502 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Pace. I think that is comparable to the proposal of the Presi- 

 dent to have a national health-insurance program when he, in the next 

 line, admits that there are not enough doctors in the United States to 

 even start such a program. I think it is putting the cart before the 

 horse. 



Mr. CooLEY. Mr. Chairman, will you yield for a question? 



Mr. Pace. Yes. 



Mr. CooLEY. Mr. Kline, if I understand your proposition, it seems 

 to me that you are of the opinion that all that we have done in the last 

 14 to 16 years in the interest of agriculture has been wrong, that our 

 idea of supporting farm prices has been bad, that we have supported 

 farm prices at a price too higli. Is that a fair interpretation of your 

 present recommendation ? 



Mr. Kline. No, sir ; it is certainly not. 



Mr. CooLEY. Then let us take them one at a time. You do recom- 

 mend a drastic change in the methods now employed in the interest of 

 agriculture ; do you not ? 



Mr. Kline. That is right, 



Mr. Cooley. And the drastic change is that you lower the support 

 l^rice from a fixed 90 percent to a flexible basis. 



Mr. Kline. On the commodities now covered by the 90 percent. 



Mr. Cooley. If a flexible base for a support program is good, then 

 a fixed 90 percent support program must be bad, according to your 

 views. 



Mr. Kline. When you say 16 to 19 years you are taking in the period 

 prior to the war and in the period prior to the war we had developed an 

 agricultural program based on acreage allotments, marketing quotas, 

 and various devices for adjusting production to demand and based on 

 certain levels of price support. They are materially lower than those 

 which we have suggested as possible of achievement now, but they did 

 secure for us some knowledge of the difficulties involved in that sort of 

 program. We have tried to profit by experience and to suggest here a 

 program based on that experience with, as I said a moment ago, mate- 

 rially higher supports than we have ever tried prior to the war. 



Mr. Cooley. We have gone a long way since then, and we have grown 

 progressively better. The farmer has grown progressively more pros- 

 perous over these recent years. If 90 percent was good for him then, 

 why is it not good for him now ? 



Mr. Kline. The assumption that the basic reason for agricultural 

 prosperity during the war was a minimum support program seems to 

 me not to be well founded. There was unlimited demand for any kind 

 of thing that you produced in an agricultural way, first. 



Second. There was a very considerable reduction in the number of 

 people on farms, among whom agricultural income was divided. 



Third. The cost of producing agricultural commodities went up far 

 more slowly than the general price level. That rise in prices was not 

 a result of a farm program.; it was a result of an over-all and almost 

 unlimited demand. 



Mr. Cooley. In other words, you admit that this farm program 

 was not responsible for the farmers' prosperity in any degree at all? 



Mr. Kline. I would not say in any degree at all. 



Mr. Cooley. Was it or was it not a contributing factor to the pros- 

 perity enjoyed by the American farmer? 



