1188 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



back SO that employees with less than 10 to 15 years' service are let 

 out. Overtime has been completely eliminated. The take-home pay 

 is l3eing cut. Out in our district we have just been appalled at the 

 size of our personal-property and property taxes. If to these, and 

 with the reduced pay checks are now added the cost of this subsidy, 

 I fear for the continued consumption of meat, particularly if the buying 

 power of the producers of other livestock is knocked out so that unem- 

 ployment increases. In 1932 to 1935 it certainly was not the high 

 cost of meat that drove its consumption down so drastically. 



Gentlemen, the opinion of the directors of the Corn Belt Livestock 

 Feeders Association is that this Brannan program of a hog subsidy 

 would result disastrously to the feeders of livestock. They believe 

 that the program is impractical; that in the long run it would be 

 disastrous on hogs; that it would be immediately disastrous to the 

 cattle and sheep feeders and producers; that it is unsound economics 

 and therefore would not prove beneficial to the consumer; that the 

 whole thing is absurd and should be rejected immediately. 



Price history shows that from 1920 to 1939, the average top on 

 cattle at Chicago was about 15.7 times the price of a bushel of corn at 

 Chicago. On this basis, to cattle at Chicago last year, with the short 

 corn crop, should have gone to around $44 per hundred. They did 

 not go that high. 



On the basis of the big corn crop of 1948, the Corn Belt Livestock 

 Feeders Association warned its members that top prices for cattla 

 would probably work back toward the $25 level. It went nearly to 

 that level — despite the forec'ast of the Department of Agriculture last 

 August that livestock prices could not be expected to break until late 

 in 1949. The top is higher than that now, and may work just a little 

 higher under normal conditions — or if this Brannan proposal is 

 rejected. 



Right now contracts for delivery of corn in December are trading for 

 around $1.13 at Chicago. If the corn crop comas through so that 

 price becomes an actuahty at delivery time, then a price 15.7 times 

 that would be a top price of only $17.75 for cattle. July is the month 

 that makes or breaks the corn crop. If the August 1 estimate is for 

 a crop of over 3,000,000,000 bushels, then the total supply of corn 

 will be at new records because the carry-over will be between 800 

 and 900 million bushels. 



So if Dame Nature is good, we in the livestock feeding business 

 except lower prices for meat this winter. That will be a natural 

 development, probably abetted by the declining tendencies in general 

 commodity prices. 



But if that break comes, we want it to come in a natural way. 



We would like to see ihd Secretary of Agriculture help us by getting 

 just all of the information possible on prospective supplies of feeder 

 cattle, th3 size of the 1949 calf crop compared with other years, and 

 information on prospective demand both here and abroad. Instead 

 of an attitude of "keep 'em guesseng," we want him to adopt one 

 of helping in just every way possible. We want restrictions taken off 

 immediately so that if some foreign buyer wants to buy lard or meat 

 or other agricultural product, the sale can be made right then and 

 a delivery date set, instead of the packers being compelled to run first 

 to this department and then to that to get permission to make the 

 shipment — with the result that the buyer in the meantime has gone 



