AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



tent of their currencies as rapidly as did the United States. Currency 

 policies could stimulate foreign trade for a brief period, but they could not 

 create the foreign demand that the reduction of tariff barriers could. 14 

 Among the severest critics of the administration was the Farm Holiday 

 Association, which appeared to have had a degree of influence on some of 

 the lawmakers of the western Middle West. Its leaders were so taken up 

 with the ideas behind the N.R.A. that they wanted them extended to 

 agriculture; in fact, leaders of the movement had been busy drafting a 

 code to submit to the directors of the holiday association, who were to 

 assemble in Des Moines on September 22. This code was based on the 

 "cost of production" demands of the association, which would seek to 

 establish a net income for farmers, reduce their working hours, eliminate 

 destructive trade practices, and adjust general farm prices to living costs. 

 One Farm Holiday spokesman was quoted as saying that "if N.R.A. has 

 moved in to stay, I'm going to fix up a room for A.P.C. Agricultural 

 Production Cost. If the industrialist is entitled to cost of production, and 

 the law says he is, so is the farmer." 1 



In North Dakota opposition to the A.A.A. and the attempt to get cost 

 of production for the farmers took a not unexpected turn. In mid-October 

 Governor William Langer announced that because of the sudden drop in 

 wheat prices and the rise in prices of commodities that the farmers bought, 

 he would act in accordance with the recently enacted law which em- 

 powered him to declare an embargo on any commodity selling below the 

 cost of production. Notice was served upon the President, Wallace, and 

 Johnson that this embargo would go into effect immediately unless mini- 

 mum prices were fixed or unless more effective measures were taken to 

 lift prices. In this fashion Langer had hoped to tie up some fifty or sixty 

 million bushels of wheat, and even threatened to call out the troops to 

 enforce the embargo on this and other commodities. 16 



Langer, hoping that the embargo would spread to other states, sent 

 letters to a half-dozen other governors asking them to join him, but the 

 replies that he received were hardly encouraging. Olson of Minnesota 

 questioned both his authority to declare such an embargo and the effective- 

 ly Ibid., pp. 59-60. 



15. Quoted in the Milwaukee Journal, September 14, 21, 1933. 



16. Pioneer Press (St. Paul), October 16, 17, 1933; St. Paul Dispatch, October 

 16, 1933- 



