GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 847 



Mr. Pace. The next witness will be Dr. H. M. Griffith, vice presi- 

 dent of the National Economic Council, of the Empire State Building:, 

 ew York City. 



Dr. Griffith, we are delighted to have you here. 

 Dr. Griffith. Thank you very much. 

 Mr. Pace. You may proceed. 



STATEMENT OF DR. H. M. GRIFFITH, VICE PRESIDENT, THE 

 NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL 



Dr. Griffith. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the 

 National Economic Council is fundamentally opposed to the so-called 

 Brannan plan for American agriculture, or to any similar legislation. 

 It is further opposed to any continuation of agricultural subsidies of 

 any kind. All are plainly nothing better than economic quackery 

 and political fakery. Designed as special interest legislation to favor 

 one part of the population at the expense of the rest, they actually do 

 no good to anybody except the bureaucrats who dispense the benefits. 

 In the long run they injure the farmer, impoverish the nonagricultural 

 population and vitiate the entire economy. Nobody with more than a 

 smattering of sound economics would vote for them unless outside 

 pressures made him think it necessary. It is time for statesmanship 

 to take over from politics and have done with economic imbecility. 



The National Economic Council is further opposed to the so-called 

 Brannan plan because it is one step, among a number of other steps, 

 by which certain persons obsessed with an un-American economic 

 ideology are attempting to transform the nature of our free society 

 so that it will become a collectivist society. 



At this point someone may rejoin that there is no" American econom- 

 ics." Such a rejoinder could stem only from profound ignorance of 

 American history and the nature of American institutions. The 

 Constitution of the United States was understood by its framers to be 

 what it is: a charter of liberty whose consequences and implications 

 are as thorough-going for economic life as for political and social life. 

 The Constitution is a profoundly economic document, and it was in- 

 tended to be so. The economic philosophy which permeates it is the 

 philosophy of economic freedom. 



The two basic conceptions of government known to man in history 

 are these: (1) Government based upon a social order whose regulative 

 principle is liberty. This is the society of contract. (2) Government 

 based upon a social order whose regulative principle is not freedom 

 but status — that is, direction from those in authority, which nowadays 

 is called social control. Our ancestors had a shorter and more accu- 

 rate name for it: they called it tyranny. 



The American Republic, as it was founded, and as it grew to strength 

 and greatness, was based squarely upon the continued existence of a 

 society of contract. The implications extend to every area of human 

 activity, and the economic relationships are not excepted. Therefore, 

 it is only out of vast historical ignorance that it be can asserted that 

 our American society is not tied to any one type of economics. It is 

 so committed, and the economic theory to which it is committed is the 

 economics of freedom. If economic freedom goes, social and political 

 freedom will follow: freedom is indivisible. That principle is woven 

 into the warp and woof of our Constitution and our institutions. 



91215— 49— ser. u, pt. 5 7 



