AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



day of February, March wheat climbed up to $1.187. About this time the 

 Board reversed its brief policy of supporting the price of only the wheat 

 owned by cooperatives and those affiliated with the Board, admitting that 

 actions by the government agencies had "interfered with the normal use 

 of the futures market . . . and disturbed customary relations between 

 wheat prices at different points." The grain trade, consistent with its past 

 opposition, referred to this support policy as "the most advanced step, 

 the most thoroughly socialized step ever taken in America in peace 

 time ... in dealing with a community." 47 One critic suggested that the 

 government had found "a first class way of throwing good money into 

 a bottomless pit." 48 



Besides being faced with the grim task of trying to support prices, the 

 Grain Stabilization Corporation had an acute storage problem on its 

 hands. In trying to cope with this situation, the aid of the millers was 

 sought "to permit the Grain Stabilization Corporation to place wheat in 

 positions where it would presumably be used rather than have it con- 

 centrate at terminal markets, such as Chicago. Cooperation under this 

 agreement was an important factor in reducing the volume of wheat on 

 which deliveries had to be accepted in Chicago in May, in preventing 

 uneconomical movements of wheat and in averting threatened congestion 

 at Chicago." 49 



Another proposal was to establish grain elevators up and down the 

 Mississippi River, as far north as St. Paul and Minneapolis, from which 

 a government barge line would carry wheat for cooperatives at consider- 

 able savings and in competition with the railroads. Much of the storage 

 space provided up to this point had been financed by private groups, but 

 now the Farmers' National was to announce a program for purchasing 

 and erecting additional elevators through loans to cooperative asso- 

 ciations. 50 



Others like Samuel McKelvie of the Farm Board believed that the sit- 

 uation could be relieved by having the farmers store their grain on their 



47. F.F.B., First Annual Report, pp. 29-30; "The Fight to Save the Wheat 

 Farmer," Literary Digest, CIV (March 15, 1930), p. 18. 



48. "Uncle Sam, Plunger," The Nation, CXXX (March 26, 1930), p. 351. 



49. F.F.B., First Annual Report, p. 31. 



50. "Embattled Farm Board Sets Up New Fronts," Business Wee\ (April 2, 1930), 

 p. 6. 



