AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



failed to reach the desired levels; still he felt that some progress had been 

 made, even though the improvement was not uniform and the rate of 

 progress in many areas was inadequate to prevent acute distress. The 

 farm holiday group, "the hell-raising boys" with whom he had "never 

 seen eye to eye," he tossed into the same obstructionist category as the 

 "reactionaries." Wallace said that one reason why he had come out to 

 Iowa was to determine whether the farmers of the corn belt were ready 

 for production and marketing controls. 



If they are, new legislation will be necessary; the existing laws, I am quite con- 

 vinced, will not permit the methods the governors have in mind. It would be 

 necessary, apparently, to declare agriculture a public utility, and then to begin 

 the truly staggering task of deciding which farmers should have certificates 

 of public convenience and necessity, of telling farmers whether they would be 

 permitted to farm at all, what crops they might grow, how they might plant, 

 and how, when and where they might market them; of requiring from each 

 of the six and one-half million farmers in the United States detailed, periodic 

 reports of receipts and expenditures and inventories; and finally, of checking 

 up on each of these reports with appropriate frequency. That sort of thing is in- 

 volved in all public utility regulation, and I presume agriculture could not be 

 any exception. 27 



In place of this the administration offered its corn-hog and monetary 

 programs and announced the forty-five-cent per bushel loan on wheat. 



By early December cash started to roll into the Middle West under the 

 corn-hog program. The forty-five-cent loans per bushel on corn stored 

 on the farm were being made at the rate of $100,000 a day, and the pre- 

 diction was that this soon would rise to $1,000,000 a day. Such loans were 

 advanced only to farmers who agreed to sign for corn and hog reductions. 28 



Late in December, the program was moving along at a rapid pace. 

 Loans were being made in volume in states such as Nebraska, Illinois, 

 Minnesota, and South Dakota which had warehouse laws and which 

 permitted borrowing on corn stored on the farm. Missouri was reported 

 in the process of taking action to establish a farm-warehouse system. As a 

 result, the corn market stiffened and cash actually was flowing into the 

 corn-belt states. Curiously enough, this program was giving the farmers 



27. Wallaces' Farmer and Iowa Homestead, LVIII (November 25, 1933), p. 5- 



28. Ibid. (December 9, 1933), p. 3. 



