270 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



ture was the first major occupation of Americans which reached 

 this unhappy state. 



The nub of the Triple A program w,as crop reduction. The 

 basic idea of the plan was to raise prices by lowering supply. 

 During the Hoover administration a half -hearted attempt had 

 been made to do this, but it had failed since there was no way 

 of repaying the farmers for their lower production. (See page 

 65.) The important thing about the Triple A was that it did 

 pay for this decreased production. 



From the point of view of planning this means that the 

 Triple A attempted to give the farmers some very necessary 

 cash and at the same time control their production. Actually, 

 the idea of paying producers to control production is not a new 

 one. The tariff is a form of subsidy which exercises a control 

 over industrial production. The major difference between the 

 Triple A and the tariff was that the Triple A was a subsidy 

 given only to those who agreed to accept a planned production. 

 In other words, the government was paying people to support 

 this plan. 



If we trace the flow of power in the Triple A, we can say 

 that it began with Congress. From Congress it went to the 

 actual producers who elected to accept or refuse crop reduction. 

 When a two'thirds majority of producers accepted reduction, 

 the power then flowed to the Department of Agriculture which 

 administered the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The only direct 

 authority above the administration of the Triple A was the 

 courts, and it was the courts who overthrew the original Triple 

 A. The opposition did not come from the producers. Instead it 

 came from the manufacturers who paid processing taxes which 

 were given to the producers. Thus the first attempt to plan 

 production by paying producers to cooperate with the plan 

 failed. Actually, most manufacturers collected the processing 

 tax from consumers by charging higher prices for their goods. 

 However, since the manufacturers believed that these higher 



