Chapter XVIII 

 THE NEW DEAL: LATER STAGES 



EVEN before the A.A.A. had been declared unconstitutional, adminis- 

 tration leaders had been laying plans for a new program to take the 

 place of the old; in fact so calculated and speedy was their work that a 

 new act was passed in less than two months following the invalidation of 

 the old. In this as in other instances, speed was of the essence: the pro- 

 gram, unlike that of the N.R.A., had much support among the farmers, 

 and a presidential election was a matter of months away. Over the next 

 three years such matters as soil conservation, the ever normal granary plan, 

 crop insurance, aid to farm tenants, rural rehabilitation, a redirection of 

 land use, crop-control revolts, revival of cost-of-production demands, trade 

 treaties, flare-ups with organized labor, and the income-certificate plan 

 came up for either periodic or fairly consistent attention. The congres- 

 sional election of 1938, coming at a time of low prices, brought the New 

 Dealers the greatest defeat that they had yet faced, but the outbreak of 

 war in the fall of 1939 helped send prices skyrocketing. 



The invalidation of the processing tax and production-control features 

 of the A.A.A. was hardly to pass without notice. A New YorJ^ Times 

 correspondent, writing from Omaha, found some dismay among the 

 farmers because of the court action; perhaps the biggest surprise came 

 over the thorough manner in which the tribunal had acted. 1 Edward A. 

 O'Neal, the blunt and aggressive president of the American Farm Bureau 

 Federation, a veritable pillar of support for the A.A.A., spoke in exasper- 



i. New Yor\ Times, January 12, 1936. 



