FARM BOARD TO FARM STRIKE 49 



earnest, the next logical question was who would control the machinery ? 

 Was it going to be the hand-picked candidates of the party leaders, or 

 would it be the cooperatives with their years of experience behind them ? 

 Then there was the ever pressing matter of the relationship of the Farm 

 Board to the existing marketing mechanism. Many commission firms and 

 established cooperatives were uneasy over how they would fare with this 

 new competition. Stabilization operations sounded good, but just what 

 were they to be ? If attempts at stabilization were resorted to and surpluses 

 accumulated and prices failed to rise in spite of them, then what ? Equally 

 important, and hardly to be overlooked, were the attitudes of Congress 

 and the farmers. Were they going to cooperate or show hostility? 



Advance reports had it that Hoover would rely on the cooperatives 

 for personnel and appoint practical and successful businessmen rather 

 than accept the recommendations of the party leaders. These reports 

 were confirmed when the make-up of the Board was announced. The 

 chairman was Alexander Legge, the president of the International Har- 

 vester Corporation, an appointment that caused the lifting of many eye- 

 brows; the other seven members (excluding the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 an ex-officio member) were J. C. Stone, the founder and former president 

 of the Burley Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Association; Carl Williams, 

 Oklahoma, of the Farmers' Cooperative Association; C. B. Denman, 

 Missouri, of the National Livestock Producers' Association; C. S. Wilson, 

 professor of agriculture at Cornell University; William F. Schilling, 

 Minnesota, of the National Dairy Association; Samuel McKelvie, former 

 governor of Nebraska and publisher of the Nebraska Farmer; and C. C. 

 Teague, of the California Fruit Growers' Exchange. 13 



Except for the cotton South, the selection of personnel was fairly well 

 distributed geographically. The slight of the cotton interests was one of 

 no small proportions, especially in view of the fact that Hoover was the 

 first Republican since the Civil War to break into the solid South. This, 

 many southerners believed, entitled the South to consideration; but the 

 President ignored it first when he selected his cabinet, and then in select- 

 ing the Farm Board. 14 



13. R. L. Wilbur and Arthur M. Hyde, The Hoover Policies (New York, 1937), 

 pp. 151-52. 



14. "The Men Who Will Tackle the Big Farm Relief Task," Literary Digest, CII 

 (July 27, 1929), pp. 8-9. 



