NEW DEAL: LATER STAGES 



were discovering that producers who were being discouraged from rais- 

 ing soil-depleting crops were going into dairying with the aid of the 

 federal government. Equally annoying was the campaign being waged 

 by the A.F.L. and the C.I.O. to unionize farm labor. 46 



During the spring and early summer of 1938 elements from the spring 

 wheat states also voiced their annual protests against the proposed acreage 

 reductions for 1939. A strong complaint was prepared by a committee 

 representing certain marketing and milling interests from North Dakota, 

 South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana, spearheaded by groups like the 

 Greater North Dakota Association, the Greater South Dakota Association, 

 the Montanans, Inc., and certain undesignated farm groups from Minne- 

 sota. 47 As in previous years, these elements demanded that sweeping re- 

 ductions in acreage be confined to those wheat varieties of which there 

 were surpluses, particularly the winter wheat types, and not be extended 

 to the spring varieties, of which, they claimed, there never had been any 

 surpluses. 48 



If these elements were serious, the administration was equally serious 

 in its insistence that its recommendations be accepted. Official word had 

 it that the government would refuse to reclassify wheat on the basis of 

 these demands but would proceed to curtail the entire acreage on the basis 

 of its calculations. It was said that the failure of the spring wheat growers 

 to comply with the entire wheat program would bring about its eventual 

 breakdown. H. R. Tolley, A.A.A. administrator, said that the request 

 from these elements was studied by Congress and the administration and 

 that the decision finally reached was that there could be no exceptions. 

 The prices of all wheats, including the spring varieties, had declined 

 sharply and united action had to be taken by all producers. 49 



By the fall of 1938 the question of low farm prices was as far from 

 solution as ever. The great agricultural staples remained depressed, despite 

 the frantic efforts that had been made by the administration to raise them. 

 As expected, the critics had nothing to offer in place of the A.A.A. other 

 than the usual medley of substitute proposals : more subsidies, price fixing, 

 outright repeal, and currency inflation. 50 



46. Milwaukee Sentinel, May 13, 1938. 47. Minneapolis Journal, July 6, 1938. 

 48. Minneapolis Tribune, June 7, 1938. 49. Minneapolis Journal, July 6, 1938. 

 50. Ibid., October 19, 1938. 



