The Party 



Republican 



AGRICULTURE 



"The farm problem is an economic and 

 social, not a partisan problem, and we 

 propose to treat it accordingly. Follow- 

 ing the wreck of the restrictive and 

 coercive AAA, the New Deal administra- 

 tion has taken to itself the principles 

 of the republican policy of soil conserva- 

 tion and land retirement. This action 

 opens the way for a nonpolitical and 

 permanent solution. Such a solution can- 

 not be had under a New Deal adminis- 

 tration which misuses the program to 

 serve partisan ends, to promote scarcity 

 and to limit by coercive methods the 

 farmer's control over his own farm. 



"Our paramount object is to protect 

 and foster the family type of farm, 

 traditional in American life, and to 

 promote policies which will bring .about 

 an adjustment of agriculture to meet the 

 needs of domestic and foreign markets. 

 As an emergency measure, during the 

 agricultural depression, federal benefit 

 payments or grants-in-aid when adminis- 

 tered within the means of the federal 

 government are consistent with a bal- 

 anced budget. 



"We propose: 



1. To facilitate economic production 

 and increased consumption on a basis 

 of abundance instead of scarcity. 



2. A national land-use program, in- 

 cluding the acquisition of abandoned and 

 non-productive farm lands by voluntary 

 sale or lease, subject to approval of the 

 legislative and executive branches of the 

 states concerned, and the devotion of 

 such land to appropriate public use, such 

 as watershed protection and flood pre- 

 vention, reforestation, recreation and 

 conservation of wild life. 



3. That an agricultural policy be pur- 

 sued for the protection and restoration 

 of the land resources, designed to bring 

 about such a balance between soil-build- 

 ing and soil-depleting crops as will 

 permanently insure productivity, with 

 reasonable benefits to co-operating farm- 

 ers on family-type farms, but so regu- 

 lated as to eliminate the New Deal's de- 

 structive policy toward the dairy and 

 live stock industries. 



4. To extend experimental aid to 

 farmers developing new crops suited to 

 our soil and climate. 



."S. To promote the industrial use of 

 farm products by applied science. 



6. To protect the American farmer 

 against the importation of all live stock, 

 dairy and agricultural products, substi- 

 tutes therefor and derivatives therefrom, 

 which will depress American farm prices. 



7. To provide effective quarantine 

 against imported live stock, dairy .and 

 other farm products from countries 

 which do not impose health and sanitary 

 regulations fully equal to those required 

 of our own producers. 



8. To provide for ample farm credit 

 at rates as low as those enjoyed by other 

 industries, including commodity and live 

 stock loans, and preference in land Joans 

 to the farmer acquiring or refinancing 

 a farm as a home. 



(Continued on page 5, col. 1) 



Platforms 



Democrat 



Farm Bureau 

 Farm Plank 



Herewith is published for the informa- 

 tion of the membership, the farm plank 

 recommendations of the board of direc- 

 tors of the American Farm Bureau Fed 

 eration to the platform committees at 

 the National Republican Convention, 

 Cleveland, and the National Democratic 

 Convention, Philadelphia. 



Members of the Farm Bureau Federa- 

 tion board on the committee presenting 

 the Farm Bureau plank at Cleveland 

 were Edward A. O'Neal, Alabama, Earl 

 C. Smith, Illinois; O. O. Wolf, Kansas, 

 Murray Lincoln, Ohio; R. W. Blackburn, 

 California. 



The Farm Bureau committee at Phila- 

 delphia was composed of Edward A. 

 O'Neal, Earl C. Smith, Lew Taylor, In- 

 diana. Geo. H. Putnam, New Hampshire, 

 Ben Kilgore, Kentucky. 



The comments of President Earl C. 

 Smith on the farm planks of both par- 

 ties will be found on the following pages. 



The Illinois Agricultural Association 

 places greater emphasis on the inter- 

 pretations of the respective platforms by 

 the presidential candidates than on the 

 platform pronouncements. Therefore it 

 recommends that members study care- 

 fully the statements of candidates re- 

 garding the important issues, agricul- 

 ture in particular, as they appear during 

 the next few months. Significant por- 

 tions of campaign addresses will be pub- 

 lished from time to time in the RECORD. 



The restoration of farm income and 

 purchasing power and the maintenance 

 of a prosperous agriculture form the es- 

 sential basis for industrial and national 

 prosperity, employment and security. 



To accomplish this all-important task, 

 it is necessary to bring the supply of 

 farm products into balance with demand. 

 There can be no denial that in large 

 measure, the price levels of the products 

 (Continued on page 5, col. 2) 



AGRICULTURE 



"We have taken the farmers off the 

 road to ruin. 



"We have kept our pledge to agricul- 

 ture to use all available means to rai.se 

 farm income toward its pre-war pur- 

 chasing power. The farmer is no longer 

 suffering from 15 cent corn, .S cent hogs, 

 2^ cent beef at the farm, 5 cent wool, 

 30 cent wheat. 5 cent cotton, and 3 cent 

 sugar. 



"By federal legislation we have re- 

 duced the farmers' indebtedness and 

 doubled his net income. In cooperation 

 with the states and through the farm- 

 ers' own committees we are restoring 

 the fertility of his land and checking the 

 erosion of his soil. We are bringing elec- 

 tricitv and good roads to his home. 



"We will cont-nue to improve the soil 

 conservation and domestic allotment pro- 

 gram with payments to farmers. 



"We will continue a fair minded ad- 

 ministration of agricultural laws, quick 

 to recognize pnd meet new nroblems and 

 conditions. We recognize the gravity of 

 the evils of farm tenancy, and yte pledge 

 the full cooperation "f the government in 

 the refinancing of farm indebtedness at 

 the lowest possible rates of interest and 

 over a long term of years. 



"We favor the production of all the 

 market will absorb, both at home and 

 abroad, plus st reserve supply sufficient 

 to insure fair prices to consumers; we 

 favor judicious commodity loans on sea- 

 sonal surpluses, and we favor assistance 

 within federal auf^^ritv to enab'e farm- 

 ers to adiust and balance production 

 with demand, at a fair profit to the 

 farmers. 



"We favor encouragement of sound 

 practical farm cooperatives. 



"By the purchase and retirement 

 of ten million acres "f submarginal land 

 and assistance to thosp attempting to 

 eke out an existence upon it, we have 

 made a good beginnine' toward proper 

 Isnd use and rural rehabilitation. 



"The farmer has been returned to 

 the road to freedom and prosperity. We 

 will keep him on that road. 



GOVERNMENT FINANCE 



"The administration has ^tonoed de- 

 flation, restored values, and enabled busi- 

 ness to go ahead with confidence. 



"When national income shrinks gov- 

 ernment income is imperiled. In reviving 

 national income we have fortified gov- 

 ernment finance. We have raised the 

 publ'c credit to a position of unsurpassed 

 securitv. The interest rate on govern- 

 ment bonds has been reduced to the 

 lowest point in twenty-eight years. The 

 same government bonds which in 1932 

 so'd under 83 !>r° now selling over 104. 



"We approve the objective of a perma- 

 nently sound currency so stabilized as 

 to prevent the former wide fluctuations 

 'n value which injured in turn producers, 

 debtors, and property owners on the one 

 hand and wage earners and creditors on 

 the other. A currency which will permit 

 full utilization of the country's resources. 

 Continued on page 5, col. 3) 



T. A. A. RECORD 



