446 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



jNIr. SuiTON. I folloAved your statement here. I cannot see liow it 

 would help the American farmer one bit. I would like to make the 

 observation that I am indeed <ilad that the Farm Bureau of the State 

 of Tennessee does not a«rree with it because if they did I would have 

 to disagTee with them. I believe they have the farmer at heart and 

 not big business, as I feel vour statement does. 



Mr. Kline. I am reluctant to question the Congressman but I be- 

 lieve the State of Tennessee does agree. 



Mr. SuTTOisr. Not the farmers. 



Mr. Kline. The Farm Bureau in Tennessee certainly speaks for 

 tne farmer in Tennessee. There are compromises inside a State, of 

 course, also. 



Mr. Sutton. But when you come along and suggest a flexible price 

 support of 72 to 90 percent", following the chairman's suggestion, labor 

 and management are continuing to ask for more. Then you couie 

 along and suggest that the farmer take less. What is the reasoning 

 behind that ? 



Mr. Kline. In the first place, I do not suggest that the farmer take 

 less. I suggest that this is a reasonable support program but the 

 farmer has every intention both to earn a high standard of living and 

 to get it. 



Mr. Sutton. Do you not know that when price support is 72 percent, 

 instead of being a floor that is going to be the top ? 



Mr. Kline. That is your statement. I hope it is not true. 



Mr. Sutton. That is my firm conviction. 



Mr. Kline. That, of course, is the philosophy of defeat. I do not 

 subscribe to it. 



Mr. Sutton. That is a conviction that I have, that it is a philosophy 

 of clef eat for the farmer if you have it. 



Mr. Kline. I have every sympathy with that approach, but the 

 difficult}^ with it is that it means that we have come now to the time 

 when we are rcj'.dy to say that the free enterprise system does not Avork 

 and that the onl}^ way to get a reasonable distribution, production, and 

 distribution of goods, is to have the Government set the prices. If 

 that is done, I can assure you that it is my best judgment that Ave come 

 to a system where we do not get the production that America has 

 enjoyed in the past, that it puts the premium on inefficiency, not on 

 efficiency. It does seem to me that a people, of one hundred forty-odd 

 million, in a world with two and a quarter billion, ought not to go 

 around so apologetic for, or so distrustful of the system which has 

 made it possible for us to have half the industrial productive equip- 

 ment in the Avorld. 



Mr. Sutton. Then if we have the free enterprise that you speak of, 

 I Avould like to follow Chairman Cooley's suggestion as to whether we 

 need this program. Do we need a support price at all ? 



Mr. Kline. I would call your attention to the paragraphs in our 

 statement which point out the difference between the stability of agri- 

 cultural production and the instability of our prices compared with the 

 stability of prices in the otlior rreas of tlie economy and tlie relative 

 instability in the production. It is because of that relationship that 

 a sound agricultural program makes real sense in a free-enterprise 

 system. It is as a system of protection to agi'iculture against bank- 

 ruptcy from its own productiveness at a time when the economy has, 

 itself, gotten into something of a recession. 



