1196 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. PicKELL. May I object right here that I have gotten a com- 

 pletely different interpretation of that Aiken law this time than what 

 I got on the second of May? In the hearing on the second of May 

 I was under the impression that the Secretary had almost the same 

 powers under the Aiken law as he has under this new proposal except 

 that I think there were one or two little provisions. Now, it is 

 completely different. 



Mr. Murray. That is right. 



Mr. Pace. He does have many powers, Mr. Pickell. The word 

 ^'payment" is written into the Aiken law. He does have now, in my 

 judgment, and in the judgment of the Solicitor of the Department, 

 the right to employ payments but he has testified that the legislative 

 history of that word is such that he would not feel justified, unless 

 in an emergency, to use payments because it happens that the one 

 word appears in the act. He has asked for express legislative au- 

 thority to do so. This committee spent nearly 3 weeks doing noth- 

 ing but getting interpretations of the Aiken law. It will be my 

 pleasure to give you a copy of those hearings before you leave in 

 order that you might give them to your general counsel. 



Mr. Pickell. I would like very much to have them. 



Mr. Murray. Getting back to the hog business for a moment, I 

 think there is another addition to your presentation. It is that if 

 you put this in operation on hogs but not on beef, it would be a fact 

 that your feeds would be funneled more into hogs than into beef 

 because they know where they are sitting. 



Mr. Pickell. Certainly. I was perfectly astounded at his state- 

 ment yesterday that if the hog market broke 15 to 20 percent it would 

 not affect cattle. 



Mr. Murray. They do not teach that in the law schools anyway. 



We have too much of our agriculture being run from States that 

 cannot feed themselves and have no connection with the livestock 

 industry. But I have struggled along with that for 10 years so I am 

 used to that. 



The other side of the picture is that you will get more hogs produced 

 because you will funnel the feed into hogs and not into cattle. 



Mr. Pickell. I am not giving my opinion on what is happening, 

 but the opinion of the fellows down at the yards, particularly the 

 Government men whose business it is to observe those things. 



Mr. Murray. If the Aiken bill is not all right, the Department 

 will have to take the responsibility for it. They helped write it. 

 I did not help write it. If they did not get the words right in there, 

 it does not matter because it is a good deal the way they want to 

 interpret it around this towai anyway. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Hoeven. 



Mr. Hoeven. You heard the statement made by Secretary Bran- 

 nan this morning that there was only a slight relationship between 

 cattle and hogs. Wliat is your experience as to that? 



Mr. Pickell. I have been studying prices now since 1916. My 

 experience has been that when there is a change in the supply and 

 demand condition of one particular commodity its price immediately 

 moves to discount that changed condition. Then it turns to follow 

 not onh'^ the other commodities it substitutes for and similar commodi- 

 ties, but the general trend of commodity prices. They all move in 

 the same direction. 



