming and its intricacies, and for that reason I would like to put a little testimony in the record on this bill.

The thing I want especially to bring to your attention is the fact that there is no definite base period set out in the legislation, and it might not be possible to do so, but it should be thoroughly brought to the board, if, as, and when this legislation is passed, that this is one of the vital things, in our judgment, in the operation of this piece of legislation when it becomes law.

Senator Frazier will, of course, understand my language more readily than some of the other Senators when I say that we have probably 15 counties-I want to make it conservative-I think it is nearer 25-in the State of North Dakota which if a base less than 15 years is used would not only have an infiintesimal coverage, but their premiums would be so high that in most cases it would make this insurance entirely inoperative and prohibitive for these farmers.

Take Bottineau County, for example, Senator. For 3 or 4 years during the war, when meat prices were high, Bottineau County was unfortunate enough to have almost a complete crop failure for about 3 years. Prior to that time it was one of the heavy producing counties in North Dakota in wheat and rye and other commodities.