The President's Farm Address 



It Put the Enemies of the Recovery Program On the Defensive 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S ad- 

 dress at Chicago Dec. 9 was a 

 frank, straightforward exposition 

 of the conditions of early 1933 that 

 made a farm program necessary n d 

 the results thus far obtained. As ; ch 

 the speech marked by its simr' .ity 

 and directness skillfully put envmies 

 of the farm recovery program on the 

 defensive. There was little or nothing 

 in the statement that could be at- 

 tacked. 



To the critics who say that a farm 

 program is necessary but the AAA is 

 the wrong way to go about it. the 

 President's reply is. "The measures to 

 which we turned to stop the decline 

 and rout of American agriculture 

 originated in the aspirations of the 

 farmers themselves expressed through 

 the several organizations. I turned to 

 these organizations and took their 

 counsel and sought to help them to 

 get these purposes embodied in (he 

 law of the land." 



That is a brilliant and truthful an- 

 swer. It indicates what opposing poli- 

 ticians are up against in attacking the 

 principles, at least, of present agricul- 

 tural problems. It puts them in the 

 light of presuming to know more about 

 agriculture than farmers themselves. 



President Roosevelt gives you the 

 impression that he personally knows 

 more about farmers' problems than any 

 president since his illustrious cousin. 

 He was perfectly at home talking ag- 

 riculture at Chicago. He was among 

 friends, of course, but the address re- 

 veals his awareness that his farm pro- 

 gram regardless of what the supreme 

 court may decide, is undoubtedly the 

 trump card in the New Deal. Cer- 

 tainly farm recovery is largely re- 

 sponsible for such general business 

 recovery and employment as we have 

 had thus far. 



Specifically, the President made 

 these points: 



1. "The economic life of the United 

 States is a seamless web." The 



coimtry's various units are in- 

 terdependent. 



2. "Justice and old-fashioned com- 

 mon sense demand that in the 

 building of purchasing power we 

 had to start with agriculture." 



3. "How can it be healthy for a 

 country to have the price of crops 

 vary 300 and 500 and 700 per cent, 

 all in less than a generation?" 



The President's attack on the evils 

 nf speculation, his mention of the ter- 

 rific rise and fall in specific farm 

 prices were brought in, although 

 neither was named, to show the justi- 

 fication of, first, the gold revaluation 

 and currency stabilization program, 

 and secondly, crop adjustment. 



4. "Forty -eight separate sovereign 

 states, acting each as a separate 

 unit, never were able and never 

 will be able to legislate or to 

 administer individual laws ade- 

 quately to balance (he agricultural 

 life of a nation." 



.5. "It is difficult to explain why in 

 many cases if the farmer gets an 

 increase for his food crop over 

 what he got three years ago, the 

 consumer in the city has to pay 

 (wo and three and four times the 

 amount of that increase." 



6. "A relative (agricultural) pur- 

 chasing power of below .50 per 

 cent has moved up today to bet- 

 ter than 90 per cent. This buying 

 power has been felt in man.v lines 

 nf hv .CSS." 



7. "Agriculture far from being cruci- 

 fied by (his (Canadian Trade) 

 agreement, as some have told you, 

 actually gains from it. . . . If the 

 calamity howlers should happen 

 (o be right, you have every as- 

 surance that Canada and th^ 

 United States will join in correct- 

 ing inequalities." 



8. "Greater trade is merely another 

 word for more production and 

 more employner.t." 



9. "But the success that has attended 

 and is attending our efforts to 

 stem the depression and set the 

 tide running the other way can- 

 not blind us to the necessity of 

 looking ahead to the permanent 

 measures which are necessary to 

 a more stable economic life." 



10. "The thing we all are seeking is 

 justice in the common sense in- 

 terpretation that means, 'Do un- 

 to your neighbor as you would be 

 done by.' " 



One by one the President marshaled 

 forth the evils that every one knows 

 have existed, and continue to exist, in 

 our economic life. He sweeps the op- 

 position aside by asserting that these 



Candid camera shot showing the President. 

 Col, Watson, the President's aide, Henry Wal- 

 lace and Earl Snoith. r 



are the things we are trying to rem- 

 edy. "It was a great emergency and it 

 required swift action. Mistakes were 

 inevitable because it was a new field." 

 he said. 



A complete answer to charges that 

 the AAA represents a federal invasion 

 of state's rights ar.i growing bu- 

 reaucracy is the Presic.ent's statement 

 that "48 soverrign states acting in- 

 dividually cannot solv3 a national eco- 

 nomic problem. Thinking people know 

 this tc be true. 



The President spoke of using "the 

 organized power of the nation," to 

 stop the "rule of tooth and claw that 

 threw farmers into bankruptcy or 

 turned them virtually into serfs, 

 forced them to let their buildings, 

 fences and machinery deteriorate, 

 made them rob their soil of its God- 

 given fertility, deprived their sons and 

 daughters of a decent opportunity on 

 the farm. To those days. I trust, the 

 organized power of the nation has 

 put an end forever." 



There was much in the President's 

 address that reiterated what farmers 

 themselves have been saying and 

 thinking. After so much misleading and 

 malicious propaganda misrepresenting 

 the effects of the farm recovery pro- 

 gram, it was refreshing to have the 

 chief executive give utterance and 

 emphasis to truths which in these days 

 of biased, political newspapers, only a 

 President can get printed in the pub- 

 lic press — Editor. 



I. A. A. RECORD 



