33 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



evinced any alarm over the business bloc, which is active. His dismay 

 arises from the fact that a new political power threatens the sway of his 

 own group. . . ," 37 



Action to relieve the farmers also had been taken in other quarters. 

 An October order of the Interstate Commerce Commission slashing 

 freight rates on grains, grain products, and hay carried in the region 

 between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast was followed by 

 reductions in other parts of the country. Late in 1921 the Senate ordered 

 the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the export prices paid to 

 the grain growers. Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace kept 

 pressing his demands for more research in the marketing of farm prod- 

 ucts, and President Harding, in his message to Congress in December, 

 told the representatives that the main remedy for the relief of the farmers 

 was to be found "in distribution and marketing." 3 



By this time the wheels had been well greased for legislative action. 

 In December, 1921, Representative Sydney Anderson of Minnesota, the 

 chairman of the Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry, which had 

 been appointed earlier in the year, handed the first report of his committee 

 to the President. On December 30 the President, now more sensitive than 

 ever to the seriousness of the crisis, sent a letter to Wallace asking him to 

 call the conference which he had been so insistent upon, but which both 

 Hoover and Mellon had been dead against, to consider the plight of the 

 farmers. It was suggested that "such a conference might divide itself into 

 two parts : One to give consideration to our present day difficulties which, 

 though temporary, are serious and need effective attention; the other 

 part, a survey of the future in an effort to determine upon general policies, 

 having in view the maintenance of production, the greatest possible use 

 and at the same time the conservation of our agricultural resources, and 

 the more complete coordination of our agricultural, manufacturing and 

 general business interests." 39 



The first National Agricultural Conference met in Washington from 

 January 23 to 27, 1922. All in all, there were 336 delegates and 20 different 



37. Literary Digest, LXXI (December 24, 1921), p. 10. 



38. The New International Year Boot^, 1921, pp. 23-24. 



39. Ibid., pp. 23, 27; Report of the Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry, The 

 Agricultural Crisis and Its Causes, Part I (67 Congress, i session, House Report 408, 

 serial 7922, 4 parts, Washington, 1921-22). 



