THE I. A. A. RECORD 



Page Seven 



Hyde Defends Act 



Secretary Hyde was called upon by Vice 

 President Broussard, of the chamber, who was 

 presiding. Mr. Hyde's remarks follow in part: 



In the beginning I want you to know that 

 in all I shall say I have the most profound re- 

 spect for the judgment, the patriotism and the 

 ability of the members of this very great insti- 

 tution, but I think many important elements 

 of this problem have been overlooked and, even 

 at the expense of butting into a program upon 

 which I was not invited to appear, I wish you 

 would forbear for me for a few minutes. 



It is dangerous for a grass-growing farmer 

 to horn in between two cowboys. I realize 

 my difficulties on that score. 



Let me, first of all, take exception to the 

 religious portion of this program. I noted with 

 great interest the parable, the location of which 

 I can not now cite, with reference to the stor- 

 age of the surplus. 



From my youth up I have listened to dis- 

 sertations upon that parable but never before 

 have I heard it applied in any such manner 

 as it was applied here. 



Most of the clergy, and I think a large 

 proportion of the populace believe that parable 

 was properly applicable to the sin of covetous- 

 ness and to that kind of fat-headed satisfaction 

 with things as they are; and to that I shall also 

 refer to the egotism of the' well-to-do and to 

 the story of the glass-eyed sympathy with the 

 underdog. 



I am persuaded, however, to think that the 

 trouble is not the abuses in this hearing. All 

 I ask you to do is to take a look at the wild 

 men over in the Senate and view the rising 

 tide of discontent and then look at your whole 

 market and see whether you want to store up 

 your surplus and whether it is safe for you to 

 store it. 



"Thou fool, this day shall thy soul be. re- 

 quired of thee." So much for religion. 



Denies Price Pegging 



More misapprehension with reference to the 

 meaning and purpose of the agricultural mar- 

 keting act have been produced here in this 

 highly respectable and influential audience than 

 I have read in all the farm journals in America. 

 The Farm Board does not expect to peg prices; 

 the Farm Board has made no attempt to peg 

 prices; price pegging is not in the act, and 

 price pegging is not found in our program. 



You have heard from Mr. Legge the reasons 

 which impelled the Board to project itself into 

 the wheat situation through loans rather than 

 through a stabilization corporation. Maybe it 

 was a mistake; if so, I glory in it. We have 

 made others. 'VS'e shall make more. 



We do not intend to do and we are not 

 willing to do anything that is unsound eco- 

 nomically, but I thank God, and the sentiments 

 I utter are my own. I am serving a Chief who 

 sees through the mistakes to the ultimate wel- 

 fare of 27,500,000 American citizens. 



This loan upon farm products — upon wheat 

 for example — the Farm Board made the same 

 mistake that a banker makes when he loans 

 too much. If it is unsound in the Farm Board 

 it is also unsound in finance. 



As to that there can be no debate, but look 

 at the surrounding circumstances: Everybody 

 believed last Fall that wheat should go any- 

 where from $1.40 up to $1.60; the grain trade 

 believed it, the economist believed it, we be- 

 lieved it — not on any fictitious price but on the 

 unrestrained utteration of the proposition of the 

 law of supply and demand. 



I know the grain trade believed it because 

 they bought two-thirds of the crop at that 

 price. Then came the deflation upon the stock 

 market in New York. The price sagged unduly 

 under the weight of that octupus and they paid 

 a considerable penalty for it. 



Slide Continued 

 The slide continued just as it may have cion- 



tinued if a banker had loaned too much per 

 bushel on the wheat. Was there anything un- 

 sound in it? Was there any attempt to make 

 undue prices? We operated on the basis of the 

 prices fixed. 



I am afraid I have already exceeded my five 

 minutes. You can not discuss this thing in five 

 hours. Before me are, no doubt, many, many, 

 men whose origin is not more than one gen- 

 eration removed from the farm; but the farm 

 has a£Forded the leadership in times gone by 

 for industrial parties, and, consider, my friends, 

 for a minute the fact that it was the farms 

 of America which, for the first 100 years of 

 our history, furnished the exports and the bal- 

 ance of trade behind which the lands of our 

 magnificent industrial organization has been 

 formed. 



I claim that agriculture has a bit which 

 it is entitled to have liquidated at the hands 

 of industry, based solely upon the contribu- 

 tion of men and money which agriculture has 

 made to American industry. 



Ah, my friends, not many of you are far 

 removed from agriculture. In the name of all 

 that is holy; in the name of all that is sacred, 

 do not be satisfied with the United States of 

 America — that country founded upon the 

 proposition that all men are going to have a 

 fair chance — do not be satisfied with your 

 country until all men do have a fair chance. 



Nobody is going to be displaced. If some- 

 body has to move over at the dinner table to 

 let others sit down, it is merely an evidence of 

 a growing and enlarging country. 



Jewett Scores Action 



Of U. S. Chamber Meet 



McLean County Elevator Men 

 Assemble at Bloomington 



ELEVATOR directors, managers and 

 patrons representing 18 farmers' ele- 

 vators in McLean county met in Blooming- 

 ton recently to discuss cooperative grain 

 marketing. 



Before adjournment the meeting voted 

 unanimously to send a telegram to Alexan- 

 der Legge, chairman 

 of the Federal Farm 

 Board, commending 

 him for his firm 

 stand in favor of co- 

 operative marketing 

 against attacks of 

 middlemen before 

 the national conven- 

 tion of the chamber 

 of commerce. 



George C. Jewett, 

 president of the 

 Transportation Bank 

 of Chicago, who was the principal speaker, 

 defended the stand taken by Chairman 

 Legge and Secretary Hyde, and condemned 

 the resolution of the U. S. Chamber of 

 Commerce as unfriendly to the farmer. 

 True to Form 

 "The U. S. Chamber of Commerce in 

 condemning the operation of the Agricul- 

 tural Marketing Act has in my opinion run 

 true to form," said Jewett. "I have ob- 

 served its attitude for a number of years, 

 and I have found that its desire to aid agri- 

 culture stops short of any plan that would 

 in any degree interfere with the profits of 

 the middlemen dealing in agricultural 

 products. 



"In 1920 when we tried to develop wheat 



Geo. Jewett 



poob in this country we found business in- 

 terests almost unanimously opposed. This 

 was particiJarly true on the Pacific Coast 

 and at the large grain markets of the mid- 

 dle west. 



"The U. S. Chamber of Commerce favors 

 the development of a farm board to tell 

 the farmers how to run their farms, or as 

 It stated, to give the farmers authoritative 

 information. The chamber knows and 

 farmers know that all this has been favor- 

 able for years and is still favorable through 

 the Department of Agriculture, but it does 

 not provide an answer nor a solution to the 

 farmer's marketing problem. 



Is Offer Sincere? 



"The chamber of commerce now indi- 

 cates that it would like to take the initia- 

 tive In gathering in private funds to take 

 the place of government funds authorized 

 by congress for service to farmers. If this 

 desire is an honest one I think it is well 

 for farmers to inquire why It has not mani- 

 fested itself over these many years of farm 

 distress. 



"As citizens of our nation farmers have 

 a degree of control over a government fund 

 which they would not possess over any fund 

 that might be raised by such an organiza- 

 tion as the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. 



"I trust the farmers of America will not 

 be deceived by any such program. J 



Always Opposed 

 "The business Interests of this country as 

 a whole appreciate the effect on their busi- 

 ness, but there is a powerful group with 

 far-reaching, interlocking strength, whose 

 members make their livelihood from deal- 

 ing in the farmers' product, and that group 

 has always been and always will be opposed 

 to any plan whereby the farmer follows his 

 commodity through from his local market 

 to the processor or exporter," the banker 

 said. "In my judgment it would be a far 

 wiser course if they would try to revamp 

 their own business to the needs of agricul- 

 ture and fit themselves into a sounder and 

 more economic program of distribution. 

 Until they do this they should discontinue 

 passing resolutions professing a desire to aid 

 the farmer." 



■.-:]:. 



Four hundred and fifty club members, 

 representing 28 girls' clubs and 23 boys' 

 clubs, gathered at Quincy on April 26 for 

 the annual spring rally In Adams county. 



Following a cafeteria luncheon the group 

 paraded to the Armory for games. Club 

 members formed a procession nearly two 

 blocks long. 



A REPORT from Alaska indicates that 

 reindeer meat can be produced in 

 abundance there at low cost. It is predicted 

 that large quantities of this meat will be 

 shipped into the United States duty free 

 since Alaska Is a part of the United States. 

 There are said to be three million head of 

 reindeer in Alaska. The deer subsist largely 

 upon abundant natural feeds, and as a 

 result their up-keep is negligible. 



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