49 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



able lands to new and profitable ones which were irrigated or else had 

 ample rainfall and sufficient tall grasses. 



This was no mean program. Obviously, the government would have 

 to buy out the poor land before the farmer could be induced to move from 

 it. But once the farmer had sold his land, the question was where would 

 he go? Then, too, if the government purchased his land, what would it 

 do with it? 



Opposition to such a program was to be expected. Some western news- 

 papers had already started a campaign of opposition, charging that if the 

 government went ahead and purchased this kind of land in states like 

 South Dakota, there probably would not be enough people left in some of 

 the counties to continue with the county form of government. Then there 

 was the matter of taxation after these submarginal lands had been taken 

 out of cultivation; where would the revenues that these lands formerly 

 contributed come from ? Also, there was bound to be a strong psychologi- 

 cal reaction on the part of the people involved. These people "despite the 

 lack of rainfall, lean prices and the devastations of grasshoppers [had] 

 through the years managed somehow to build towns, obtain homes and 

 educate their children," and probably would be unwilling to leave the 

 regions to which they were sentimentally attached. 37 



After one year of the New Deal, it came as no surprise that critics began 

 to pass judgment on the accomplishments and the shortcomings of the 

 A.A.A. It was observed that many who cooperated with the A.A.A. were 

 for it, but there was a very strong undercurrent of resentment evident on 

 the part of a sizable number of others. Many who were opposed to it did 

 not criticize it openly, partly on the theory that they did not want to 

 handicap the administration in its experimental efforts until a sufficient 

 amount of time had passed "to demonstrate the futility or the success of 

 attempting to legislate prosperity into agriculture." Others were open 

 and more pointed in their criticisms. Some farmers who had been prac- 

 ticing soil fertility on their own were being penalized because they were 

 curtailing the output after their own fashion and not after that prescribed 

 by the A.A.A. Complaints were also registered that benefit payments 

 were going to the large speculative farmers who were in part responsible 

 for the excessive production, while the small producers were carrying the 



37. New YorJ^ Times, April i, 1934. 



