GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1179 



Secretary Brannan. It has been applied partly in the school lunch 

 and so has the dried milk but the balance of it has also been foreign 

 sales. 



Mr. Andresen. That is all. 



Mr. MrRRAY. Just one question, Mr. Chairman. 



If you bought all the skim milk produced in the United States it 

 would only cost $75,000,000, according to last year's production. If 

 you lose it all it would look pretty small in comparison to the losses on 

 a lot of these other commodities. 



Mr. Secretary, if milk brought $1.50 a hundred in evaporated milk 

 plants in the base period, with the factor at 246, the parity price of 

 milk would be $3.69; 90 percent of that would be $3.21, according to 

 the arithmetic that I learned in the grades. That is the legal and 

 lawful support price for milk according to the present law. Evapo- 

 rated milk is one of the products of milk. The evaporated milk 

 people in the United States today do not get $3.21 per hundredweight 

 and are losing 40 to 60 cents per hundredweight. 



In other words, the milk that goes into manufactm^ed products this 

 year is bringing at least $100,000,000 less than what the present law 

 states, according to the way I figure it. I have tried to cooperate in 

 every possible way with your Department in working this out. I do 

 not play politics with agriculture. I leave that out of it. It would not 

 make any difference to me who was down there as Secretary. I think 

 I am absolutely right on that. 



I would like to know why we are not foUomng the present law. 

 That is the reason I cannot project my thinking into these new laws. 

 I would like to understand the way the law is applied now. 



Secretaiy Brannan. Mr. Andresen seemed to indicate that he 

 thought it was operating satisfactorily. 



Mr. Murray. Yes. Maybe that is all right because Mr. Andresen 

 happens to come from a country where they are tickled to death to get 

 that, but you want to remember that prices are higher in Wisconsin. 

 His milk has been as low as $2.40 out there. Milk in my State 

 averaged $2.85 in March. He might be better satisfied with his 

 butter set-up than I would be on the evaporated milk because evapor- 

 ated milk has always brought more per hundred pounds than has the 

 milk in butter and powder form. 



Mr. Andresen. Will the gentleman yield? 



I think I did say, Mr. Secretary, that the farmers thought they 

 ought to have a liigher support price. I said it was working very 

 satisfactorily and I meant there that it was satisfactory to the Depart- 

 ment because it was not costing the Govermnent much of any money 

 to handle the program. I did say that a good many of our farmers 

 were happy to get as much as they were getting. I suppose as long 

 as the law is administered the way it is, we will have to be satisfied. 



Mr. Murray. All I want, Mr. Secretary, is to follow the law. 

 When it says $1.04 or $3.69, 1 want to follow the law. If we do not do 

 that, we just put omselves into jeopardy as far as the futm-e is con- 

 cerned. There is no use having it on the book if we are not going to 

 carry it out. That is my great grievance and has been since the 1st 

 of January. 



Mr. Pace. Is that all? 



Mr. Murray. That is all. 



