NEW DEAL FARM PROGRAM 4>I 



agricultural matters. When the doors were unlocked a political miracle 

 had come to pass: the various farm organizations had come to an agree- 

 ment. They would unite in support of Domestic Allotment." ' 



Apparently, these preliminary efforts were not without some results. 

 Late in 1932 about 150 members of Congress were reported banded to- 

 gether to force through the short session of Congress a four-point pro- 

 gram. According to E. A. O'Neal, president of the American Farm 

 Bureau Federation, congressmen from both parties were backing an 

 agricultural program which included expansion of the currency, devalua- 

 tion of the dollar, the cessation of mortgage foreclosures, and the extension 

 of equality to agriculture and labor. 21 



What appeared to be a major move in the renewed drive to bring re- 

 lief to agriculture took shape when Marvin Jones, chairman of the 

 House Committee on Agriculture, introduced a domestic allotment bill in- 

 tended to serve as a temporary measure "pending more permanent ad- 

 justment of such burdens as the farm-mortgage situation, trade barriers, 

 and taxes." : J The House Committee on Agriculture began hearings on 

 December 14 and continued until December 20. On January 3 Jones re- 

 ported the bill to the House. The bill was a "production control measure 

 on an allotment basis." It sought to foster "agricultural planning and re- 

 adjustment to meet changed world conditions and to aid in restoring the 

 parity between agricultural and other industries and correcting the in- 

 equalities between the prices of agricultural and other commodities." The 

 Secretary of Agriculture was granted power to make allotments to each 

 producer on the basis of "his domestic consumption percentage." Producers 

 would receive payments if the acreage or production of a specific crop was 

 below that of the specified period provided for in the bill. The President 

 could by proclamation extend the operations of the act "from year to year 

 for such commodities as the Secretary of Agriculture should recommend 

 as necessary to correct 'inequality between the price of such commodity 

 and other commodities.' " It was similar in many respects to the Hope- 

 Norbeck bill; it was a compromise between the McNary-Haugen, export 

 debenture, and domestic allotment plans. 23 



20. Fortune, VII (February, 1933), pp. 117-18. 



21. Pioneer Press, December 21, 1932. 



22. "Farm Rehearsal," Business Wee\ (January n, 1933), p. 3. 



23. Nourse, Davis, and Black, Three Years of the A.A.A., pp. 14-15. 



