NEW DEAL FARM PROGRAM 455 



following year and, if necessary, to curtail it to bring about a better balance 

 between production and consumption. (3) Since these benefit payments 

 would be paid only to those farmers who cooperated with the govern- 

 ment, the farmer who thought that his personal liberty would be inter- 

 fered with by such a program would have the opportunity to go ahead 

 and produce as much as he pleased. (4) Finally, the plan was to be as 

 decentralized as possible, and the costs of operation were to be borne by 

 those who benefited from it and not by the consumers. 6 



By 1932 the Wilson version of the domestic allotment plan had attracted 

 the attention of a number of prominent individuals. Great strides had 

 been made in propagandizing it since 1930, when he first began discussing 

 certain phases of his plan with Montana farmers. Wilson is credited with 

 having converted or interesting such men as George Soule of the New 

 Republic and Joseph Knapp, head of the powerful Crowell publications. 

 "He interested Republican and Democratic politicians, big landowners 

 with money in distressed land, officials of farm organizations, members 

 of board of trade. He almost converted Walter Lippmann, and he in- 

 terested the extension force." Rexford G. Tugwell also became interested 

 in domestic allotment and managed through Raymond Moley, it is 

 claimed, "to outline Wilson's allotment plan at the meeting of the Brain 

 Trust on the porch at Hyde Park." Roosevelt gave "a hearty reception" 

 to the principle in his speech of acceptance. Wilson also has been credited 

 with suggesting five of the six points that Roosevelt emphasized in his 

 famous Topeka speech of September 14, 19327 



The Wilson voluntary domestic allotment plan began to assume tangi- 

 ble form in the spring of 1932. On April 10 Wilson held a conference 

 with a group in Chicago to discuss the plan at length. Taking part in 

 this conference were George N. Peek; Henry A. Wallace; Louis S. Clarke, 

 president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Omaha; R. R. Rogers 

 of the Prudential Life Insurance Company; Henry I. Harriman of Bos- 

 ton; W. R. Ronald, editor of the Evening Republican of Mitchell, South 

 Dakota; and several agricultural and other economists. "Here for the 

 first time," writes Joseph S. Davis, "were definitely incorporated the pro- 



6. M. L. Wilson, Farm Relief and the Domestic Allotment Plan (Minneapolis, 



PP- 2 7~ 28 - 



7. Russell Lord, The Agrarian Revival (New York, 1939), pp. 147, 154. 



