534 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



On the eve of a vote by the House Agriculture Committee on the 

 Frazier-Lemke price-fixing measure, a large group of Farmers' Union 

 spokesmen from the spring wheat area and others representing the grain 

 cooperatives in that region launched an unsparing attack on the measure. 

 This group, led by Myron W. Thatcher of St. Paul and Glenn Talbott 

 of North Dakota, demanded death for the measure in a letter to Represen- 

 tative Jones of the House committee. 



This came as a great surprise, because the proponents of the measure 

 had counted on the Farmers' Union for their strongest support. This 

 meant that the organizations from the area for which Senator Frazier 

 and Congressman Lemke purported to speak were aligned against the 

 bill and that it was without the support of any major farm group. These 

 spokesmen for the Farmers' Union said that no one in Washington was 

 authorized to speak in favor of the bill in their behalf. 88 After a 15 to 6 

 vote against the bill, the committee pigeonholed it. 89 



Meanwhile members of the upper house began to gird themselves for 

 action. A group of twenty western and southern senators sought passage 

 of the proposal despite its overwhelming rejection by the House commit- 

 tee, which had acted in line with the wishes of the administration. This 

 decision of the twenty senators also came in the face of a blistering at- 

 tack from the Farmers' Union. This was proof that the Union had been 

 split wide-open on a question that farm economists had long felt was 

 unworkable and prohibitive in cost. 



The Farmers' Union's statement was this: 



The police force necessary to enforce provisions for regulation and regimen- 

 tation outlined in 8570 staggers the imagination. How extensive bootlegging and 

 policing would become is far beyond that envisioned by the proponents of the 

 measure. 



The measure would centralize authority in the Secretary of Agriculture to a 

 degree never hitherto contemplated nor proposed. Even a casual perusal of 

 the provisions reveals that the powers accord [ed] to the Secretary are indeed 

 amazing. 



While the Secretary of Agriculture has been accused on many occasions by 

 leading proponents of 8570 of exercising despotic powers over the American 

 farmer, 8570 in its practical operations would make him a dictator in both 



88. Ibid., April 20, 1939. 



89. St. Paul Dispatch, April 25, 1939. 



