5 22 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



This threw the administration all the more on the defensive. In Octo- 

 ber, 1938, Wallace told a group of listeners in Springfield, Illinois, to fight 

 for the "best farm program agriculture ever had" and cautioned the corn- 

 belt farmers to beware of the substitutes that were being offered. He 

 granted that it was neither a perfect measure nor one that represented "a 

 complete charter of farm equality," but maintained that it was capable of 

 being improved on with experience. He credited the new act with prevent- 

 ing the big drop in farm income that many had expected, especially in 

 view of the drastic reduction in factory employment and payrolls. 



Most prominent among the measures intended to take the place of the 

 A.A.A. was a price-fixing plan which favored setting the price of farm 

 products at the "cost of production, or parity, or some other figure." Wal- 

 lace made it clear that he was not opposed to price fixing in itself, but 

 felt that any scheme proposing that a fixed price be paid on an unlimited 

 quantity of goods was unsound. "No business organization anywhere has 

 ever been able to fix a price while exercising no control whatever over 

 production. Look out for price-fixing combined with unlimited produc- 

 tion unless you want to get hurt." 51 



About that time there took effect a reorganization of the personnel in 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, a shift that was referred 

 to as the most drastic in a quarter century. These changes were announced 

 by Wallace after a tour of the Middle West and Southwest during which 

 he had personally studied the reaction of the farmers to the 1938 farm 

 program. The reasons given for the reorganization was that it would 

 facilitate coordination of the marketing and production-control features 

 of the farm program that had been undergoing so much fire. The new 

 arrangement was also expected to encourage the finding of new domestic 

 markets. 52 



It was customary for farmers, like other groups, to blame the party in 

 power for their ailments. Such was the case in Kansas, where the blame 

 for the farmers' troubles was placed squarely on the shoulders of the fed- 

 eral farm program. But at the same time these grievances could hardly 

 be taken to mean that the Kansas farmers were opposed to federal activ- 

 ities. They had been receiving millions of dollars in direct payments an- 



51. Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 1938. 



52. Milwaukee Journal, October 17, 1938. 



