GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 417 



When we give the county committee of this country the same kind 

 of power, that is what will happen. 



Mr. Pattox. Mr. Chairman, may I make a remark? 



Mr. Pace. Yes. I want to complete this particular item so we can 

 give the witness back to Mr. Albert. 



Mr. Pattox. Even with the authority' vested in the county commit- 

 tees in England — and I have studied it some and have been there 

 several times — they have also had to use incentives. The National 

 Farmers Union of England goes and bargains with those people. 



Mr. PoAGE. You mean they used incentives, Mr. Patton, in addition 

 to passing these force laws ? 



Mr. Pattox. Even with the force laws. That is a different country. 



Mr. PoAGE. They started with incentives and the force laws came 

 last. 



Mr. Pattox. Then they had to add incentives to that, Mr. Con- 

 gressman. 



What I am saying is that we are not suggesting anything like that 

 and as long as we have a Congress with men like yourselves who are 

 opposed to those things and who believe in a free, democratic system, 

 and as long as the county-elected committees are elected every year 

 and know that Republicans and Democrats alike will bounce them out 

 if they do things wrong, we are not going to any Hitlerian type of 

 society. 



I just have too much confidence in you men and men like you to 

 believe that we will ever see this country in that condition. 



Mr. PoAGE. I have as much confidence in us as you have, but I 

 do not believe any group of men can be trusted with the liberties of 

 the people. You should not rely upon the wish of Bob Poage or Cliff 

 Hope or Steve Pace or any other individuals. You should have the 

 right to rely upon the law to protect your rights, not some individual. 



Mr. Pattox. We have to depend upon you, though, Mr. Poage, to 

 write the laws. That is what I am speaking of. 



Mr. Poage. Let us have the laws so the law protects the individual 

 and he does not have to depend upon the judgment of some other 

 individual. 



Mr. Pattox. Mr. Congressman, I have enough faith to put it the 

 other way. If you fellows start writing the kind of laws that will put 

 the farmers in the kind of shackles you describe, there will be a differ- 

 ent Congress. 



Mr. Poage. Xo people ever got in that kind of shackle or ever fell 

 into the hands of a dictator in the history of the world, except a for- 

 eign conqueror, where they did not start out placing their confidence in 

 the character and the integrity and the judgment of the men who were 

 in charge of a government. I just do not have that much confidence 

 in men as individuals. 



Mr. Pattox. Mr. Congressman, I do not believe in anarchy. It 

 seems to me that you have a choice between anarchy on the one hand, 

 with which I thoroughly disagree, or totalitarianism, with which I 

 thoroughly disagree, or the democratic procedure, which is not al- 

 ways good. It has faults and it will have as long as we life. I am 

 sure that with a fine group of people — and I am not trying to polish 

 any apples, but you men are all sincere men, interested not only in 

 the welfare of this country but of agriculture — that we will not come 

 out with the final answers you have suggested. 



