President Roosevelt Backs 

 New Fann Bill ! 



\W 



Note: For an explanation of the new pro- 

 posed 1937 Agricultural Adjustment Act see 

 the June issue of the RECORD. 



0*V HE official O. K. of President 

 ^^^■^Roosevelt on the proposed 

 ^J Agricultural Adjustment Act 

 of 1937, given in a recent press confer- 

 ence, is the most important develop- 

 ment in Washington on this measure 

 in recent weeks. At a conference of 

 farm leaders in Washington early in 

 June farm groups which represent the 

 major producing sections of the coun- 

 try, pledged their support to the bill 

 now before the Congress. 



A letter to President Roosevelt 

 signed by 24 of these farm leaders 

 pointed out that "the large acreages 

 already planted to the basic agricultural 

 commodities are such that if followed 

 with normal growing conditions, will 

 result in burdensome surpluses and 

 serious declines in the price levels for 

 such commodities." 



President Earl C. Smith of the lAA 

 who was chosen by the farm confer- 

 ence to explain the bill to the House 

 and Senate Agricultural Committees, 

 sees the measure as "the soundest, 

 most effective, and defensible Jaw yet 

 proposed for the permanent solution 

 of the basic farm problem". In a signed 

 statement appearing on the editorial 

 page of the June RECORD, Mr. Smith 

 -wrote: "This bill is 

 directed primarily 

 toward control of 

 surplus supplies, 

 and production 

 control becomes ef- 

 fective only when 

 excess supplies 

 develop, and 

 then only to the 

 extent of bringing 

 supplies to the nor- 

 mal level 



Thinking people in 

 business, industry 

 and government as 

 well as in agricul- 

 ture recognize the 

 value and need of 

 maintaining s u r - 



Jiluses of basic 

 arm commodities 

 at all times. Un- 

 less controlled, sur- 

 pluses unduly de- 



press price levels. Therefore if we 

 are to accumulate and maintain sur- 

 plus supplies, it is necessary that they 

 be absolutely controlled." 



Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. 

 Wallace appeared before the House 

 Agricultural Committee the week fol- 

 lowing the appearance of President 

 Smith. Answering a question of Con- 

 gressman Mitchell as to the necessity 



is any justification for control of pro- 

 duction unless we curb the importation 

 of pork and livestock products.-'" 



Secretary Wallace: "My dear sir, 

 you will never be forced to eat pork 

 products imported into this country if 

 you have the ever-normal granary. It 

 is only in times when we have serious 

 curtailment of grain production that 

 the importation of pork products takes 



SQCtaialu Ivallace Suppotti Ateaiute in 

 ■ffeatin^ aQ-kott ■(iq'tlculiutcLl ffommiitte 



of the "control feature" of the bill 

 to secure parity and stabilize agricul- 

 tural prices, Wallace replied : "That 

 depends on the weather .... unless 

 we are to have a repetition of the 

 Farm Board situation, it would be nec- 

 essary to step in with some control pro- 

 gram, that is if we had several years 

 of favorable weather". 



A moment later Congressman Coffee 

 of Nebraska intervened with this state- 

 ment: "I am just wondering what 

 justification we can have for control 

 of production or sale of commodities 

 when we allow imports to come into 

 this country with as low a tariff as 

 3l/^c a pound. Do you think there 



le3 



THE NEW HIRED MAN FROM THE CITY BRINGS HOME THE PIGS. 



place, times such as we have had in 

 the droughts of 1934 and 1936. That 

 cut down our output of corn by a bil- 

 lion bushels under normal, and that 

 resulted in a very greatly reduced sup- 

 ply of pork. In such cases, of course, 

 pork will come in over the tariff wall. 

 But ordinarily we will export, I do not 

 know, but I would say, 100 times as 

 much as we import." 



Answering criticism of Rep. Boileau, 

 Wisconsin, regarding the effect of the 

 bill on dairying, the Secretary said: 

 "If this bill were enacted and you 

 had more than the usual supply of 

 feed grain, one year to the next, or 

 corn Jrom year to year, or wheat from 

 year to year, the 

 — result would be 



to avoid these 

 very wide fluctua- 

 tions in butter pro- 

 duction, for in- 

 stance, and the 

 western cream pro- 

 duction. And the 

 effect would be to 

 keep out this sud- 

 den rush from hog 

 farming into dairy- 

 ing which took 

 place during the 

 early thirties, and 

 we took more than 

 the usual supply of 

 dairy products. On 

 the other hand 

 there would be the 

 exercise of the 

 power which we 

 have under the di- 

 (Cont. on page 22) 



I. A. A. RECORD 



