NEW DEAL: FIRST PHASES 475 



believed that steps had to be taken to relieve the surplus, while Peek 

 thought that the shrinking foreign market and high distribution costs 

 needed attention first. Even though the Wallace viewpoint prevailed, the 

 fact is that these differences delayed the launching of the corn-hog pro- 

 gram. Another cause for this late start was that there was no producers* 

 organization to spearhead the indoctrination work in the corn belt; hence 

 time was lost in "orienting" these producers. 5 



Wallace, while on an earlier trip through the Middle West, had sug- 

 gested that there be developed an agency to work closely with the admin- 

 istration in applying the A.A.A. program to the corn and hog producers. 

 Not much later committees were set up in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South 

 Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Missouri which 

 came together in a national meeting in Des Moines on July 18. The job 

 of this conference was to select a national committee of corn and hog 

 producers consisting of twenty-five members, twenty-one of whom were 

 to be selected from the states mentioned and the remaining four by the 

 presiding officer. The delegates said that the farmers were in favor of 

 curtailing production as a means for obtaining parity prices, and to get 

 such a program under way it was agreed that representatives of the Des 

 Moines meeting would confer with agents of the processors in Chicago 

 on July 20. 



When the Chicago meeting came together the processors stressed the 

 need for marketing agreements and the finding of new markets. They 

 opposed the processing tax out of fear that a production-adjustment pro- 

 gram would tend to depress prices. In fact they looked with disfavor on 

 curtailment of corn and hog production until all chances for enlarging 

 the home and foreign markets had been exhausted. 



More conferences led to the adoption of a compromise program. As a 

 concession to the processors, it was agreed that marketing agreements 

 would be encouraged at home and reciprocal trade agreements entered 

 into with foreign countries. As a concession to the producers, it was 

 agreed that two billion pounds of hogs would be taken from the regular 

 market channels and also that controls would be applied in the produc- 

 tion of corn and hogs. 



Of the ways discussed for reducing the hog tonnage in the 1933-34 mar- 



5. D. A. FitzGerald, Livestoc^ Under the AAA (Washington, 1935), pp. 52-55. 



