AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



When the bill was reported from the committee, it covered only four 

 commodities cotton, wheat, tobacco, and hogs. Those who favored 

 limiting the bill to these four commodities did so on the theory that these 

 four had a controlling effect upon prices for other agricultural commodi- 

 ties. On the floor of the House, spokesmen for the dairy interests fought 

 to include butterfat. Once butterfat was included, the rice and peanut 

 producers also lined up enough votes to have their products included. In 

 amended form the bill passed the House by a vote of 203 to I50. 24 



Just who was responsible for drafting the bill and precisely what the 

 attitude of the incoming administration toward it was at the time is not 

 quite clear. George Peek wrote that "the bill was a composite of a variety 

 of ideas contributed by Tugwell, Morgenthau, Ezekiel, M. L. Wilson, 

 some other professors and economists and perhaps Henry Wallace. It was 

 not the farmers' measure." 23 Senator Ellison D. Smith of South Carolina, 

 upon his return to Washington from New York, where he visited Roose- 

 velt and discussed the Jones bill, reported that Roosevelt approved of 

 the allotment plan in principle but "felt its provisions should be confined 

 to wheat and cotton." 26 



On February 20, 1933, the bill was reported to the Senate from the Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture and Forestry by Senator Lynn Frazier. The Senate 

 committee amended the bill in a fashion that made it unacceptable to the 

 farm groups that supported it in the House. The application of the bill 

 was limited to wheat and cotton and the provision to control acreage 

 was eliminated. There also were changes in the benefit payments pro- 

 posed. 27 



Had the Jones bill been passed by the Senate, the chances are that Presi- 

 dent Hoover would have vetoed it. Hyde, the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 opposed it because it "would not afford substantial relief to agriculture" 

 and because it proposed "such drastic regulation as to be impossible of 

 effective administration." Despite the generally acknowledged Republican 

 opposition to the plan, the third and final report of the Federal Farm 



24. Congressional Digest, XII (February, 1933), p. 33; Congressional Record, 72 

 Congress, 2 session, Vol. LXXVI, Part 2 (1933), pp. 1257, 1338-54, 1363-93, 1481- 

 1545, 1582-1616, 1658-1710, 1714. 



25. Peek, Why Quit Our Own, p. 71. 



26. Congressional Digest, XII (February, 1933), p. 33. 



27. Ibid. (March, 1933), pp. 89-90. 



