GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 883 



publican States, but I believe in the light of what happened later 

 those were protest votes. Nothing much happened. The Democrats 

 were able to win without those States, and so they went on voting 

 that way, and the Republicans simply assumed they had them as 

 an asset. Actually they were protesting the type of program we are 

 having. 



And then in the Eightieth Congress we got a Republican-controlled 

 Congress, and we know what happened in those States last November. 



Mr. Truman, I believe, and \It. Brannan have interpreted that as 

 a support for them. I believe in fact that was a protest against what 

 the Eightieth Congress did in the way of farm legislation. I think 

 that the farmers probably will continue to protest this kind of program. 

 Of course, it was largely said that, well, it was the 60 to 90 percent 

 of parity supports that swung the States. That was certainly one of 

 the factors. But I think it is more basic than that. After all, as 

 Allan Klein said the day he was here, this flexible parit}- is nothing 

 new, we have had it, and he is right, we have. The Aiken bill merely 

 put it in \^Titing that we had a flexible parity except during the war 

 there was never any support of parity at 100 percent. 



Let us put it another way for a minute. Suppose that the Demo- 

 crats in their handling of the labor problem had told labor, "Now, we 

 realize that you are entitled to fair wages and we think the Government 

 should see that you have a chance to get them, but we don't think 

 that you should be given the power to negotiate them. We want 3^ou 

 to just take what you get. We know that you won't get a fair price, so 

 we are going to make up the difference out of the Public Treasury. 

 Of course coming out of the Treasury, we can't pay too much, se we 

 will do the best we can. Maybe we can get you 70 percent of a fair 

 wage." How long would the}^ have kept the labor vote? That is the 

 Democrats. That is the way the farmers were handled, actually. 



I think that one of the mistakes has been that Congress has accepted 

 advice and very poor advice, of farm organizations and from the 

 expertsof the Department of Agriculture, and has perpetuated this 

 Santa Claus system of farm relief. The farmers don't like it. They 

 don't say much. There was no public outcry about the Aiken bill. 

 But look what happened when they went to the polls. 



Incidentally, I have heard a good number of the hearings of this 

 particular committee. I have heard the comments of the Members 

 of Congress on the committee, and I have a lot of respect for the 

 House Agriculture Committee. I think that we, due to the political 

 situation, have no possibility of immediately getting a good permanent 

 program enacted. I think that there should be a temporary program 

 until a good permanent program can be enacted, and I would hate to 

 see the Aiken bill go into operation the first of January, which I 

 understand is what the Senate Agriculture Committee is going to 

 stand pat on, and I would like to see, and I would be inclined to say 

 that any temporary program that the House Agriculture Committee 

 writes will be good. 



Mr. Cooley, in a conversation I had with him, spoke of this as 

 a traditional period in which he thought that perhaps we would 

 have to continue some payments from the Treasury in order to 

 support agriculture while a permanent program is being worked out, 

 and we are being reconverted so to speak, from a war to a peacetime 

 footing. But in this measure which I include in my prepared testi- 



