GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 245 



of the record, you and I know tbey can only be applied after the farmers 

 themselves vote them. 



Mr. PoAGE. That is correct. 



Secretary Brannan. But, you see, if we were to pay a premium or 

 a reward to each group that brought its production to the maximum 

 level that it was necessary to apply some kind of limitation, then 

 sooner or later we would have most commodities up here at the level 

 where all of them ^vould be entitled to rewards, 



Mr. PoAGE. I think you probably would. 



Secretary Brannan. That is right, which is another way, I suppose, 

 of saying we might raise the general level of support. 



Mr. PoAGE. But it would be sim.ply applying to every one the 

 same rule, because definitely the cotton man hurts himself in that he 

 reduces his production. He has less bales of cotton to sell. He hurts 

 the cotton industry as a whole by keeping the price high. I mean by 

 that that there could be a larger volume of cotton sold. Cotton could 

 compete with paper bags, where paper has now taken the market. If 

 you could drop the price of cotton to 10 cents a pound, and let the 

 Government pay the farmers 10 cents, instead of making the producer 

 of bags pay it, you would find cotton going into a great many uses 

 which it is not going into today. 



Secretary Brannan. That is true. 



Mr. PoAGE. Obviously the same thing is true about many other 

 things. It is true about milk, which will go into many other uses if 

 the consum.er does not have to pay so much. Any commodity will. 



I am simply saying that the cotton industry can hold its present 

 market at a lower figure easier than it can at a higher figure. Con- 

 sequently, you do impose a burden on the industry which you do not 

 impose upon other lines of farming when you say to the cotton and the 

 wheat and the tobacco farmers, "You have to reduce your acreage," 

 and say to the poultry and dairy farmers, "We do not care how much 

 you produce or how low the price. We are going to pay the differ- 

 ence." 



Secretary Brannan. Yes? 



Mr. PoAGE. That fellow has a decided advantage. 



Secretary Brannan. We do not say that to the last fellow by a long 

 ways. 



Mr. PoAGE. You do not say it, but the whole appeal of this pro- 

 gram, as it has gone out to the press, has been that we were going to be 

 able to let the consumers buy food at less than they can otherwise 

 buy it. You make the cotton and wheat and tobacco farmers stand 

 up there as objects of scorn for the consumers to say, "You are just 

 robbing us, because you are just artifically reducing your production 

 and holding that price up." 



On the other hand, you take these other people whom you are pay- 

 ing direct production payments to, and you allow them to be the 

 fair-haired boys who receive the plaudits of the populace, because their 

 product is sold more cheaply, as far as the consumer is concerned, and 

 yet those same fair-haired boys are able to grow all they want, all they 

 can produce, at least up to a point where it is decided to be dangerous. 



Secretary Brannan. Up to a limit. 



Mr. Poage. But you certainly intend for them to grow more than 

 the market would absorb at present prices, or else there would not be 

 any subsidy involved? 



91215— 49— pt. 2 8 



