GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 369 



Forward pricing tbat promises Jolm X. Doe well below a dollar a bushel for 

 wheat is just a matter of breaking the bad news earlier, rather than later. 



Of course, a better deal is possible, and plainly essential. 



The able men, Democrats and Republicans alike, men like Senators Thomas, 

 Aiken, Lucas, Young, Elleuder, and Thye and Representatives Cooley, Pace, and 

 Hope, who sit on the Committees of Agriculture of the Senate and House, will 

 pive these ])(>ssibilities careiul consideration. 1 am sure of that ; they will welcome 

 your ideas, too. 



1. In recognition of the sharp changes that the new parity formula Involves, 

 eliminate transitional parity and have the support prices range from 85 to 100 

 percent of new parity, thus keeping the flexible principle in effect but within 

 reason. For wheat, the difference of IS percent between old and new parity is a 

 shocking change. This is especially true coming after a tremendous reduction In 

 grain prices already in effect, which has hardly influenced the price of bread. If 

 the farmer gave his wheat away, a IG-cent loaf of bread would still cost 14.7 cents. 



2. As an alternative, extend the provision, already applicable to tobacco, of 

 90 percent of new parity support prices whenever acreage allocations and market- 

 ing quotas are in effect, to cooperators in the program. 



;;. i:efi're (hastical]y cutting tiic incomes ot grain farmers, make certain in 

 the interest of national defense in wartime, in the interest of fair and stable prices 

 in peiicetinie, and as insuranci^ against drought all the time, that we stock pile. 



We should have on hand at all times upward of 500 million bushels of wheat 

 and a billion bushels of corn. In this uncertain world, we must secure our food 

 defenses. But don't have the farmer pay the whole cost of that insurance against 

 want. Remember always that the law of averages is bound to catch up with us ; 

 our good luck with weather can't last forever, and 1934 and 1937 should not be 

 forgotten. 



4. Repeal the legal bar, erected by the last Congress, to action by CCC to build 

 or lease storage. Instead, establish a .substantial fund under which CCC could 

 lend, on the basis of approved plans in needed locations, funds to associations of 

 p-rodncers. These sliould be low-iutevest, seii-li((nidating loans along REA lines. 

 The associations of producers should subscribe funds to provide an initial equity 

 of 10 percent. 



5. Congress should consider the idea of establishing a commercial wheat area 

 comparable to the commercial corn area used for some years in the AA.A Act and 

 used also in the Aiken-Hope Act. Corn and wheat can be grown in every State. 

 liut the Nation depends va certain areas for its year-in and year-out supply. It 

 mighr r«»coaiiize this dependence in the case of wheat areas which have so few 

 alternative crop uses, by extending a higher support price. For instance, the 

 noncommercial corn areas are scheduled to have a support equa Ito 75 percent of 

 the support i^rice available to farmers in the commercial area, under the flexible 

 support plan of the long-range act. Wheat could have similar treatment. 



6. The committees will be well advised to study zealously the trends in margins 

 and profits in the handling, processing, and distribution of farm products. These 

 margins are up and still upping. A reliable and comprehensive study, which only 

 Congress can make, has not been made by Congress in the memory of man. 



Unfortunately, millions that Congress has invested in marketing research in 

 the Department of Agriculture in recent years is being spent on other projects, 

 with scarcely a cent devoted to significant examination of margins and profits. 



The heavy concentration of industrial power we find in the steel, chemical, 

 cement, automotive, and many other industries, which creates power to fix and 

 protect margins, is not one single step ahead of the concentration going on in 

 the food and allied industries. 



Who will be the first to bell tbat cat by hunting out the facts? 



Above all, let us recall now the costly lessons this and other nations have been 

 taught repeatedly by cycles of war and depression. If farm income is neglected, 

 the Nation suffers greatly and overlong. Purchasing power declines, city pay 

 rolls drop, defiation takes over. We can prevent that and a lot more by legislative 

 action in the next Congress. 



The very least that can be done is to imyoke the grain farmer from a cart 

 marked "Deflation parade leader." That is what he got in the last hour from 

 Taft and Martin in an atmosphere of political cynicism from the Eightieth Con- 

 gress because 1948 was an election year. 



Let's have a fair and in-actical retiguring of the -*il:en-Hope Act, and then 

 rebuild it in an atmosphere that will ring with a sincere effort to make the word 

 "parity" mean "parity," just as the dictionary spells and defines it. 



