298 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



in mind are efficiency of operation, effectiveness of operation, and the 

 real public and general welfare, the farm welfare and the general wel- 

 fare. We did focus our program in that direction and perhaps did 

 not pay enough attention to the sugar-coating business. 



Mr. PoAGE. Mr. Secretary, Hitler probably had a more efficient 

 economic system than we have ever had. I never want a system as 

 efficient as Mr. Hitler had in Germany. Yet he got the money to the 

 places he wanted to put it, whether rightly or wrongly, but wherever 

 the brain trust at the top wanted it, he got it done. I disagree with 

 you thoroughly when you say that efficiency is the thing we ought to 

 work for, at the expense of liberty. I am not nearly as much inter- 

 ested in the efficiency or even the economic income of my farmers as I 

 am in their self-reliance and in that spirit that has made America a 

 great country, the individual right of the farmer to make some de- 

 cisions for himseh. 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Poage, I only wish you were on our appro- 

 priations committee. There is where we have to show what we get 

 dollar for dollar of the money we spend on personnel and office space 

 and all the rest of the operating costs. I am talking about efficiency 

 of operating costs and it will be an objective of mine as long as I have 

 anything to do with the Government or any other place where I am 

 working. 



Mr. Poage. After all, what is the use of the Government if it de- 

 stroys the very liberties it is supposed to protect? What advantage 

 is the Government? Government does not exist simply for its own 

 sake. You cannot separate government and say that it is an entity 

 entirely apart from the people. The Govermnent exists only because 

 of the people, to serve the people, and to protect their liberties. 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Poage, if you are describing a program 

 which is designed to stabilize farm income at reasonable levels as a 

 program which is stealing the other spiritual values you are talking 

 about here now, then I think you have to wipe all the programs off 

 the books and start entirely anew. We are delivering money to Ameri- 

 can farmers in the form of checks. I see little difference between de- 

 livering the farmer a check for part of the sales of his commodity and a 

 check for all of it, which we are doing this very day. I realize that 

 there is something to the point you are making about the spiritual 

 values of operating in a present market and without any interference 

 from Govermnent. I want the least amount of interference from 

 Government. But the most efficient program, in my opinion, is one 

 which accomplishes the objectives and gets the least amount of inter- 

 ference. 



That is what we are shooting for and that is what our recommenda- 

 tions consist of. All I can say to you is, if they are un-American, if 

 they rob men of their social stability or a feeling of security, then I 

 think you must wipe all the programs off the book and start over again. 



Mr. Poage. The basic difference between 3^0 ur viewpoint and mine 

 is that you again emphasize the fact that you are shooting for effi- 

 ciency as an end. You said it in this last statement and you have 

 said it every time. 



I am not shooting for efficiency. I am shooting for service to the 

 American people in the American way and I know that it costs more 

 to do it the American way than it did the Hitler way, but I still say 

 that I would rather do it the American way than to do it the Hitler 

 way and not get the efficiency that he got. 



