II 



Page Six 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



I 



Secretary Hoover's Acceptance Speech 



(FoOowmg it the tact of the Rejmbliean 

 preeidential eandidate'e etatement on 

 agrieultvre delivered in hie tpeech of ae- 

 eeptanee at Palo Alto. CaL, on Aug. 11.) 



of agriculture into larger units must 

 pot be by enlarged farms. The farmer 

 has shown he can increase the skill of 

 his industry without large operations. 

 He is today producing 20 per cent more 

 than eight years ago with about the 

 4 if^ HE most urgent economic prob- game acreage and personnel. Farming 



is and must continue to be an individ- 

 ualistic business of small units and in- 

 dependent ownership. The farm is 

 more than a business; it is a state of 

 living. We do not wish it converted 

 into a mass production machine. 

 Therefore, if the farmer's position is 

 to be improved by larger operations it 

 must be done not on the farm but in 

 the field of distribution. Agriculture 

 has partially advanced in this direc- 

 tion through cooperatives and pools. 

 But the traditional cooperative is often 

 not a complete solution. 



J_ lem in our nation today is in 

 agriculture. It must be solved if we are 

 to bring prosperity and contentment to 

 one-third of our people directly and to 

 all of our people indirectly. We have 

 pledged ourselves to find a solution. 



"In my mind most agricultural dis- 

 cussions go wrong because of two false 

 premises. The first is that agricul- 

 ture is one industry. It is a doien dis- 

 tinct industries incapable of the same 

 organization. The second false premise 

 is that rehabilitation will be complete 

 when it has reached a point comparable 

 with that before the war. Agriculture 

 was not upon a satisfactory basis be- 

 fore the war. The abandoned farms 

 of the northeast bear their own testi- 

 mony. Generally there was but little 

 profit in midwest agriculture for many 

 years except that derived from the 

 slow increases in farm land values. 

 Even of more importance is the great 

 advance in standards of living of all 

 occupations since the war. Some 

 branches of agriculture have greatly 

 recovered, but taken as a whole it is 

 not keeping pace with the onward 

 march in other industries. 



Many Factor* Involved 



"There are many causes for failure 

 of agriculture to win its full share of 

 national prosperity. The after war 

 deflation of prices not only brought 

 great direct losses to the farmer, but 

 he was often left indebted in inflated 

 dollars to be paid in deflated dollars. 

 Prices are often demoralized through 

 gluts in our markets during the har- 

 vest season. Local taxes have been 

 increased to provide the improved 

 roads and schools. The tariff on some 

 products is proving inadequate to pro- 

 tect him from imports from abroad. 

 The increases in transportation rates 

 since the war have greatly affected the 

 price which he receives for his prod- 

 ucts. Over six million farmers in 

 times of surplus engage in destructive 

 competition with one another in the 

 sale of their product, often depressing 

 prices below those levels that could be 

 maintained. 



"The whole tendency of our civiliza- 

 tion during the last fifty years has 

 been toward an increase in the size of 

 the units of production in order to 

 secure lower costs and a more orderly 

 adjustment of the flow of commodities 

 to the demand. But th« organization 



Common Ground Needed 



"Differences of opinion as to both 

 causes and remedy have retarded the 

 completion of a constructive program 

 of relief. It is our plain duty to 

 search out the common ground on 

 which we may mobilize the sound 

 forces of agricultural reconstruction. 

 Our platform lays a solid basis upon 

 which we can build. It offers an af- 

 firmative program. 



"An adequate tariff is the founda- 

 tion of farm relief. Our consumers in- 

 crease faster than our producers. The 

 domestic market must be protected. 

 Foreign products raised under lower 

 Standards of living are today compet- 

 ing in our home markets. I would use 

 my office and influence to give the 

 farmer the full benefit of our historic 

 tariff policy. 



"A large pction of the spread be- 

 tween what the farmer receives for his 

 products and what the ultimate con- 

 sumer pays is due to increased trans- 

 portation charges. Increase in railway 

 rates has been one of the penalties of 

 the war. These increases have been 

 9dded to the cost to the farmer of 

 reaching seaboard and foreign markets 

 and result therefore in reduction of 

 his prices. The farmers of foreign 

 countries have thus been indirectly 

 aided in their competition with the 

 American farmer. Nature has en- 

 dowed us with a great system of in- 

 land waterways. Their modernization 

 ^ill comprise a most substantial con- 

 liribution to midwest farm relief and to 

 tihe development of twenty of our in- 

 terior states. This modernization in- 

 cludes not only the great Mississippi 

 system, with its joining of the great 

 lakes and of the heart of midwest agri- 

 culture to the gulf, but also a shipway 

 from the great lakes to the Atlantic. 



These improvements would mean so 

 large an increment in farmers' prices 

 as to warrant their construction many 

 times over. There is no more vital 

 method of farm relief. i X • 



Pledget Marketing Aid 



"But we must not stop here. 



"An outstanding proposal of the 

 party program is the whole-hearted 

 pledge to undertake the reorganization 

 of the marketing system upon sounder 

 and more economical lines. We have 

 already contributed greatly to this 

 purpose by the acts supporting farm 

 cooperatives, the establishment of in- 

 termediate credit banks, the regulation 

 of stockyards, public exchanges, and 

 the expansion of the department of 

 agriculture. The platform proposes to 

 go much farther. It pledges the crea- 

 tion of a federal farm board of repre- 

 sentative farmers to be clothed with 

 authority and resources with which not 

 only to still further aid farmers' co- 

 operatives and pools and to assist 

 generally in solution of farm problems, 

 but especially to build up with federal 

 finance farmer-owned and farmer-con- 

 trolled stabilization corporations which 

 v/ill protect the farmer from the de- 

 pressions and demoralization of season- 

 al gluts and periodical surpluses. 



"Objection has been made that this 

 program, as laid down by the party 

 platform, may require thatj several 

 hundred millions of dollars of capital 

 be advanced by the federal govern- 

 ment without obligation upon the indi- 

 vidual farmer. With that objection I 

 have little patience. A nation which is 

 spending ninety billions a year can well 

 afford an expenditure of a few hundred 

 millions for a workable program that 

 will give to one-third of its population 

 their fair share of the nation's pros- 

 perity. Nor does this proposal put the 

 government into business except so far 

 as it is called upon to furnish initial 

 capital with which to build up the 

 farmer to the control of his own des- 

 tinies. 



An Enduring Program 



"This program adapts itself to the 

 variable problems of agriculture not 

 only today but those which will arise 

 in the future. I do not believe that 

 any single human being or any group 

 of human beings can determine in ad- 

 vance all questions that will arise in 

 so vast and complicated an industry 

 over a term of years. The first step is 

 to create an effective agency directly 

 for these purposes and to give it au- 

 thority and resources. These are sol- 

 emn pledges and they will be fulfilled 

 by the Republican party. It is a defi- 

 nite plan of relief. It needs only the 



• 



