580 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



does not like, he does not stop when he gets throuf^h with the Army ; 

 he comes here. All you are doing is creating another board of deci- 

 sion, which decision w411 be apjDealed up here anyhow. 



Mr. CooLEY. Will the gentleman yield there ? 



Mr. PoAGE. Surely. 



Mr. CooLEY. Mr. Goss, is it not a fact that we have conferred great 

 discretionary power on the Secretary of Agriculture ? 



Mr. Goss. Yes, sir. 



Mr. CooLEY. When he starts out to exercise that power he is under 

 the terrific pressure of the duties of his own high position and he 

 does use some of the men in the Bureau or in the Department, all of 

 whom are subordinate to him and all of whom are inclined to agree 

 with him. What you want to do is to give him the benefit of outside 

 advice when he comes to make up his mind regarding matters affect- 

 ing agriculture. Is that the purpose of the Board ? 



Mr. Goss. That is correct. I think it protects both the Secretary 

 and the public. 



Mr. CooLEY. And as you pointed out, it would not be possible for 

 the Secretary to run back to this committee every time he wanted 

 advice about the exercise of his discretion. 



Mr. Goss. I would say that I would not anticipate that the Board 

 would prevent people from coming to Congress. It would not prevent 

 our coming here. If we did not like the way the Board operated, we 

 would come here and we would say, "We think you ought to give the 

 Board different power or different control." But I think a large 

 amount of the details would be screened off, Mr. Poage. 



Mr. CooLEY, You would not confer upon the Board any power to 

 disturb any positive direction from Congress ? 



Mr. Goss. No. 



Mr. CooLEY. In other words, we have provided control laws, mar- 

 keting quotas and acreage allotments, and so on, and if under certain 

 circumstances we provide 90 percent of parity in the support pro- 

 gram, there is no discretion involved in that. That is a matter that 

 the Secretary would have to administer according to the tenor of the 

 law. 



Mr. Goss. If you tell them how to administer it and they do not 

 administer it — and sometimes Government officials do not always obey 

 the orders of Congress exactly — then you have your remedy. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Hill. 



Mr. Hill. Is it your suggestion that we can amend the Aiken bill 

 by adopting your recommendations as to a board ? 



Mr. Goss. If the Board is adopted, the powers in the Aiken bill 

 which the Secretary now has would be subject to the approval of the 

 Board and in that way it would be an amendment. There may be 

 some other things in the Aiken bill that should be amended. We have 

 suggested one on the parity formula. We have not attempted to 

 analyze the Aiken bill to suggest just what amendments there would 

 be, because if you have a board, that is one thing, and if you do not 

 have a board, you have another situation. 



Mr. Hill. The gentleman is always interesting to me because I think 

 behind his testimony he always has a good sound philosophy. 



Do you know the day of the month this is? These boys want some 

 politics and I am going to give them lots of it. 



