39 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



conference also were again coming around to the belief that little would 

 be accomplished without an alliance with either the South or the East. 

 Many with strong party feelings hoped that cooperation would be forth- 

 coming from the East to save the Republican party, while others spoke 

 warmly of an alliance with the South that would bring together the 

 agricultural interest that had been separated by the Civil War. 46 



Besides the McNary-Haugen bill and the administration-sponsored 

 program, there was a third plan involved in the struggle for farm relief of 

 the twenties the export debenture plan. Its most ardent advocate was the 

 Grange. It was proposed by Professor Charles L. Stewart of the University 

 of Illinois. The plan was "an arrangement whereby exporters of those 

 agricultural products of which we produce a surplus [would] receive from 

 the Treasury Department certificates having a face value established by 

 Congress and intended to represent the differences in costs of production 

 between here and abroad, such certificates being negotiable and good for 

 their face value in the payment of import tariffs on any articles later 

 imported." This plan did not provide for the purchasing and storing of 

 the surplus ; it provided a bounty on agricultural imports ; and its advocates 

 called it simpler and more flexible to operate. 47 



Stewart had outlined the main features of his plan to his economics 

 classes as early as May, 1924, and had been active in calling the attention 

 of Congress to it. He framed a bill embodying the essential features of 

 his plan, and Senator McKinley and Representative Adkins, both of 

 Illinois, drafted similar bills and introduced them in their respective 

 houses. Hearings were conducted late in March and early in April, 1926, 

 but the bills never emerged from the committee rooms. The following 

 November the national Grange endorsed the export debenture plan, and 

 from then on it was to be its staunchest supporter. 48 



Meanwhile, word had got around that two of the most ardent disciples 

 of McNary-Haugenism, George Peek and Chester C. Davis, had been 



46. Ibid., pp. 273-75; Englund, World's Worf(, LIII (November, 1926), pp. 43-44; 

 Pioneer Press, January 29, 1926. 



47. K. L. Butterfield, "The Farm Problem Made Clear," Current History, XXIX 

 (November, 1928), p. 269. 



48. Joseph S. Davis, The Farm Export Debenture Plan (Palo Alto, Calif., 1929), 

 pp. 2-3. 



