798 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



If Mr. Brannan can, for a time, give such a guaranty on hogs that 

 he can boost the production to a big oversupply so their prices go 

 down and he can get his objective of paying out a huge dole to their 

 producers, he woukl not need to subsidize cattle or sheep or poultry 

 to get their prices down. Competition of the dressed pork would 

 automatically pull the prices of these other meats and competitive 

 foods down. Not only would it knock down the prices of meat and 

 therefore of the feeder cattle and finished cattle and poultry, but it 

 would knock down the prices of fruits and vegetables and all other 

 foods. And he knows that. It is perhaps the big reason back of the 

 program. The CIO would succeed in their program to have cheap 

 food. But without a prosperous agriculture, the CIO would soon 

 exhaust its association funds through strike benefit payments, 

 increased taxes to pay unemployment insurance, etc. That program 

 would banlsi'upt the Nation. 



CONSUMEKS BEING DELUDED 



Under the system of marketing under which this Nation grew to be 

 the envy of the world, the economic function of the price was to balance 

 the supply and the demand and move that supply into consumption. 



That supply might vary as much as 30 to 40 percent in a year. But 

 under the free play of prices, it would be found that at the end of 

 the year the carry-over was not so tremendously different than that 

 of the previous year — the people had all they wanted to eat, and there 

 was a carry-over. In years of big supplies the price broke to levels 

 where increased consumption resulted. In years of short supplies the 

 price advanced to levels, if necessary, that brought in supplies from 

 other countries, such as occurred in 1934 and 1936. The important 

 thing is that supply and demand were balanced by the action of the 

 price, the supply went into consumption, the people had plenty to 

 eat, and there was a carry-over of nominal proportions. 



A representative of Swift & Co. made the statement at our Kansas 

 City convention in February that if allowance was made for the gen- 

 eral changing levels of commodity prices, they paid out, year in and 

 year out, just about the same amount of money for livestock. When 

 lareg supplies forced prices downward, the increased numbers took 

 up the money saved by the lower prices. In years of short supplies, 

 the market price advanced, they paid out more per head for the 

 shorter number. So at the end of the year, everything else being 

 equal, they paid out about the same amount. 



In those days the housewife paid a sum for her meat that would 

 carry all of the supply into consianption. None of the larger killing, 

 in years of ample supply, is ever wasted or thrown out. It is con- 

 sumed. The packers get for the meat a sum of money that will move 

 it into consumption. If supplies are large, the price drops. If sup- 

 plies are short, then the price reduces consumption. 



The farmer, in those days, got the sum of money that the consuming 

 housewife paid less the cost of marketing, processing, transporting, and 

 retailing that meat. 



But under this new program, the housewife would not end her part 

 of the transaction when she had paid the sum of money that would 

 consume the available supply. On the 15th of March she or her 

 husband would turn over to the Government not only about 80 per- 

 cent of the cost of the dole paid direct to the farmer, but in addition 



