THE I. A. A. RECORD 



Page Fii'e 



THE DEMOtRATIC FARM PLANK 





1 



AGRICULTURE 



(Adopted at Hotiston, June 28, 1928) 



DECEPTION upon the farmer and 

 stock raiser has been practiced by 

 the Republican party through false 

 and delusive promises for more than 

 50 years. Specially favored industries 

 have been artificially aided by Republi- 

 can legislation. Comparatively little 

 has been done for agriculture and 

 stock raising upon which national pros- 

 perity rests. Unsympathetic in action 

 with regard to this problem must 

 cease. Virulent hostility of the Re- 

 publican administration to the ad- 

 vocates of farm relief, and denial of 

 the right of farm organizations to lead 

 in the development of farm policy, 

 must yield to Democratic sympathy 

 and friendliness. 



Four years ago, the Republican 

 party, forced to acknowledge the criti- 

 cal situation, pledged itself to take all 

 steps necessary to bring back a bal- 

 anced condition between agriculture 

 and other industries and labor. Today 

 it faces the country not only with that 

 pledge unredeemed, but broken by the 

 acts of a Republican President who is 

 primarily responsible for the failure 

 to offer a constructive program to re- 

 store equality to agriculture. 



Coolidge Vetoes Cited 



While he had no constructive and 

 adequate program to offer in its stead, 

 he has twice vetoed farm relief legis- 

 lation and has sought to justify his 

 disapproval of agricultural legis- 

 lation partly on grounds wholly incon- 

 sistent with his acts making industrial 

 monopolies the beneficiaries of govern- 

 ment favor; and in endorsing the agri- 

 cultural policy of the present adminis- 

 tration the Republican party in its re- 

 cent convention served notice upon 

 the farmer that the so-called protec- 

 tive system is not meant for him; that 

 while it offers protection to the privi- 

 leged few, it promises continued world 

 prices to the producers of the chief 

 cash crops of agriculture. 



We condemn the policy of the Re- 

 publican party, which promises relief 

 to agriculture only through a reduc- 

 tion of American farm production to 

 the needs of the domestic market. 

 Such a program means the continued 

 deflation of agriculture, the forcing of 

 additional millions from the farms and 

 the perpetuation of agricultural dis- 

 tress for years to come, with continued 

 bad effects on business and labor 

 throughout the United States. 



The Democratic party recognizes 

 that the problems of production differ 



as between agriculture and industry. 

 Industrial production is largely under 

 human control, while agricultural pro- 

 duction, because of lack of coordina- 

 tion, among the 6,500,000 individual 

 farm units, and because of the influ- 

 ence of weather, pests, and other 

 causes, is largely^eyond human con- 

 trol. The result is that a large crop 

 frequently is produced on a small 

 acreage and a small crop on a large 

 acreage; and measured in money value 

 it frequently happens that a large crop 

 brings less than a small crop. 



Producers of crops whose total 

 volume exceeds the needs of the do- 

 mestic market must continue at a dis- 

 advantage until the government shall 

 intervene as seriously and as effective- 

 ly in behalf of the farmers as it has 

 intervened in behalf of labor and in- 

 dustry. There is a need of supple- 

 mental legislation for the control and 

 orderly handling of agricultural sur- 

 pluses, in order that the price of the 

 surplus may not determine the price 

 of the whole crop. Labor has bene- 

 fited by collective bargaining and some 

 industries by tariff. Agriculture must 

 be as effectively aided. 



Pledge* Adequate Law* 



The Democratic party, in its 1924 

 platform, pledged its support to such 

 legislation. It now reaffirms that stand 

 and pledges the united efforts of the 

 legislative and executive branches of 

 government, as far as may be con- 

 trolled by the party, to the immediate 

 enactment of such legislation, and to 

 such other steps as are necessary to 

 place and maintain the purchasing 

 power of farm productb and the com- 

 plete economic equality of agriculture. 



The Democratic party has always 

 stood against special privilege and for 

 common equality under the law. It 

 is a fundamental principle of the party 

 that such tariffs as are levied must not 

 discriminate against any industry, 

 class or section. Therefor, we pledge 

 that in its tariff policy the Democratic 

 party will insist upon equality of 

 treatment between agriculture and 

 other industries. 



Farm relief must rest on the basis 

 of an economic equality of agriculture 

 with other industries. To give this 

 equality a remedy must be found 

 which will include among other things : 



(A) Credit aid by loans to co-oper- 

 atives on at least as favorable a basis 

 as the government aid to the merchant 

 marine. 



(B) Creation of a federal farm 

 board to assist the farmer and stock 



raiser in the marketing of their prod- 

 ucts as the federal reserve board has 

 done for the banker and business man. 

 When our archaic banking and cur- 

 rency system was revised after its rec- 

 ord of disaster and panic under Re- 

 publican . administrations, it was a 

 Democratic congress in the administra- 

 tion of a Democratic president that ac- 

 complished its stabilization through the 

 federal reserve act creating the fed- 

 eral reserve board, with powers ade- 

 quate to its purpose. Now in the hour 

 of agriculture's need the Democratic 

 party pledges the establishment of a 

 new agricultural policy fitted to pres- 

 ent conditions, under the direction of 

 a farm board vested with all the pow- 

 ers necessary to accomplish for agri- 

 culture what the federal reserve board 

 has been able to accomplish for fi- 

 nance. In full recognition of the fact 

 that the banks of the country, through 

 voluntary co-operation, were never 

 able to stabilize the financial system 

 of the country until government pow- 

 ers were invoked to help them. 



(C) Reduction through proper gov- 

 ernment agencies of the spread be- 

 tween what the farmer and stock raiser 

 gets and what the ultimate consumer 

 pays with consequent benefits to both. 



(D) Consideration of the condi- 

 tion of agriculture in the formulation 

 of government financial and tax meas- 

 ures. 



We pledge the party to foster and 

 develop co-operative marketing asso- 

 ciations through appropriate govern- 

 ment aid. 



We recognize that experience has 

 demonstrated that members of such 

 associations alone cannot successfully 

 assume the full responsibility for a 

 program that benefits all producers 

 alike. We pledge the party to an 

 earnest endeavor to solve this problem 

 of the distribution of the cost of deal- 

 ing with crop surpluses over the mar- 

 keted units of the crop whose produc- 

 ers are benefited by such assistance. 

 The solution of this problem would 

 avoid government subsidy to which 

 the Democratic party has always been 

 opposed. The solution of this prob- 

 lem will be a prime and immediate 

 concern of a Democratic administra- 

 tion. We direct attention to the fact 

 that it was a Democratic congress, in 

 the administration of a Democratic 

 president, which established the fed- 

 eral loan system and laid the founda- 

 tion for the entire rural credits struc- 

 ture, which has aided agriculture to 

 sustain in part the shock of the poli- 

 cies of two Republican administra- 

 tions, and we promise thoroughgoing 

 administration of our rural credits 

 laws, so that the farmers in all sections 

 may secure the maximum benefits in- 

 tended under these act& 



.It 



