334 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



The farmers also were urged to cut their overhead costs, to diversify their 

 crops, to adjust their production to the demands of the market, and to 

 organize to advance their interests. 



There were several other significant recommendations. One was the 

 often repeated assertion that there could be no national prosperity unless 

 capital and labor bore "a just share" with agriculture in the readjustment. 

 Another, which soon received serious consideration, was that the Presi- 

 dent and Congress had better take steps to "re-establish a fair exchange 

 value for all farm products." This was talking the language of McNary- 

 Haugenism and parity. But price fixing and the issuance of more paper 

 money as remedies were rejected, as was the Hoover-inspired proposal 

 to have the Bureau of Markets transferred from the Department of 

 Agriculture to the Department of Commerce. 42 



Next on the agenda were legislation defining and legalizing coopera- 

 tives engaged in interstate commerce, a new measure to regulate the grain 

 exchanges of the country, authority for the placing of a "dirt farmer" on 

 the Federal Reserve Board, the building of a protective wall around agri- 

 cultural products, and the re-extension of the life of the War Finance 

 Corporation. 



One of the most important measures passed was the Capper-Volstead 

 Act. This act removed all doubts about the legality of cooperative mar- 

 keting associations engaged in interstate commerce by exempting them 

 from prosecution under the antitrust laws. Unlike the Clayton Act of 

 1914, this allowed the farmers to organize marketing associations either 

 with or without capital stock, provided that no member had more than 

 one vote regardless of the amount of stock or membership capital he 

 owned and provided that the dividend payments of the association did 

 not exceed 8 per cent. Another important clause forbade associations in- 

 corporating under its provisions to handle products for nonmembers in 

 excess of those handled for their own members. 43 



Another very important act, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922, 

 which was in line with the protectionist sentiment of the postwar era, put 

 many heavy duties on farm products, as did the Emergency Tariff of 



42. Ibid., p. 273. 



43. Cooperative Marketing (70 Congress, i session, Senate Document 95, serial 

 8859, Washington, 1928), pp. 334, 392-93; Congressional Digest, I (March, 1922), 

 p. 9. 



