882 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



something definite, and to make certain that the proposals were 

 constitutional and procedurally correct. 



As I say, I have provided copies of that, and also of another bill, 

 rather an explanation written in bill form which has been circulated 

 throughout the country to farmers for their discussions, because the 

 bill was dravvTi up by the professional is a little hard for the average 

 farmer to grasp. T am including those as part of my statement, and 

 any members of the committee who are interested in the bills can 

 peruse them. 



Wliat I want to talk about today is the farm problem in terms of 

 people instead of economic principles. 



In holding these meetings, I traveled about between 15 and 20 

 thousand miles in an automobile, and I got acquainted with a lot of 

 farmers. Our little paper could not go into an area two or three 

 States away and expect to have any attendance by representative 

 farmers unless we were sponsored by a farmer of local standing in 

 that area, and that was the way in which we did it. 



So I became acquainted as I say with a large number of farmers 

 in those eight States, and while we at the meetings discussed the 

 mechanics and details of farm programs, I also got an idea of their 

 basic thinking, and I have reached the conclusion that no permanent 

 solution of the farm problem will be worked out, no matter how good 

 the plan, until and unless it puts the farm program back in the hands 

 of the farmers, administered by them from the grass roots, instead 

 of from the Department of Agriculture in Washington down. 



And included in our farmer contacts were a large number of county 

 committeemen and community committeemen. There is, I am con- 

 vinced, a v^ery definite resentment on the part of these men because 

 while there is a lot of supersalesmanship exercised the programs do 

 come down from Washington. The}^ aie given to the county com- 

 mitteemen, and they are told this is it; administer it. 



One of the most frequent conplaints that I got ofi^ the record just 

 in conversation was, "Washington does not want to know what we 

 think." 



So looking at the problem from the angle of the people, the 20 

 million people who are farmers in this country, I would like to make 

 a few remarks on the political aspects of this question because I 

 think they are significant. Our newspaper is independent. We are 

 neither Republican nor Democratic, and I am not interested in ad- 

 vancing the political fortunes of either party, but I think that what 

 I sensed as the underlying attitude of these people is an explanation 

 of what has happened at the polls. Actually the farmers are not 

 inarticulate, if you convince them of your good will and sincerity. 

 They will talk and they have ideas, but they are reluctant to assert 

 themselves. As a result of that, just because we happen to get 

 started on the kind of programs that we did in which the Government 

 ran the show and put up the money, as I say, the system developed 

 along those lines and so we have traditionally become accustomed to 

 the vSanta Claus type of farm program. I believe because there were 

 Democratic administrations during the time that the series of pro- 

 grams beginning in the thirties originated, that the farmers in the 

 north associated them with the Democratic Party. They voted 

 Republican, as you know, in those Northern States, from 1938 on. 

 Eveiybody thought that is just because they are traditionally Re- 



