MCNARY-HAUGEN MOVEMENT 31 



dred farm organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federa- 

 tion and numerous state farm bureaus, the National Board of Farm Or- 

 ganizations, which consisted of sixteen different associations, the na- 

 tional Grange, and countless other farm groups; commercial clubs, mer- 

 chants' associations, Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions' clubs; American Legion 

 posts; the Chambers of Commerce of Seattle, Spokane, and other cities; 

 the St. Paul Association of Public and Business Affairs; the Greater Des 

 Moines Committee; the Greater St. Paul Committee; clearinghouse and 

 state bankers' associations in Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South 

 Dakota, and Washington; the Iowa state legislature; Republican state 

 conventions in Iowa and Minnesota; departments of agriculture for the 

 states of Arizona, Montana, Oklahoma, and Utah; commissioners of 

 agriculture, governors, college presidents, professors, railroad officials, 

 bankers, and many others in all walks of life. In May, 1924, the House 

 Committee on Agriculture had on file over ten thousand endorsements in 

 the form of telegrams, letters, petitions, etc. 22 



The idea behind the first McNary-Haugen bill, as well as of the others 

 that followed, was that certain "basic" farm products, were "selling out of 

 line with other commodities." As a result, the farmers got too little for 

 what they sold and paid too much for what they bought. It proposed to 

 rectify matters by creating a board that was to find out the price at which 

 these commodities were to sell and a government corporation that was to 

 sell the surplus abroad. Operations were to be confined to wheat, flour, 

 rice, corn, wool, cattle, sheep, swine, or any other food products derived 

 from any of the three last-mentioned products, but only in the event that 

 a special emergency existed; and such an emergency would be declared 

 only if an exportable surplus existed and the ratio price for a particular 

 commodity was higher than that of the existing domestic price. 



The first big problem involved finding the ratio price. This was to 

 be done by a mathematical formula which, no doubt, was "somewhat 

 complicated to the ordinary mind" but perhaps "simple to the statis- 

 tician." The ratio price for a basic farm commodity had to bear the same 

 relation to the prewar average price of that same commodity as the cur- 

 rent average price for "all commodities" bore to the prewar average of all 



22. Ibid., pp. 2-3. 



