5*8 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



sooner had this become law than another serious drought hit the nation. 

 This again confirmed the fact that the weather had a greater bearing on 

 the output of the farmers than did the acreage-allotment and surplus- 

 control features of the administration. 



If the year 1936 was one of drought, the following two years were the 

 very opposite of scarcity. Favorable growing conditions in 1937 and in 

 1938 again brought the farmers face to face with the surplus problem 

 and low prices. Once more the administration was forced to reconsider 

 its program. If only a broader one could be devised, one that would make 

 it possible for farmers to control larger reserves through storage, the prob- 

 lems of surplus and drought would be met. This was the reasoning be- 

 hind the ever normal granary plan that was incorporated into the A.A.A. 

 of I 93 8. 35 



In February, 1938, President Roosevelt signed the A.A.A. of 1938, the 

 ever normal granary bill which put on the statute books the first measure 

 for which the special session of Congress had been called three months 

 earlier. The law established a system of storing away surpluses of cotton, 

 rice, tobacco, corn, and wheat during abundant years for use in times of 

 lean years. Roosevelt, in signing the measure, said that this was part of 

 the program to give farming a fair share of the national income, "to pro- 

 vide consumers with abundant supplies of food and fiber, to stop waste 

 of soil, and to reduce the gap between huge surpluses and disastrous short- 

 ages." ' 



The nation is now agreed that we must have greater reserves of food and feed 

 to use in years of damaging weather and to help iron out extreme ups and downs 

 of price. We are agreed that the real and lasting progress of the people of farm 

 and city alike will come not from the old familiar cycle of glut and scarcity, 

 not from the succession of boom and collapse, but from the steady and sus- 

 tained increases in production and fair exchange of things that human beings 

 need. 36 



Under this act benefit payments would be paid farmers who withdrew 

 acreages from production and employed soil-building practices, and loans 

 would be made when the prices of corn, cotton, and wheat fell below cer- 



35. U. S. Dept. Agri., Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Agricultural 

 Adjustment, 1937-1938 (Washington, 1938), pp. 17-18. 



36. Milwaukee Sentinel, February 17, 1938. 



