GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 259 



Secretary Brannan. The opportunity to make more than the sup- 

 port level for each and every commodity. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Secretary, you agree, do you not, that from this 

 hour on that figure will go down? Let me put it this way: if you 

 ehminate the years 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1942, they will start down? 



Secretary Brannan. They will start down in the column in the 

 left-hand side of the sheet. 



Mr. Pace. Yes. 



Secretary Brannan. That will be very much compensated and 

 offset by whatever the parity price is during the same year, and 

 therefore the return reduction might be reasonable — would be very 

 slow, but would be carried over in the cohinm on the right-hand side 

 of the sheet. 



Mr. Pace. One other question. 



Secretary Brannan. Just let me add one more factor, that in 

 the formula that is being pushed before this committee, so far as 

 that is concerned, now on the statute books, as a matter of fact, the 

 formula now on the statute books anticipates that it would go dc^n 

 so fast that there is a check put in it, saying if it goes down over 

 5 percent 



Mr. Pace (interposing). I am not arguing that point, but you have 

 demonstrated, I think, most ably and most clearly, perhaps more 

 clearly than I have ever seen, the right on the part of the farmers 

 of this Nation to have a fair share of the national income and a 

 parity income. I think you have done a splendid job. 



Secretary Brannan. I thank you. 



Mr. Pace. I want to finish the job. 



Secretary Brannan. And I am with you. 



Mr. Pace. I want to write into this formula a provision, or a method 

 by which they can look for the day when the farmer will receive 

 parity income, and as I analyze your plan there is not one line that 

 moves toward that ultimate objective, and if I have missed it and 

 there is, will you tell me what it is? 



Secretary Brannan. It lies in this fact, with some ramifications 

 which we will have to develop later, it lies in the fact that if we keep 

 shooting at this kind of an objective and are effective with all of the 

 other methods we have to assist farmers, like crop insurance, produc- 

 tion aids and all of the rest of it, we will push the income above the 

 objective. That is only the objective we are seeking to get as a 

 minimum, and we have said constantly we are seeking for something 

 above that. 



Mr. Pace. That is what I complain about. I think now is the 

 hour, if you will pardon a trite expression. Here are the workers 

 of this Nation asking for almost a double increase in the minimum 

 wage, from 40 cents an hour to 75 cents an hour. That 75 cents an 

 hour is for the laziest, the sorriest, and the most inexperienced worker 

 engaged in interstate commerce. 1 do not know whether or not you 

 are justified in having such great concern as to the attitute of the 

 consumers, who certainly, if the consumers are concerned about 

 anything entering so greatly in the cost of living, may not be concerned 

 about that, because, as our chairman said this morning, there is not 

 over 15 cents' worth of cotton in that shirt he has on. It is the 

 wages, it is the wages that are paid for the processing of the cotton 

 from the time the bales are opened on the floors of the textile mills. 



