GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 247 



the greatest reward to the man who imposes the biggest burden upon 

 the Government. 



Secretary Brannan. Well, Mr. Poage, if you do it it is in an effort 

 to increase the production to a point where the product meets genuine 

 human demand in this country, and that is a public objective worth 

 working for and worth paying for. 



Mr. Poage. I think you can offer an explanation all right on the 

 basis that it is worth while to the public. I do not think you can 

 justify it at all on the theory you are treating every farmer alilvc. 



Secretary Brannan. Well, maybe not, but I think you are treating 

 every farmer alike to the extent that you are giving them all a price 

 support, or to the extent that you are giving price supports to those 

 farmers on whatever commotidies we are giving price supports, and 

 that is all. There are even farmers to whom we give no price supports. 

 He must go into the market place and find his own market, and if 

 he takes a loss the Government gives him nothing, and we do not 

 help him at all at the present time. 



By comparison to cotton, surely he is being penalized or discrimi- 

 nated against, also. 



]Mr. Poage. Right there is something I presume I was just as slow 

 to catch as others have been to catch other features of this program 

 that seemed ovbious to me. 



I had understood from j^our original statement that you contem- 

 plated, in the final analysis, supporting all farm products, everything 

 that was grown on the farm. I recognize that you propose to take 

 these 10 major commodities first, and give them priority of treatment, 

 but I thought that you then ^contemplated if you could get the money, 

 pro voiding support for everything on do^^Ti, including celery and aspara- 

 gus. 



Secretary Brannan. Artichokes and watermelons? 



Mr. Poage. Yes. 



Secretary Brannan. I am sorry if we were not clear on that. I 

 can only say again, in the interest of trying to be brief in the first 

 instance, we may have overlooked some points of clarity. 



Mr, Poage. Do I understand now you propose only to support 

 these 10 you have named as being the most important in the economy, 

 and if there is additional money those that have heretofore been 

 supported under some kind of a program, which would largely be the 

 Steagall commodities? 



Secretary Brannan. I suppose that might be about right. 



I am just simply saying this: That we are shooting at a national 

 objective here of farm income. We may be able to insure it out of 

 just these products, or we may be able to make it possible for farmers 

 to reach it by giving them substantial support on these products. 

 We might support some of the others at lesser levels, or not at all. 



Mr. Poage. Wliile I am clearing up matters that I find I and others 

 get confused on, may I call j^our attention, in order that you may make 

 this record perfectly clear — and I thought it was clear — to the fact 

 that today at noon I had some of the best-informed gentlemen up here 

 discussing this thin.g with me, some Members of Congress and some 

 who were not in Congress, and some who had sat through these 

 hearings, who suggested and argued with roe at great length that under 

 your program it would be necessary to determine exactly the price 

 that a farmer got for each and every bale of cotton he sold, for each 



