Chapter XIV 



FROM FARM BOARD 

 TO FARM STRIKE 



THOUGH defeated, the McNary-Haugen proposal, coupled with the 

 farm depression, if nothing else had forced the administration to 

 move more and more into the orbit of cooperative marketing and surplus- 

 control measures. Ample proof of this was first furnished by the passage 

 of the Capper- Volstead Act in 1922, then by the enactment of the Co- 

 operative Markeing Act in 1926, and finally by the Agricultural Mar- 

 keting Act of 1929. As a result, the years 1929 to 1932 witnessed the launch- 

 ing of a federally subsidized farm program which up to that time had 

 been unparalleled in relief annals. Millions were spent to marshal forth 

 the resources of agriculture, to consolidate and coordinate the marketing 

 activities of the cooperatives, and to engage in stabilization operations. 

 But unfortunately the farm problem was further from solution in 1932, 

 after three years of Farm Board activities, than it was in 1929 when the 

 Hoover farm program was first announced. In short, the nationalistic 

 policies of the administration fell far short of solving a problem that was 

 of world-wide dimensions. 



Once Hoover took office, he called for a special session of Congress to 

 redeem two of the campaign pledges that the Republicans had made; 

 these were farm relief and "limited" changes in the tariff. 1 Relief for 



i. "President Hoover's First Message to Congress," Congressional Digest, VIII 

 (May, 1929), p. 137. 



