GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 479 



as you well know, which suggest that we may be able to do rather 

 well, better than we had confidence in a couple of months ago, with 

 regard to the supply situation next summer. 



I sincerely hope that that can be done. Second, we have sug- 

 gested that there be a minimum below which we will not go under 

 any circumstances of 10,000,000 bales in the national allotment, even 

 though it did appear that the demands for cotton were such that 

 we could not get down to normal. 



We think we should be protected at not less than 10.000,000 bales 

 because after all the farmer cannot be going in and out of cotton all 

 tlie time. The fact that we had a very large supply in a particular 

 year does not mean that we do not want to have a supply of cotton 

 coming along which will match the effective demand for cotton to 

 the best of our ability. 



Let me make the point again that as the thing now stands the acres 

 taken out of cotton — and they are in the area that will grow a lot of 

 other commodities — are perfectly free to be used so that even in making 

 a temporary adjustment he can produce all the kinds of commodities 

 that other farmers can produce who do not happen to have a cotton 

 allotment. 



Mr. PoAGE. Mr. Kline, you cannot change the econoni}' of the South 

 that way. We have been trying for 30 years, and we have made a little 

 progress. In another 30 years I think we will have made tremendous 

 jjrogress, but if you try to force us to do those things overnight, you 

 will have broken everybody in our country, whether you want it or not. 

 We will still })e just as broke. It seems to me that you cannot escape 

 the philoso|)hy of this Aiken bill, which is to get people out of produc- 

 tion by breaking them. Certainly I think we should have your views 

 on this point. If you just starve them down to the point where the 

 children have one pair of shoes between them and do not quite break 

 them, then you do not reduce the acreage of a crop except by acreage 

 cojitrols. You do not reduce it by price simply by cutting down that 

 farmer's total income to where he can just barely subsist because as 

 long as he can barely subsist, he attempts to recoup his losses by increas- 

 ing rather than decreasing his acreage except to the extent that you 

 have acreage conti-ols. Do you agree with the philosophy that Senator 

 Aiken has announced that you can reduce a crop in those one-crop 

 areas, such as cotton in our section and wheat in the plains area ? Do 

 you agree that you can reduce that kind of a crop materially simply 

 by reclucing the price on it, as long as the farmer does not go completely 

 broke ? 



Mr. Kline. 'I appreciate all the difficulties involved in it. and I have 

 farmed myself ever since 1920. It was not a condition confined to some 

 particular area which created this situation in agriculture in the 

 depression following the First World War. As j^resident of the 

 American Farm Bureau. Federation, one could be quite angry with 

 the suggestions which you have made, simply implying that they are 

 the attitude of the Farm Bureau Federation or of its ])resident. I do 

 not feel that way at all because I am sure that the question was asked 

 sincerely for an honest answer. I must say that the intent of our 

 position on this thing is exactly contrary to what you suggest. It is 

 to try to assist in the encouragement in the kind of thing that will make 

 higher ])er capita income but not to force it. 



