370 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Let's be done with passing off a jitterbugging, four-stepping impostor as parity. 

 His name is "fractional parity" and notliin.;; else. Neither wheat farmers nor tlie 

 Nation can afford to talve him into the family. 



Mr. Chairman, although, as I have stated, we agree with and sup- 

 port the principles of Secretary Brannan, we have some specific things 

 which Mr. Talbot is going to cover. 



This is JNIr. Glenn Talbott, chairman of our executive committee and 

 president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Patton, we thank you and we will be delighted at 

 this time to hear from Mr. Talbott, who is chairman of the executive 

 committee of the National Farmers Union. 



1 might state again to the members of the committee that we hope 

 to have the four witness make their statements and then we will 

 question them en bloc. 



Mr. Talbott, we are delighted to have you before the committee 

 and will be glad to hear from you at this time. 



STATEMENT OF GLENN TALBOTT, PRESIDENT, NORTH DAKOTA 



FARMERS UNION 



Mr. Talbott. We felt for the purposes of analysis of a proposed 

 bill that it would be most ditlicult to present a i)repared statement and 

 I believe our oflice agreed with the secretary of the committee that it 

 might be an extemporaneous statement. 



Mr. Pace. Do you want to address 3^our remarks to the proposed bill 

 and Mr. Patton's statement? 



Mr. Talbott. Yes. I would like to make a few remarks preliminary 

 to that and then address my remarks to the background thinking of 

 our organization as inter])reted in this draft of a bill. 

 Mr. Pace. You may proceed. 



Mr. Talbott. First, let me say that we are highly pleased with the 

 proposals made by the Secretary of Agriculture when you met in 

 joint session with the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry 

 earlier this month. 



These proposals, we feel, dealt in a most statesmanlike manner with 

 the problems of agriculture and the family-type farmers Avithin it, 

 in a most realistic relationship to the total economy of our country. 

 Agriculture and the multiple problems of the farm families within it 

 are a most impoi-tant i)art of our total economy. Certainly the ])rin- 

 ciples eininciated by the Secretary and his recommendations to the 

 Congress are, in themselves, a great victory for the working farmers 

 and their long struggle to halt the continued concentration of our pro- 

 ductive land resources into fewer and fewer hands with the result 

 and the substitution of farm workers for independent farm operators. 

 We should like for the record to show that we fully support the prin- 

 ciples proposed by the Secretarj^ However, there are a few points 

 where in our judgment the Secretary's proposals, while sound in prin- 

 ciple, do not go nearly far enough in their suggested application. 



I shall hope to make myself completely clear in each such instance 

 as I proceed with my statement. 



Following adjotirnmeiit of the last Congress and the passage by that 

 Congress in its closing hours of the 1948 Farm xict, and upon complete 

 analysis of the law which, lacking positive action by this Congress, 



