54 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



who sought to bring about economic planning for industry. "Neither big 

 business nor little business nor the general public showed the slightest 

 interest in further experimentation with the application of a government- 

 controlled planned economy for the business world." 



The same was hardly true of the A.A.A. There was strong support for 

 it, despite the numerous protests that had been leveled against it. The 

 administration was for the program, and so were many farmers. After all, 

 it had been rewarding to those with little or no income, though hardly 

 to the extent that it had been to the large operators with many acres to 

 retire. The A.A.A. had meant some sort of a guaranteed income for many 

 farmers whether their crops were harvested or not. 5 Hence the admin- 

 istration had to move with speed to avert any serious aftermath. New 

 sources for revenue had to be found or else the contracts the government 

 had entered into would go by default, which was something that the 

 administration could hardly afford to have happen in an election year. 6 



Advance reports had it that Roosevelt had approved making the rela- 

 tively obscure Soil Erosion Act of 1935 the vehicle for carrying out the 

 purposes of the invalidated measure. 7 The liberal Nation wrote in caustic 

 fashion : "The show was put into rehearsal by our White House Ziegfeld 

 twenty-four hours after the court's decision was announced. . . ." It was 

 suggested that what had been termed crop control in the original act 

 would become soil conservation in the new measure. In other words the 

 farmer, who under the old A.A.A. was paid benefits for retiring a cer- 

 tain number of acres, would be paid under the new measure not for 

 retiring these acres, but for "turning them into pasture, woodland, or 

 fertility-restoring legumes." 8 



5. "The New Soil Conservation Act Substitute for AAA," Congressional Digest, 

 XV (March, 1936), p. 68. This issue is devoted exclusively to the 1936 version of 

 the A.A.A. 



6. U. S. Dept. Agri., Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Agricultural Con- 

 servation, 1936, A Report of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (Wash- 

 ington, 1937), pp. 2-4. 



7. New Yorf( Times, January 17, 1936. This transition had been given serious 

 consideration for some time before the Supreme Court decision. The court action 

 simply hastened it. See Edwin G. Nourse, Government in Relation to Agriculture 

 (Washington, 1940), p. 918. 



8. Paul Ward, "The AAA Puts on False Whiskers," The Nation, CXLII (Janu- 

 ary 22, 1936), pp. 93-94. 



