NEW DEAL FARM PROGRAM 459 



action only after it had the support of a reasonable majority of the pro- 

 ducers of the exportable surpluses to which it was to apply. And the 

 program had to be voluntary. Meanwhile, the cooperative movement was 

 not to be lost sight of; it was to be given as much encouragement as pos- 

 sible. 12 



As Roosevelt advanced his campaign and appeared to be making con- 

 siderable headway, Hoover tried to salvage as much support as he pos- 

 sibly could. As Iowa was preparing to receive Roosevelt, Hoover sent a 

 telegram to Governor Dan W. Turner telling him that the administration 

 had started another drive to bring immediate and practical relief to the 

 farmers. 13 Hoover advised Turner of the efforts that were being made by 

 some of the leading financiers of the country to bring help to the mort- 

 gaged farmers. Before this, it had been announced that arrangements had 

 been made for feed and seed loans that would make it possible for thou- 

 sands of farmers indebted to the federal government to pay only 25 per 

 cent of their debts from their crop proceeds that year. There would be no 

 pressure for payment of the remaining 75 per cent until Congress had 

 had the chance to act. 14 Governor George F. Shafer of North Dakota, a 

 Republican, said that this "seed moratorium" meant relief for 40,000 farm- 

 ers in his state amounting to about $6,250,ooo. la Another move, a pro- 

 posed fifteen-million-bushel wheat deal with China, intended to buoy 

 prices in critical farm states before the election, ran into trouble first when 

 the Reconstruction Finance Corporation asked for "adequate security" 

 in financing it and then when the Farmers' National Grain Corporation 

 showed an unwillingness to underwrite it. 16 



On October 4 Hoover fired "the opening gun of a home-stretch drive 

 to reclaim the revolting West." It is significant that he chose Des Moines, 

 Iowa, the state of his birth, as the place in which to start his campaign 

 for re-election. According to the Chicago Tribune, Iowa was "the heart 

 of the Republican disaffection and dissent." The Literary Digest poll gave 



12. Minneapolis Journal, September 14, 1932. 



13. Ibid., September 29, 1932. 



14. Minneapolis Tribune, September 29, 1932; William S. Myers, The State Papers 

 and Other Public Writings of Herbert Hoover (2 vols., New York, 1934), II, 287-89. 



15. Minneapolis Tribune, September 30, 1932. 



16. Pioneer Press (St. Paul), October 15, 1932. 



