14 GRAZING FEES GUARANTY PRICE ON WHEAT. 



and this matter is what controlled the mind of the grain dealer in 

 proceeding with his business. 



Mr. McLaughlin of Michigan. I do not wish to intimate that we 

 would not consider that authentic, but I wished to know. 



Mr. Clement. I thank you for calling my attention to that. We 

 will be glad to give you that. 



Although it is absolutely necessary that unquestionable power shall be placed 

 in my hands in order to insure the success of this administration of the food 

 supplies of the country, I am confident that the exercise of those powers will 

 be necessary only in a few cases where some small and selfish minority proves 

 unwilling to put the nation's interest above personal advantage. * * * 



The successful conduct of the projected food administration by such means 

 will be the finest possible demonstration of the vcillingness, the ability and the 

 efficiency of democracy, and of its justified reliance upon the freedom of 

 individual initiative. * * * 



It is of vital Interest and importance to every man who produces food and 

 to every man who takes part in its distribution that these policies thus liberally 

 administered should succeed and succeed altogether. It is only in that way 

 that we can prove it to be absolutely unnecessary to resort to the rigorous and 

 drastic measures which have proved to be necessary in some of the European 

 countries. 



Again, on the same day, there was another statement emanating 

 from Mr. Hoover that was disseminated by the Associated Press and 

 published in the same paper. 



HOOVEE WILLING TO SEEVE WITHOUT PAT. 



A Statement given out by Mr. Hoover after the White House announcement 

 was made gave his plans for food administration and called on the country 

 to render voluntary assistance in carrying it out. 



Mr. Hoover proposed that the Food Administration be divided into four 

 great branches, whose duties he defined in detail. Most of the work would 

 be carried out by men and women of the country on a volunteer basis. 



" If this can not be done," said Mr. Hoover's statement, " I shall certainly 

 and willingly surrender the task to some other method of emergency. I hold 

 that democracy can yield to discipline, and that we can solve this food problem 

 for our own people and our Allies in this way and that to have done so will 

 have been a greater service than our immediate objective, for we will have 

 demonstrated the Tightness of our faith and our ability to defend ourselves 

 without being Prussianized. * * * 



"It has been the experience of all European food control that results can 

 be best accomplished by acting through or by regulation of the ordinary dis- 

 tributing agencies in the community, placing such restrictions which will cause 

 a minimum sacrifice on the part of the legitimate distributors, and will elimi- 

 nate broad national waste, unnecessary hoarding, and the sheer speculator in 

 foodstufEs. With the good will of the distributing community it is possible to 

 do this without disruption of the essential commerce of the country." 



Those two statements, coming from the highest authorities, had 

 the effect of causing the grain dealers to proceed with their business 

 m a natural, normal way. They had no reason to doubt that there 

 was going to be any such circumstance or legislation that would tend 

 or would authorize the fixing of a price. This was in May. As things 

 proceeded a bill was presented in Congress and debated there. There 

 arose from time to time various stories with reference to the fixing 

 of the price of wheat and other commodities that caused us to be 

 very unsettled. Those of us who were handling grain could not 

 afford to handle the new crop of wheat which was soon to begin to 

 move m Texas and those other States without having some definite 

 information as to whether or not the price might be fixed. The 

 secretaries of several associations did get into communication with 



