GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 851 



However, the majority of farmers participate in this type of a 

 program for the simple reason that they reahze it is the only means 

 of recovering their share of the appropriated funds made possible 

 only through taxation, their only recoiu-se is to participate in the 

 program if they desire a return on their tax dollars. Intelligent 

 farmers have long ago discovered that the dollars they send to Wash- 

 ington, D. C, are a whole lot smaller when they are returned. 



Now, we farmers are being offered a soil-conservation payment to 

 conserve our soil. Perhaps we should also repair the leaky roof for 

 the businessman that neglects to take care of his property. 



As Congress has never produced any wealth, but only handed out 

 funds taken from taxation, would it not be better and cheaper for us 

 all to heed what Lincoln said, that Government should do nothing 

 for the people that the people can do cheaper and better for them- 

 selves. Wlio is more capable of taking care of the soil on the farm 

 than the farmer himself? 



We appreciate the interest that the coming generation has ui soil 

 conservation and also aware of the seriousness of erosion, but no 

 farmer worthy of the name will destroy his own farm. We who are 

 farmers know that it is an inherent instinct of those who till the soil 

 to conserve it, and only economic necessity and uncertainty of future 

 farm prices compel us to deplete our soil and do those things which 

 are wrong. 



Low farm prices are the major cause of soil erosion. Let us use an 

 arbitrary figure, and suppose for example that my overhead expenses 

 in a certain year are $3,000, for taxes, insurance, labor, repairs, depre- 

 ciation, and other elements of cost, and corn is my cash crop and selling 

 at $2 per bushel. It is obvious that I must produce and market 1,500 

 bushels a year to meet my expenses. When corn drops in price to 

 $1 per bushel, I must sell 3,000 bushels, and if corn goes down to 

 50 cents — and I have sold corn for less — then I must produce and sell 

 6,000 bushels or lose my farm. It should be obvious to anyone that 

 it is low farm prices that causes us to plow up our pastures and fence 

 corners and start erosion. 



The United Farmers of America, Inc., maintain that it is the duty 

 of the people to support the Government which they themselves es- 

 tablish ; and contrariwise that it is not the function of the Government 

 established by our Constitution to endeavor to support its peoples, 

 and that taxes collected from the American farmers are the moneys 

 earned in the sweat and toil and privation. 



It is because of these reasons and for reasons hereinafter to be 

 enumerated that the United Farmers of America, Inc., are asking 

 members of this committee and the Congress of the United States to 

 enact legislation that will stabilize the price of American agricultural 

 commodities at true parity levels at the market place. 



We are most interested in a revised parity formula. Parity means 

 equality, but under the present way of figuring parity it is far from 

 equality for the farmer. I shall prove this to you. 



From the latest available records from the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agricultm-e, we find that from 1929 and up to the end of 1946 

 that the per capita net income of the people who farm was never 

 one-half of that of the rest of the population in any year. The aver- 

 age for farmers was about one-third that of other people. Yet the 

 same table tells us that the farmers had all the way from 61 percent of 

 parity in 1932 to 168 percent of parity in 1946. 



