MCNARY-HAUGEN MOVEMENT 4 01 



Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Iowa, and Montana in a fight-to-the- 

 fmish battle for the equalization fee. This meeting was also expected to 

 help the agricultural equality commissions of Minnesota and South Dakota 

 come into contact with the different farm groups. Both these bodies had 

 been created by the legislatures of their respective states to work out plans 

 for state and national legislation and to cooperate with similar commis- 

 sions that were to be established in other states. Pretty much the same 

 personalities attended and the same arguments were heard. Also, a peti- 

 tion signed by 10,000 Montanans was exhibited asking Frank Lowden to 

 run for President. 81 



In March, 1928, a broadened new McNary-Haugen bill, to include all 

 types of farm products and surpluses, was reported to the Senate. This 

 provided for the restoration of the equalization fee, but only if the buying 

 and storage operations failed. The President was granted full appointive 

 powers, and the appropriations were increased by an amendment in the 

 House from $250,000,000 to $400,000,000. In April the Senate passed the 

 bill by a vote of 58 to 23, and in May the House followed suit with a vote 

 of 204 to 121. But once again Coolidge vetoed it. In a 51 to 30 vote the 

 Senate failed to override the presidential veto. 82 



Although the second veto was not wholly unexpected, the finality with 

 which it was accomplished stunned the farmers. This was taken to mean 

 that American industry would not tolerate any attempt to tamper with 

 the protective system. 83 Industry was the political and economic boss and 

 it intended to remain thus. Henry A. Wallace, the son of the late Secretary 

 of Agriculture and editor of Wallaces' Farmer, reminded sympathetic 

 followers that the second Coolidge veto was further evidence that "Cool- 

 idge and Hoover stand for industrializing the United States" and that 

 they were against giving farmers a fair share of the national income. 84 

 The editor of the Prairie Farmer, in a visit to the East after the second 

 veto, reported that the average easterner was opposed to anything that 

 would increase food prices. Agriculture was of no concern to him. "He 



81. Ibid., July 3, 1927; St. Paul Dispatch, July 12, 1927. 



82. Black, in American Economic Review, XVIII (September, 1928), pp. 265, 

 412; Des Moines Register, May 26, 1928; Des Moines Tribune, May 4, 23, 1928; 

 Farmers' Union Herald, April i, 1928. 



83. Minnesota Farm Bureau News, June i, 1928. 



84. Des Moines Register, May 24, 1928. 



