998 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Just one other thing before I leave this subject. I introduced this 

 bill immediately after the Department refused to continue the support 

 program. If the committee sees fit to act upon my bill as such, it 

 would require some amendments. But as I understand, the com- 

 mittee is considering this whole subject of support prices and you are 

 considering this as one phase. If the committee should see fit to 

 report out a special bill dealing with tung oil then, of course, as the 

 author of this bill and with the others who are also interested in this 

 subject, we would be glad to work with the staff in getting it in proper 

 shape, but I am not going to take the time of the committee to go into 

 that now. .A. bill was introduced by me at the same time to place an 

 import duty on tung, H. R. 30, to give us some protection in that 

 field. But I do not want to go into that at any length, because you 

 gentlemen are aware of the administration's general attitude toward 

 that kind of legislation under the philosophy of the Government now. 

 TMiether they be right or wrong I am not making any comment now, 

 except we do not have too much hope of getting very far on that. 



Now, let me say to you just what we are up against here in just a 

 few brief words. The Government started out on a stock-piling 

 program of strategic war materials and here we are importing a lot 

 of bauxite and different materials of that kind for national defense. 

 Again we went to the Government, and I went to the Munitions Board 

 representatives and I asked them why not stock pile some of this tung 

 oil and help the market. They said, "We want it, and we will try to 

 get it cleared by the Department." 



And then they took it off the active list, the Munitions Board, not 

 the Department of Agriculture; the Munitions Board took it off the 

 active strategic list, purchasing list, on the ground that they had made 

 a survey and they had found that approximately 20,000,000 pounds of 

 tung was produced in this country, and therefore we would have an 

 adequate supply in an emergency and would not need to go into stock 

 piling. Now they still list it as a strategic war material but it is not 

 upon the active purchasing list for stock piling. And yet I am told — 

 and I cannot prove this; I do not have anything except hearsay 

 evidence — that the Navy recently purchased a considerable quantity 

 of this oil from China. 



Mr. Chairman, I have probably taken too much time, because I 

 know your time is limited, and we have here a lot of people who are 

 better prepared to give the committee statistical information on this 

 subject than I am. I just want to say this in conclusion, that we do 

 not care what kind of relief you give us. I have no pride of author- 

 ship in this matter, nor does Mr. Gathings who introduced a similar 

 bill, nor the two Florida Senators, on the other side, who have intro- 

 duced similar legislation, but I do sav to vou gentlemen this morn- 

 ing, on my own responsibility as a Member of Congress, who has 

 lived with this thing, not only daring my congressional life, but be- 

 fore I came here — and it might be of interest if I could go intc my own 

 personal experience on timg because I was a member of a corporation 

 that made one of the first plantings, certainly the first in my State, 

 and I am not spending any money that I have in it now; it went by 

 the board — but I am making this statement, that if this industry, 

 which cannot make too much political appeal, does not get some 

 Government assistance, it is going to perish and is going out of exist- 



