768 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 6306. Also, petition of the State camp of Pennsylvania, Pa­ The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the triotic Order Sons of America, Philadelphia, Pa., petitioning gentleman from Tennessee? consideration of their resolution with reference to the ap­ There was no objection. pointment of Mr. Taylor to the Vatican; to the Committee Mr. DuNN asked and was given perm1sswn to revise and on Foreign Affairs. extend his own remarks in the RECORD. 6307. Also, petition of LeeR. Rist, of Jacksonville, Til., peti­ Mr. CELLER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to tioning consideration of his resolution with reference to the extend my own remarks in the RECORD in four instances: Dies committee; to the Committee on Rules. (1) A tribute to the late Representative Willi~m I. Sirovich; (2) the foreign-trade zone at New York; (3) on the subject Recovery, Not Higher Taxes; and (4) on loan to Finland. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1940 gentleman from New York? There was no objection. The House met at 12 o'clock noon. The Chaplain, Rev. James Shera Montgomery, D. D., PERMISSION TO ADDRESS THE HOUSE offered the following prayer: Mr. DICKSTEIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may address the House for 1 minute. 0 Lord God, our Heavenly Father, we entreat Thee to meet The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the with us, transforming and ennobling our aspirations, our gentleman from New York? thoughts, and our endeavors. We thank Thee for our spir­ There was no objection. itual privileges and pray that we may have a fuller apprecia­ Mr. DICKSTEIN. Mr. Speaker, I had the honor to address tion of our indebtedness to Thee. Grant us in the utmost this body last Wednesday, January 24, on the subject of the de­ simplicity and childlike confidence to consecrate our time struction of human life in Poland. You will find that address to Thee and our homeland. Thou art our hiding place; Thou on page 621. Today, I have introduced a resolution, House shalt preserve us from trouble; Thou shalt compass us about Resolution 369, which has been referred to the Foreign Affairs with songs of deliverance. Do Thou hear our prayer for all Committee, and I hope that the committee will give it an early those in sorrow; for those who have been forsaken of the hearing and favorable consideration. I also trust that Con­ best and the dearest; for those who have been evilly treated; gress will adopt this resolution since I feel that as a Govern­ for the poor who are struggling with poverty and the winter's ment which was instrumental in the creation of the Polish blast; and for those whose hearts have been invaded by state in the year 1918 it is our duty to express our sympathy tragedy and cannot tell the world their thoughts. 0 Thou with the suffering and unfortunate people of that state. who art sufficient for all things, be pleased to hear us. In Without burdening this House with any further statements I our Saviour's name. Amen. want to call t}J.e Members' attention to a press release of the The Journal of the proceedings of yesterday was read and New York Times of January 29, 1940, which gives a very clear approved. picture of the happenings in· Poland. MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT [From the New York Times of January 29, 1940] A message in writing from the President of the United MAss SHOOTINGS IN POLAND LAID TO NAZIS BY CARDINAir-MEMORAN­ States was communicated to the House by Mr. Latta, one DUM, PRESENTED TO POPE, ACCUSES GERMANS OF BREAKING UP of his secretaries, who also informed the House that on the FAMILIES AND JAILINt; "SCORES OF THOUSANDS" following dates the President approved and signed bills of (By Camille M. Cianfarra) RoME, January 28 .-Details of mass shootings, man hunts by the House of the following titles: German Gestapo (secret police) agents, plundering and persecutions On January 25, 1940: conducted with cold-blooded brutality and ferocity are contained H. R. 7171. An act to amend section 22 of the Agricultural in a memorandum published today describing what is held to be the situation of the Catholic Church and of the Polish people in Adjustment Act. the archdioceses of Gniezno and Poznan. On January 26, 1940: The memorandum, which is authorized by August Cardinal Hlond, . H. R. 2953. An act authorizing States owning lands or in­ Primate of Poland, was presented to the Pope last week. On it the terests therein acquired from the United States to include Vatican based several of its recent broadcasts of Polish atrocities in German-occupied Poland. The 11,000-word document contains the same in certain agreements for the conservation of oil seven reports covering conditions up to the 30th of December 1939. and gas resources; and · It charges Germany with deliberately wanting to destroy the H. R. 3931. An act for the relief of Charles H. LeGay. Catholic religion and depopulating of all Polish nationals in the territories of Pomerania, Poznan, and Silesia, which she has an­ MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE nexed. To carry out this policy, the memorandum says, the Ger­ A message from the Senate, by Mr. St. Claire, one of its mans have closed the churches in several districts and are deporting clerks, announced that the Senate insists upon its amend­ Poles from every walk of life, be they of the nobility or of the lower classes, to concentration camps in Germany. ments to the bill (H. R. 7805) entitled "An act making sup­ They are sending young Polish boys and girls still in their teens plemental appropriations for the Military and Naval Estab­ to Germany, it is asserted, in order to imbue them with Nazi ideals. lishments, Coast Guard, and Federal Bureau of Investigation, Older persons are herded into railroad cars and dumped after sev­ for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, and for other pur­ eral days' journey in towns within the area called "Government General Poland," where they are kept in unsanitary overcrowded poses," disagreed to by the House; agrees to the conference barracks and where they sleep on vermin-ridden straw mats. asked by the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Families are broken up, it is charged, the father usually being Houses thereon, and appoints Mr. ADAMS, Mr. GLASS, Mr. deported to a concentration camp, the mother abandoned to her fate with no money or belongings, and the children, if they have McKELLAR, Mr. HAYDEN, Mr. BYRNES, Mr. HALE, and Mr. survived the hardships, sent to Germany. TowNsEND to be the conferees on the part of the Senate. The memorandum makes clear that inasmuch as the forced The message also announced that the Senate disagrees to Polish emigration from the German-annexed districts must end by the amendment of the House to the bill (S. 1036) entitled April 1, millions of Poles are expected to be packed into the Gouvernement General territory in a few weeks. They will be com­ "An act to authorize the purchase of certain lands adjacent pletely destitute and therefore, the document says, famine and to the Turtle Mountain Indian Agency in the State of North decimation by epidemics are expected. Dakota," requests a conference with the House on the dis­ "It will be a true extermination, conceived with diabolical cun­ agreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and appoints Mr. ning and carried out with unequaled cruelty," says the memoran­ dum, which then appeals for Red Cross aid and foreign relief com­ THOMAS of Oklahoma, Mr. WHEELER, and Mr. FRAZIER to be missions in Gouvernement Poland, where it stresses "the last act the conferees on the part of the Senate. of the unbelievable tragedy is about to take place." Many of EXTENSION OF REMARKS those sent there, it adds, will die of hunger in the spring. The number of l?oles shot up_ .to December 30 runs Into several Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to thousands and those jailed into scores of thousands, according to. extend my remarks in the RECORD, and to include a very able one of the reports. and splendid statement of Hon. Edward O'Neal, president of "The Polish population is barbarously persecuted," it says. "The number of people shot runs into several thousands, those in jail the American Farm Bureau Federation, at a hearing before number scores of thousands. In the jails appalling things take the Ways and Means Committee on January 25, 1940. place. At Bydgoszoz, for instance, prisoners were forced to lie full 1940 CONGRESSIONAL -RECORD-- HOUSE .769 length wfth their faces on tile tce-c:old stone fioe>r-, beateh till they At Gniezno, tt· was said, a Catho!ic convent has been seized by were unconscious, and threatened continuously with death. the Germans to hold imprisoned Jews and the convent fathers YOUTHS SENT TO REICH. turned out. "Raids are being carried out to get hold of the- youth, which is "The principal church in the parish of the Holy Trinity has been exported to Germany. profaned, the parish house invaded, and its funds stolen," it was "There are at present mass deportations of Poles to the Gouverne­ said. ment General Poland, and in this case the victims lose all they "In the archdiocese of Gniezno the German authorities, especially own-land, houses, furniture, shops, clothes, lingerie, and money. the Gestapo, persecute the Catholic clergy, which is terrorized and People are suddenly turned into beggars. Thus deprived of every continually threatened with more such treatment without the pos­ possession, they are sent to the central areas, where there is already sibility of defending itself." a dearth of every commodity. In the spring many of them will die German soldiers were alleged to have killed Father Mariano of hunger." Skazpczak, vicar of Plonkowo, by beating him on the head with The Germans, says another report, are "trampling on every liberty rifle butts. While doing forced labor, Father Guiseppe Domera.cki, of conscience and religious right of the population. parish priest of Gromadno, died and Father Leone Breczewski, "They are suppressing the faith in these lands which have de­ parish priest of Sosnicka, was killed by a German bomb, the report fended it since the days of Bismarck," it goes on. "After having added. incorporated the dioceses of Poznan and Gniezno, the Germans Father Bolesla:w Jasknowski, parish priest of Inowroclaw, and began the extermination of the Polish element foreshadowed ·by Father Romoaldo Soltysinski, parish priest of Rzalkwin, were said Hitler in Mein Kampf, which formed the baSis of the aggression to have died as result of ill-treatment. against Poland. Without taking into account public and secret shootings, without describing the horrors which are being com­ SOME GERMANS AID POLES-MONEY FOUND IN DAMAGED WARSAW mitted in the prisons and concentration camps, we must describe CHURCHES--{;IVEN BY CATHOLICS one of the greatest iniquities of all history, namely, the violent expulsions of people from these dioceses." PARIS, January 28.-Many Germans in occupied Poland appear­ After explaining that the victims are left destitute and that "even to be conscience-stricken by the country's devastation and the their money is stolen," the memorandum describes how the gestapo sufferings inflicted on the Polish people. In collection boxes in agents raid houses during the night and seize between 500 and several damaged churches in Warsaw German coins and banknotes 1,500 people at a time. are found frequently--obviously conscience money of devout Ger­ "In Poznan," says the report describing one of these raids, "the man Catholic soldiers and officials. expulsion of the Poles from their homes takes place under heart­ FUgitives from Nazi war camps relate that German officers and breaking conditions. At 9:30 p. m. the lights in the houses and in privates sometimes helped prisoners escape across the frontier into the streets are turned off and then the hunt for the Poles begins, neighboring neutral countries. In some cases these Germans ask with the result that 500 or more are seized. These poor people for a little "certificate" of their decency and sympathy-a statement cannot sleep and remain in darkened rooms near the window, wait­ signed by the fugitive Pole that he was assisted by the German. ing their turn. One soldier, an Austrian, explained that he was asking for this DRESS IN WARM CLOTHES insurance policy "testifying to services rendered the Polish people" because "I may need this note to save my life if we lose the war." "They dress themselves in their warmest clothes, so as not to When Gestapo agents are not about, German soldiers assure tbe die from cold in a concentration camp, because they generally are Poles that they did not want war with Poland and that they bombed not allowed to take anything except what they have on. Some­ Warsaw under compulsion. They express regrets that so much times a more humane agent allows them to take some few extra­ damage was inflicted on the Polish capital. Officers anxiously woolen clothes. But they must leave their home with what they inquire how the Germans were treated at the end of the last war are wearing; if they are not ready they are taken away in their when they evacuated Poland. night clothes. _No one is allowed to visit those who are in the concentration camps; no one can bring food to them." Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to criticize the German The victims, explains the memorandum, are grouped in the streets, where, covered by the rifles of the Gestapo agents, they Government or the people who seem to be satisfied to live wait for a bus which sometimes is delayed for hours. under that form of government. That is their own affair. · "This winter," says the document, "with 15 degrees below zero However, when the German Government is responsible for and sometimes more, it happened that these poor people--women, children, the aged, and infirm-were obliged to stand on a public the wholesale slaughter of another people, as is now taking street for 4 hours, the stillness of the gelid night broken by lamenta­ place in Poland, I dee1:1 it my duty as a Member of the legis­ tions and sobs. All those seized are taken from Poznan to the lative body of a great democracy to cry out. against such a concentration camp in the Glowna suburbs. This camp is unheated, crime and to focus the attention of the American people and has a cement floor and not a single mattress. "People sleep for weeks on the same stinking, vermin-ridden the world as a whole upon the wanton destruction of an inno­ straw. There are no sanitary facilities or hot water. Attention is cent people. To substantiate my statements I want to insert paid to no one, not even to those who are · dying from illness or here some- releases taken from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: to the aged, the children. and to mothers in the pangs of child­ birth. NAZIS DEFER LODZ EXPULSION ON PAYMENT OF 9,000,000 ZLOTYS "The babies born in these large barns are, for lack of warm water-, GENEVA, January 26.-The Jews of Lodz, Nazi Poland, have been washed with tepid coffee contributed by some generous souls. Ill­ forced to pay a ransom of 9,000,000 zlotys ($1,800,000 at pre-war ness and mortality have reached a high percentage, but doctors and rates) to secure postponement to. the spring of an exp.ulsion order priests are nqt allowed unless they happen to be among the victims." it was reliably learned here today. In describing the condition of the Catholic clergy, the memo­ The expulsion order affected 50,000 Jews concentrated in a num­ randum says that the Gestapo is "especially persecuting the ber of streets. It was intended by the Nazi authorities as the first clergy." The Germans, It adds, shot 15 pries.ts in the archdiocese step toward realization of a program completely to "de-Judaize" the of Gniezno, whose names are listed in the report. largest Polish city annexed by the Reich. Several of the churches have been taken over by the Germans, Monday the Vatican radio broadcast the first of a series of three who are turning them to various uses. The church at Bydgoszcz, descriptions of excesses in Poland. Apparently with papal approval, says the memorandum, was occupied by the police, who held in it the announcer declared the Nazi atrocities affronted the "moral "indecent orgies." Scores of priests, it adds, are in jail, while almost conscience of mankind" and cited the "unimpeachable testimony of all Catholic institutions in the archdioceses of Poznan and Gniezno eyewitnesses to the horrors and inexcusable excesses committed upon have been seized. a hel'pless and homeless people." (J. T. A. News, January 24.) These events were indicative of mounting reaction to German FIFI'EEN PRIESTS REPORTED KILLED brutality in occupied Poland. But the brutality continued, evi­ RoME, January 28.--se-nsational allegations of the widespread denced in such occurrences as: murder and persecution of Catholic priests in Poland by the Ger­ Expulsion: Some 1,900 Jews were slain in a 4-day enforced march man Gestapo (secret police) and soldiers are co-ntained in docu­ of several thousands to the bor-der of Soviet Poland. Jews were ments prepared for Pope Pius XII, it was revealed today by Polish rounded up in Chelm and Hrubiaszow and driven toward the sources at the Vatican. · border. According to details reaching Geneva, "Those falling from The detailed documents were said to bear the authorization of exhaustion were shot dead on the spot. Although the frontier was August Cardinal Hiond, primate of Poland, and list with names and only 4 kilometers distant (from Hrubiaszow), the Nazis took the dates at least 15 priests alleged to have been killed by shooting, beat­ Jews by a: roundabout route covering more than 50 kilometers, ing, and ill-treatment at the hands of the Germans. chasing them across fields, woods, and marshes • • •. Every Not only priests but nuns have been subjected to this persecution few minutes the Nazis ordered those who were tired to stand aside. and humiliation, the report alleges, and children have been turned These were shot dead and thetr bodies left lying in the fields. Dur­ out of Catholic orphanages. ing the march the Jews were not given food or drink, and those "Dozens of priests have been imprisoned and are being humili­ trying to leave formation to take water from ditches were shot dead. ated, beaten, and maltreated," the report says. "Certain numbers "At the Sokal bridge survivors were told that anyone failing to have been deported to Germany and no news of them has been cross the river, either over the bridge or by swimming, within 20 received. Others are kept in concentration camps. . minutes would be shot. On reaching the Soviet side the Jews, "It is not rare to see priests among workmen in the country despite desperate resistance, were taken across the frontier by the fixing roads, repairing bridges, pulling coal carts, working in fac­ Soviet guards and turned over to the Germans. They were told tories, and even demolishing synagogues. they would be shot unless they crossed the river again. A number "Some priests were closed in a pigsty at night, beaten barbarously, swam across and succeeded in entering Soviet territory." (J. T. A. and subjected to tortures." News, January 22.) LXXXVI---49 770 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 Executions: Extracts from Nazi pollee diaries, published in the with a letter to the editor of the Washington Evening Star Breslau newspaper, Schlesische Zeitung, gave further details of treatment of Jews. The Germans, entering the town of Lask, shot by my ·colleague the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. DARDEN] 100 Jews in searching the town. When a Jewish crowd allegedly on the subject of the naval-construction program. tried to prevent the Germans from entering a synagogue, police The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the used their guns and killed several hundred, razing the synagogue. gentleman from Virginia? In Sieradz 35 Jews were executed. In Radom 3,600 Jews were ar­ rested and interned in a concentration camp and more than 100 There was no objection. were executed for "resisting" the Nazi police. The diaries said the Mr. MARCANTONIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous con­ task of the police was "facilitated" by many suicides of Jews to sent to extend my remarks in the RECORD and to include avoid arrest. (J. T. A. News, January 23.) Blackmail: The Jews of Lodz have been forced to pay a "ransom" therein a summary and report issued by the Federal Works of 9,000,000 zlotys ($1,800,000 at pre-war rates) to secure postpone­ Agency, the Work Projects Administration, Division of ment until spring of an expulsion order affecting 50,000 Jews con­ Research. centrated in a number of streets. The Jews were already preparing to leave the city, many being on their way out, when the order was The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the temporarily suspended after the community had paid the "ransom." gentleman from New York? (J. T. A. News, January 25.) There was no objection. RELIEF EFFORTS OBSTRUCTED PERMISSION TO ADDRESS THE HOUSE The American Red Cross some time ago reached an agreement Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to with the German Government containing Nazi assurances of non­ sectarian distribution of Red Cross supplies in Nazi Poland and proceed for 1 minute. permission for periodic American supervision. The American The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the Friends' Service Committee has been holding out for continuous gentleman from Pennsylvania? American supervision. This week the Red Cross decided also to There was no objection. seek continuous supervision and threatened to ·withdraw relief offers unless it obtained a supplementary agreement with the Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to in­ uermans. sert in the REcoRD a letter and financial debt statement I Red Cross: It was learned in Washington that the German au­ have received from the assistant to the Secretary of the thorities have refused to allow James T. Nicholson, Red Cross rep­ resentative, to enter Poland for anything more than a brief visit. Treasury with reference to the foreign obligations owed the Some supplies sent from America arrived in Cracow and were dis­ United States. tributed without supervision, while Nicholson was blocked in his The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the attempts to reach Cracow. The Red Cross said negotiations for a gentleman from Pennsylvania? · supplementary agreement were still in progress, and without it no further supplies would be sent to Poland. (J. T. A. News, Jan­ There was no objection. uary 26.) The matter referred to follows: The Belgian Red Cross reportedly had better results in arranging shipments to Poland. It sent a transport of food, medical supplies, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, and underclothing to Warsaw via Berlin to be distributed under Han. RoBERT F. RICH, Washington, January 8, 1940. supervision of Belgian Legation officials with provision made to House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. insure that at least one-third of the supplies go to the Jews of MY DEAR MR. RICH: In reply to your letter of January 3, 1940, Warsaw. (J. T. A. News, January 22.) addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, there is enclosed a statement showing the outstanding indebtedness of foreign gov­ I hope and pray that the protest by the President of the ernments to the United States as of December 15, 1939, following United States, if and when my resolution will be adopted, will payments made on December 13 and December 15, 1939, by the Governments of Hungary and Finland. This is the latest state­ awaken the conscience of the civilized world and unite all ment published on the subject, and no payments have been received nations in the denunciation of the Nazi terror in str!cken from any of the debtor governments since that date. Poland. You may also be interested in the enclosed copy of a memo­ EXTENSION OF REMARKS randum revised March 1, 1939, covering the indebtedness of foreign governments to the United States. Mr. ROBERTSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent Very ·truly yours, D. w. BELL to extend my remarks in the RECORD and to include there- Assistant to the Secretary.

Statement showing total indebtedness of fotreign governments to the United States, Dec. 15, 1939

Interest postponed Interest accrued and and payable Country Total indebtedness Principal unpaid 1 unpaid under fund· under ·moratorium ing and morato­ agreements rium agreements

Funded debts: BelgiumCzechoslovakia ____ -_-- ______------_ $457, 552, 820. 78 $400, 680, 000. 00 $3, 750, 000. ()() $53, 122, 820. 78 165, 788,588. 45 165, 241, 108.90 ------547,479.55 Estonia ______21,321,017.05 16,466,012.87 Finland ______------______------___ _ 492,360. 19 4, 362,643.99 8, 142,800. 21 8, 042, 466. 77 100,423.44 ------France. ______-_------4, 200, 332, 646. 54 3, 863. 650, 000. 00 38, 636, 500. 00 298, 046, 146. 54 Germany (Austrian indebtedness)2 ______------______26, 011, 672. 09 25, 980, 480. 66 ------31,191.43 Great Britain ______------___ ------__ _ 5, 574, 430, 793. 82 4, 368. 000, 000. 00 131, 520, 000. 00 1, 074, 910, 793. 82 Greece ______-----_------_------___ ------___ _ 34,523,635. 29 31, 516,000.00 449, 080. 00 2, 558, 555. 29 Hungary ______------______------______2, 412, 700. 53 1, 908. MO. 00 57, 072. 7/i 447, 067. 78 Italy ______------______------___ ------______------__ 2, 025, 525, 996. 77 2, 004, 900, 000. 00 2, 506, 125. 00 18, 119. 871. 77 I.atvia ___ _------____ ------__ ------____ ------__ !1, 790, 192. 69 G, ~79, 464. 20 205, 989. 96 1, 704, 738. 53 Lithuania ______------___ ------______------__ 7, 870,378. 50 6, 197, 6S2. 00 185, 930. 46 1, 486, 766. 01 Poland __ _------266, 815, 451. 34 206, 057, 000. 00 6, 161, 835. 00 54, 596, 616. 34 R urnania ______------______------__ ------______------04,914, 114. 7S 63.860, 560.43 ------· ----- 1, O!i3, 554. 35 Yugoslavia 3------______------·------______------61, 817, 578. 15 61, 625, 000. 00 ------192, 578. 15 ---l·------l------l------·------TotaL ______----_ ...... ______------____ _ 12, 926, 250,176.99 11. 231,004, 335.83 184, 065, 316. so 1, 511, 180, 824. 36 1======1======:======1 Unfunded debts: .Armrnia_ ------23,803, 101.11 11,959, 917.49 ------11.843,186.62 Russia·------.. ------394, P92, 092. 46 192,601,297.37 ------202,390,795.09 I------I·------I------TotaL ______I===41=~=' 7=9=5,=1=911=.=5=7=l===2=0=4,=5=61=, =21=4=. 8=6=[=·=--=·=--=·=--=·=--=·=--=·=·=--=·=--=l====21=4~,2=3=3 ::::9=8=1.=71, Grand totaL .••.------13,345,045,673.56 11,435,565,550. 69 . j 184,065,316.80 1, 725,414,806.07

1 Includes principal postponed under moratorium agreements and principal amounts not paid according to contract trrms. 2 'rbe German Government has been notified th~t the Go-:ernment of the United States will look to the German Government for the discharge of the indebtednPs~ of the Government of Austria to the Government of thr Unitt.>d States. 3 This Government bas not accepted the provisions of the moratorium. NOTE.-Indel.Jtedness of Germany to the United States on account of costs of Army of Occupation and awards under Settlement of War Claims Act of 1923, as amended, nut shown in abo\·e statement. Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have you and I If you were to sit in the meetings of the House Com­ Members of Congress look at this statement showing the mittee on Appropriations now, you could see the fine results amount of indebtedness owed us by foreign countri3s. _ we are accomplishing in trying to cut down the extravagant 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 771 expenditures of the Government. It is what I have been in­ land in your district in Ohio which has never been plowed and (sisting on doing for 7 years, and I wish to congratulate the which is still producing a fine bluegrass pasture. This is the kind of thing I like to hear about, for, believe me, I know what such a majority party on seeing the light of day in this respect, and piece of land means. I gather that the first settlers in your part of I am sure you will be doing the right thing if you keep it up. Ohio arrived at about the time that the first settlers came into the Do not stop it until we balance the Budget. I think we now Genesee Valley in western New York-1790. My great-grandfather acquired some Genesee Valley land in 1790, and I am running some have an opportunity to go to these foreign nations that owe of his farms today. Believe it or not, there are tracts on those us great sums of money and ask them to pay their indebted­ farms which have never been plowed. They are upland tra-cts, ness to the United States. We should insist on it. The originally covered with timber. The timber was taken off, I sup­ money is due us, and we should receive some consideration in pose, about 1800 or thereabouts, and from all our records it is apparent that a natural bluegrass sod established itself immedi­ payment of their debts. That is one place where we can g~t ately. It is there now, just as good as ever. We run steers and the money. Furthermore, if they are unable to pay us m dairy cattle and sheep on it, careful never to overstock. It hi:IS cash there is certainly some other way in which they could withstood droughts and deluges. There is no sign of erosion. I meet these obligations. For instance, there are some islands said the timber had been taken off. I should qualify that state­ ment. Here and there a walnut tree was left for shade and for that are in close proximity to America that might be turned beauty. A lot of them are still there. Ours is a limestone country. over as a consideration on the debt. If they would do this, It grows grass and bone. The water is hard. It deposits a coat ing they would be showing their good faith in trying to eliminate of lime on the inside of the kettle on the kitchen stove. Women do not like it when they come to wash their hair. But after all, these debts to America. We do not propose to cancel them, we can't have everything in this world. The truth is these blue­ and they might just as well know it. We are going to insist grass limestone country tracts are God's gift to the farmer, and on payments; and if they are honest, honorable nations, they provided the farmer does not abuse them they will nourish him for will make some suggestions on the payments. They can offer all time. And by the way, I notice in your statement that the tract of land that you know about in Ohio is still owned by a direct some of the West Indies or Bermuda or other land in close descendant of the original settler. This reminds me of an old proximity to the United States. We do not want any country adage which persists where I live. It runs: "The best thing for or territory far from our shores. Look at the above table of the land is the foot of the owner." debts-they owe us over $12,000,000,000. France, Great Brit­ Faithfully yours, J. W. WADSWORTH. ain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, what will you offer; name your PERMISSION TO ADDRESS THE HOUSE price. You come to us with an offer. It is up to you. We are waiting for your proposals. Mr. McDOWELL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent [Here the gavel fell.] that on Wednesday, January 31, after the close of all legis­ lative business and any other special orders, my colleague EXTENSION OF REMARKS from Pennsylvania [Mr. CORBETT] may be permitted to ad­ Mr. JOHNS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to ex­ dress the House for 20 minutes. tend my remarks in the REcoRD by including therein an The SPEAKER. Is there objection? address over the radio by Mr. Elliot Roosevelt entitled "Amer­ There was no objection. ica Looks Ahead." Mr. VREELAND. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the that after the reading of the Journal and disposition of the gentleman from Wisconsin? legislative business on Monday next, I may be allowed to There was no objection. address the House for 30 minutes on Thomas A. Edison. Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that The SPEAKER. Without objection, it is so ordered. the gentleman from California [Mr. GEARHART] may have There was rio objection. permission to extend his remarks in the RECORD and include therein a letter from Clarence Austin Castle. ANNOUNCEMENT The SPEAKER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SHEPPARD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to There was no objection. proceed for 1 minute. THE GROWTH OF BLUEGRASS The SPEAKER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. JENKINS of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous There was no objection. consent to proceed for 1 minute. Mr. SHEPPARD. Mr. Speaker, I regretfully have to an­ The SPEAKER. Is there objection? nounce that my colleague from California, the Honorable There was no objection. ALFRED J. ELLIOTT, is seriously ill at his hotel and will not be Mr. JENKINS· of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I able to attend the session. I hope he will have a speedy inserted in the RECORD a news release put out by the exten­ recovery. He is very, very ill. sion service of the Ohio State University which brought out HEALTH AND WELFARE ACTIVITIES-MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT the fact that Mr. Albert B. Gatch, who lives at Milford, OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 604) Ohio, was living on the same farm that his ancestors pur­ The SPEAKER laid before the House the following message chased from the Government in 1799. In my remarks I from the President of the United States which was read by sought to stress the fact that this was a very unique situation, the Clerk and referred to the Committee on Interstate and and I sought further to stress the fact that some of his land Foreign Commerce, and ordered to be printed: had been in blue grass for well over 100 years and had never To the Congress of the United States: been plowed. Many of the farmers in the limestone section In my special message to the Congress on January 23, 1939, of Ohio and other parts of the country will be interested and I expressed my concern over the inequalities that exist among I hope might benefit from the reading of this article. the States as to health services and resources with which to I am glad to know that my distinguished friend and col­ furnish such services. With that message I transmitted the league from New York, the Honorable JAMES W. WADSWORTH, report and recommendations on national health prepared by noticed what I said, and he has evinced a very lively interest the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and in it. His interest is set forth beautifully in a letter which I Welfare Activities and recommended it for careful study by have received from him and which I am inserting in the the Congress. RECORD at this point. I hope that others in the country who Conditions described a year ago are substantially unchanged might read what I have said and what Senator WADSWORTIJ today. There is still need for the Federal Government to par­ says will be interested and benefited. There is no question ticipate in strengthening and increasing the health security but that billions of dollars worth of soil and fertility have of the Nation. Therefore I am glad to know that a committee been wasted in our country. of the Congress has already begun a careful study of health This is the letter from the gentleman from New York, legislation. It is my hope that such study will be continued Senator WADSWORTH: actively during the present session, looking toward construc­ CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, tive action at the next. I have asked the Interdepartmental Hon. THoMAS A. JENKINS, Washington, D. C., Janua:ry 18, 1940. Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities to continue its studies. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR ToM: I have just read that statement which you inserted In order that at least a beginning may be made I now pro­ in the CoNGRESSIONAL REcoRD a few days ago relating to a. piece of pose for the consideration of the Congress a program for the 772 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 construction of small hospitals in needy areas of the country, This is not an ambitious project. This principle should especially in rural areas, not now provided with them. Hos­ not be extended to Government gifts to communities which pitals are essential to physicians in giving modern medical are financially able to build their own hospitals. It is an service to the people. In many areas present hospital facili­ experiment in the sense that the Nation will gain much expe­ ties are almost nonexistent. The most elementary health rience by undertaking such a project. needs are not being met. At the very least it will save lives and improve health in The provision of hospitals in the areas to Which I refer will those parts of the Nation which need this most and can greatly improve existing health services, attract competent afford it least. doctors, and raise the standards of medical care in these com­ FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. munities. The new hospitals should serve the additional pur­ THE WHITE HOUSE, January 30, 1940. pose of providing laboratory and other diagnostic facilities for the use of local physicians, as well as accommodations for DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE APPROPRIATION BILL, 1941 local health departments. Mr. CANNON of Missouri, from the Committee on Appro­ The proposed hospitals should be built only where they are priations, reported the bill (H. R. 8202, Rept. No. 1540) mak­ most needed; they should not be constructed in communities ing appropriations for the Department of Agriculture for the where public or private institutions are already available to fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, and for other purposes, the people in need of service even if these institutions are not which was read a first and second time, and, ..,-;ith the accom-· up to the highest standards. To insure proper location and panying report, referred to the Committee of the Whole House good standards of operation, approval of hospital construction on the state of the Union and ordered printed. projects should be given by the Surgeon General of the Public Mr. DIRKSEN reserved all points of order against the bill. Health Service, with the advice of an advisory council con­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I move that the sisting of outstanding medical and scientific authorities who House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole House are expert in matters relating to hospital and other public­ on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill health services. H. R. 8202, making appropriations for the Department of Projects proposed for consideration should be submitted by Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, and for responsible public authorities and should include assurance other vurposes; and, pending that, I would like to arrange for that adequate maintenance will be provided. Approval of control and division of the time with the gentleman from projects should be preceded by careful survey of existing local Illinois [Mr. DIRKSEN] for general debate. I wonder if it hospital facilities and needs. Standards for organization, would be agreeable for us to continue general debate through­ staff, and continuing operation should be established by the out the day, one-half the time to be controlled by the gentle­ Surgeon General, with the advice of the advisory council. A man from Illinois [Mr. DIRKSEN] and one-half by me. competent hospital staff and satisfactory standards of service Mr. DIRKSEN. That will be agreeable, to run for the bal­ should be required, including medical, surgical, and maternity ance of the day, the time to be equally divided. service. When indicated, special provisions should be made Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous for the care of the tuberculous. In many areas of the South consent that -general debate continue through the day, one­ the present acute needs for the care of Negro patients should half the time to be controlled by the gentleman from Illinois also be met. [Mr. DIRKSEN] and one-half by me. I suggest that these hospitals be simple, functional struc­ The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the tures, utilizing inexpensive materials and construction meth­ gentleman from Missouri? ods. The facilities of the Federal Works Agency should be There was no objection. utilized in the planning and execution of the hospital proj­ The SPEAKER. The question is on the motion of the gen­ ects. Title to these institutions should be held by the Fed­ tleman from Missouri. eral Government, but operation should be a local financial The motion was agreed to. responsibility. Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee I recommend to the Congress that enabling legislation for of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consid­ eration of the bill H. R. 8202, with Mr. CoLE of Maryland in this program be enacted and that a sum of between the chair. $7,500,000 and $10,000,000 be appropriated to the Public Health Service to inaugurate the program during the next The Clerk read the title of the bill. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous fiscal year. consent that the first reading of the bill be dispensed with. I am confident that even this limited undertaking will The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered. bring substantial returns in the saving of lives, rehabilitation There was no objection. of workers, and increased health and vigor of the people. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, this morning, in This suggestion is not a renewal of a public-works pro­ this high hour of lethargy and complacency, I raise my voice gram through the method of grants-in-aid. The areas as a Jeremiah crying in the streets of the city-warning which I have in mind are areas so poor that they cannot against the evils of an inevitable day of reckoning and the raise their share of the cost of building and equipping a certainty of the wrath to come. hospital. Yet I believe that many of such communities have We are in the midst of a great war-a war in which America enough public-spirited citizens with means, and enough citi­ is not a participant and will not be a participant, but which zens able to pay something for hospital treatment, to care is affecting the United States to a degree second only to its for operating costs of a hospital, provided they do not have influence on the belligerents themselves. to pay for its original construction and equipment, or to pay We have seen wars come and go. We know only too well annual interest and amortization em ·borrowed money. the economic aftermath of war. Within the memory of every Treatment in such a hospital would, of course, be available man within this Chamber a great war closed in 1918, and to men, women, and children who literally can afford to con­ we saw for ourselves and can testify out of our own ex­ tribute little or nothing toward their treatment. perience its effect upon our country and our people-and · One of the important difficulties in such areas at the pres­ especially upon American agriculture and the American ent time is that young doctors hesitate to practice general farmer. When the World War closed, agricultural prices, medicine or surgery because of the utter lack of hospital or union wage scales, and industrial dividends were at the laboratory facilities. One cannot blame them. peak. Everyone was prosperous, everyone was employed, In such areas also costs of construction are generally low everyone had bread and to spare. And then, almost over­ and many local materials can be used. It is my belief that night, agricultural prices collapsed. The farmers of the with the assistance of the Work Projects 'Administration the United States saw two-thirds of their land values melt away. cost of building and equipping a hundred-bed hospital can Prices of farm products went down to the incredible level be kept down to between $150,000 and $200,000. This means of 10 percent of what they had been. Farms were sold under that we could build 50 such hospitals for between $7,500,000 the hammer in every community until there was no longer and $10,000,000. anyone to bid on them, and the relative standard of living 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 773 on the American farm fell to the lowest point in the history Prices received by farmers for specified commodities on Nov. 15, of the Nation. 1919 and 1939, and ·parity price Nov. 15, 1939 Today, while another war rages, we are drifting heedlessly Prices received by Parity farmers on Nov. 15 toward the same catastrophe. We know that eventually the Commodity price, Unit Nov. 15, war must end and that when it does end farm prices must 1919 1939 1939 drop as before. The war cannot last indefinitely. It may close within the year. With that certainty before us, with Wheat, per busheL------Cents __ _ 214..0 73.1 113. 2 Cents __ _ 134.0 46.8 82.22 the experiences of 1920 still fresh in mind, what is being g~~~· xfee; b~~1~!~-:_-::::::::-=::~=====~= Cents __ _ 69.6 32.1 51. 1 done-what steps are being taken-to protect the farmers -Barley, per busheL ______Cents __ _ 118.8 42.2 79.2 Rye, per busheL __ _~------Cents __ _ 131. 5 44.6 92.2 of the United States against a recurrence of the bankruptcies, Buckwheat, per busheL------­ Cents __ _ 148.6 62.4 93.4 foreclosures, privation, and suicides that followed the last Flaxseed, per busheL------Dollars __ 4.10 1. 64 2.16 Cents __ _ 1266.2 76.1 104.1 ·war? Or must we . go through all that again? Is Congress ~~~~o~~~~~~~d======~=~=== Cents __ _ 36.00 8. 80 15.87 so impotent and the Committee on Agriculture so indifferent Cottonseed, per ton ______Dollars __ 72.65 23.75 28.86 Potatoes, per busheL ______Cents __ _ 156.2 69.2 86.5 that it will not even invite counsel, or call witnesses, or Sweetpotatoes, per busheL ______Cents __ _ 135.1 64.5 112.4 hold hearings, or give the matter any formal consideration Peanuts, per pound ______Cents __ _ 9.1 3_39 6.1 Apples, per busheL ______Dollars __ 1.85 .62 1. 23 whatsoever? Legislation of this character cannot be drafted Butterfat, per pound--~------_ Cents __ _ 62.9 28.1 2 35.8 in a day. Even· after enactment, laws of such far-reaching Chickens, per pound------=- Cents __ _ 22.0 12.4 14.6 Eggs, per dozen ______Cents __ _ 59.1 25.8 239.5 effect require months to reach maximum operating efficiency. Hogs, per 100 pounds_------Dollars __ 13.36 5.87 9. 24 If the war closes within the next year, as is generally ex- Beef cattle, per 100 pounds ______Dollars __ 8.65 6.89 6.67 Veal calves, per 100 pOtmds ______Dollars __ 12.65 8. 64 8. 64 . pected, means and methods must be devised and adopted at Lambs, per H)Opounds ______Dollars __ 11.45 7.48 7. 51 this session of Congress if they are to prove effective. The Cents __ _ 62.1 16.0 15.5 Dollars __ 19.40 7. 51 15. 1 next session will be too late. Even if the war drags out over Cents __ _ 51.0 27.6 23.4 a period of years-which seems unlikely-it is not too earlv ~~~~!~lii::~~======~== 1 Pri?e per bushel received by farmers Dec. 1, 1919. · to begin to formulate a law to cope with the situation which 2 AdJusted for seasonal variation. is certain to follow the close of hostilities. It will be too late to build a cyclone cellar after the cyclone starts. This session In the last column is the price we promised the farmer. convened practically a month ago. It must adjourn for the And in the middle column is the price we are actually paying national conventions in June. And yet up to this time no him. Here are the figures. They speak for themselves. steps have been taken, so far as the Congress is apprized, to They give you the high-water level to which the combined even inquire into the possibilities of saving the farmer and the legislative and administrative measures adopted up to this country from the chaos which must inevitably follow. The time have been able to force farm prices. end of the war can already be foreseen. No one who lived It is true, as Secretary Wallace testified, that without these through 1920 can entertain the slightest misapprehension as measures corn would be selling today for less than 20 cents, to the effect the close of the war will have on farm prices. cotton close to 5 ce;nts, wheat at 30 cents, hogs around $3, Someone is asleep at the switch or else is criminally negligent. and other farm products in proportion. But the important Either the Committee on Agriculture does not want to avoid thing is that with all these benefits, supplemented by drought national disaster, already looming· directly ahead, or it is deaf, and war, and billions of dollars of relief expenditures the dumb, and blind. _ farmer is still one-fourth short of what he earned and ~hat Now, let no one say I have minimized or deprecated the yve promised him. Can you imagine organized labor opening benefits to agriculture accruing from the Agricultural Adjust­ Its envelope on pay day and finding its wages 25 percent ment Act, soil conservation, parity payments, the purchase of short? And can you imagine what the Committee on Labor surplus commodities, and every other recourse available the would do about it? While the farmer has been collecting last 4 years. Every agricultural appropriation bill I have re­ from half to three-fourths of his pay-and the Committee on ported to the House since they became operative has utilized Agriculture has for 4 years refused to consider a bill to pay them to capacity . . This subcommittee has reported the maxi­ him in full-legislation reported out by the Committee on mum authorizations for all of them, and the last agricultural Labor has been so effective that union wage scales and earn­ appropriation bill was the only appropriation bill of theses­ ings per week are more than 50 percent above parity as is shown in the accompanying table submitted to the com~ittee sion reported out in excess of the Budget estimates. Every by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and based on data dollar that could be secured was. reported out by this commit­ compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: · tee in a futile effort to solve the farm problem. Without these Weekly earnings in building and construction, and of factory inadequate windfalls the lpt of the farmer would have been workers, 1913, 1919, and 1939 unendurable. But the fact remains that they have not solved the problem and have failed by a wide margin to bring farm 1913 (May 15) 1919 (May 15) 1939 (June 1) prices or the farm income up to parity or near parity. ~ ~ ~ So frightful were the effects from the collapse of farm zQ> ~ p, p, ~ p, Q> Q> Q> ~ Q> E prices in 1920, and so widespread the national wreckage which !3 "0 tl: ~ "0 oi!N ~ "0 ~N 0 0 Q> tl: Porn 0 tl: 0."' .... b.O b.O Occupation .t:l ~ .t:l )d)d Q> .t:l .&l..!d attended it, that every political party in each quadrennial ~~ p, ... ., ... ., ~ 1:1 .... oa> 00> p, ... oo:> p, "0 ..... Q> ~ "'·so:>t:l o:> .,~:~ convention from 1928 to 1936 has included in its platform a p, tl:~ ~ p, tl:~ ~ ..., .... p, tl:tl: ~ solemn pledge to restore farm . prices to equity. Congress .s gs .E o:lo:! 1:1 ~a "'b.O "' s:l b.O s:l . ~a:> b.O"' "' "i:l a:!"' t3 a:! ~ "' ~ ]"' by legislative enactments in 1933 and again in 1938 formally 0 a 0 ~ a:! 0 a ~ ~ fO:l ~ ~ fO:l ~ ~ ~ fO:l ~ recognized the need and justice of parity prices for farm ------products and committed itself to the policy of restoring agri­ ------Plum}?e~s ______0.578 45.2 26.130.769 44.2 33.99 44.711.526 37.9 57.84 37.24 culture to a plane of economic equality with labor and in­ ElectriCians ____ . 518 45. 4 23.52 . 755 43.7 32.99 40.24 1. 532 37. 6 57.60 33.52 dustry. So far these piecemeal stopgaps are our only effort Stonemasons___ . 567 44.9 25. 46 . 764 44. 5 34. 00 43. 56 1. 544 38.8 59. 91 36 28 Steam titters ___ . 556 44. 6 24.80 . 753 43.4 32. 68 42.43 1. 589 37.8 60.06 35:34 to redeem our promise to the America~ farmer to pay him Ca~penters _____ . 516 44.7 23.07 . 759 43.8 33. 24 39-47 1. 401 38.7 54.22 32 87 as fair a price for what he sells as he must pay for what he Pa~nters ______. 485 45.8 22. 21 . 732 45. 1 33.01 38.00 1. 365 36.4 49 69 31.65 BriCkll'lyers ___ __ -690 44. 1 30. 43 . 883 43. 6 38. 50 52. 07 1. 662 38. 4 63: 82 43: 36 buys. They have had a fair and exhaustive trial. And we Factory work- must now face the fact that they do not redeem the cam­ ers ______(3) (3) 412.21 (3) (3) •24.00520.60 (3) (3) 624.34517.14 paign promises or platform pledges of either party. The 1 Weekly earnings in building and construction computed from union wage rates Secretary of Agriculture testified emphatically at the hear­ a~d hours worked per ~eeJ:c from data furJ?ishep. by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ings before the committee that the law as it now stands will Computed by mult1plymg weekly earmngs m building and construction on May 15, 1913, by the index .of the cost of living for June 1919 of 171.1 and for June 1939 of not, and cannot, bring farm prices up to parity, and that 142.5 (1913==;100) compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. · additional legislation is necessary if we ever hope under nor­ a Not avaJlable. · mal conditions to give the farmer a fair price for his products o/L~b~~a§~f~~t\~.years 1914 (1913 not available) and 1919 estimated by the Bureau and a decent wage for his labor. In corroboration of his • 1.Computed by multiplying weekly earnings in 1914 by the index of the cost of livmg for June 1919 of 168.7 and for June 1939 of 140.4 (1914=100). testimony, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics submits the 0 Average of January-November 1939, estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. following tabl~ Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Department of Agriculture. 774 .CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 In the last column is the wage_the workman would earn if has to buy, and farm machinery, fertilizer, and all costs of he received parity, and in the middle column is the wage we production are higher today than the farmer paid when he are actually paying him. Agriculture is getting less than was getting $2.40 for · wheat, 35 cents for cotton, and $1.50 25 percent under parity and labor is getting more than 50 for corn. percent over parity. Farm prices and farm income have been steadily dropping Industry likewise is above parity. This morning's news­ for 5 years, while labor and industry costs entering into farm papers announce that the first 100 corporations to report their necessities have been rising to heights never before attained 1939 earnings show total profits 67 percent larger than in in the economic history of the world. 1938. Twenty-one railroads show an increase in total profits Now, do not misunderstand the attitude of the farmer to· of more than 1,000 percent. The Du Pont Co. more than ward labor or industry. The farmer believes in high wages doubled its profits. The Bell Telephone Co. reported the and high prices, and he is ready to pay them as long as he has largest profits made in any year since the telephone was in­ buying power to do it. He has cooperated, and the Mem­ vented. Sixty-six miscellaneous industrial enterprises earned bers of Congress from farming districts have cooperated, $221,804,000, as against $102,777,000 the year before; and the at every opportunity to better the condition of both labor and United States Savings and Loan League, supported by urban industry-to increase the wages and reduce the hours of incomes, reports the highest totals in 9 years. labor, and to stabilize industrial prices. We approve of In comparison with these increases, the Department of that legislation. We supported it. We voted for it in the Agriculture reports in Crops and Markets that the average expectation that legislation to provide the same benefits for price of the farmer's hogs declined from $7.25 in 1938 to the farmer would come next. And I am convinced that labor $5.87 in 1939, while the cost of building materials for his wculd support a similar bill to stabilize farm prices if the Com- · barns increased 7.5 percent in 2 months. Eggs dropped from mittee on Agriculture would bring one on the floor. But in 27.9 cents a dozen for 1938 to 20.5 cents for 1939, while Penn­ the 4 years in which farm income has been dropping no such sylvania oil for his incubator and tractor advanced six times bill has been reported, and in the meantime Congress has during the year 1939. Wheat has fallen 12 cents since Janu­ continued to enact legislation which has further increased the · ary 1, while the price of the superphosphate to grow the disparity between farm and factory. We raised freight wheat advanced in the same time from $7.50 to $8.50 per ton. rates, and the farmer pays the freight both ways. We And the farmer's share of the national income was the lowest passed the bus and truck bill, doubling rates to the farmer in 5 years, as indicated in the following table supplied by the unable to own a car or buy a truck. We took over the Bureau of Agricultural Economics: waterways, the farmer's last guaranty of competition in National income, United States, 1909- 39 transportation. We put a floor under wages and a ceiling over hours, when the testimony shows that 20 percent of the Farm as a money required to effectuate it comes from the pockets of Year Total Nonfarm 1 Farm t p ercentage of total the farmer. We passed a bill guaranteeing the price of coal-not only the coal the farmer burns but the coal enter­ P ercent ing into the cost of every piece of machinery and equipment 1909 ______$26,415,000, 000 $22, 070,000, 000 $4, 345, 000, 000 16. 4 he buys. We enacted the "hot oil" bill and hiked the price of 1910------28, 114,000, 000 23, 474, 000, 000 4, 640, 000, 000 16. 5 1911______28,480,000,000 24, 251, 000,000 4, 229, 000, 000 14. 8 the oil and gas the farmer must have for his tractor. We 1912 ______30,394,000,000 25,798,000,000 4, 506, 000, 000 15. 1 maintain the tariff, costing the farmer, along with every other 1913______::12, 133,000,000 27, 560,000,000 4, 573, 000, 000 14. 2 1914______31,919,000,000 27, 367,000,000 4, 552, 000, 000 14. 3 consumer, billions of dollars a year. And, most significant of 1915______33, 210, 000, 000 28, 404, 000, 000 4, 806, 000, 000 14.5 all, we passed the fair-trade bill, fixing the retail price of 1916______39,035,000,000 33, 198,000,000 5, 838, 000, 000 11i. 0 1917------47,385,000,000 38,482,000, 000 8, 903, 000, 000 18.8 every manufactured ~rticle from medicine to matches and 1918______55, 357,000,000 44,856,000,000 10,501,000,000 19. 0 from razors to radios. We raise the income, reduce the hours, 1919______60, 354,000, 000 48, 756,000,000 11, 598, 000, 000 19.2 1920._" ______64,552, 000,000 56, 478, 000,000 8, 074, 000,000 . 12.5 and standardize the prices of everybody but the farmer, and 192L ______:. __ 54, 210,000,000 49, 883,000, 000 4, 327, 000, 000 8. 0 the Committee on Agriculture does nothing about it. "Oh," 1922______57, 546,000, 000 52, 109, 000,000 5, 437,000, 000 9. 4 1923 ______66, 171, 000, 000 59,620, 000, 000 6, 551, 000, 000 9. 9 they say, "the farmers can't get together; the farm organi­ 1924______68, 824,000, 000 61,898,000,000 6, 926, 000, 000 10. 1 zations can't agree." But neither could the labor organi­ 1925______73, 278, oco, 000 65, 852, 000,000 7. 426, 000, 000 10. 1 1926______76, 564,000,000 68, 695, 000, 000 6, 869, 000, 000 9. 1 zations agree. There has never been a division short of civil 1927------76,457,000,000 69,618, 000, 000 6, 839, 000, 000 8. 9 war equal to the division in the ranks of labor, and yet the 1928______78, 117, 000, 000 71, 209, 000, 000 6, 908, 000, 000 8. 8 1929______80, 372, 000, 000 73, 542, 000, 000 6, 830, 000, 000 8. 5 Committee on Labor has gone along reporting and passing 1930______73, 571,000,000 68, 456, 000,000 5, 115, 000, 000 7. 0 labor legislation. I take off my hat to the Committee .on 1931______62, 384. 000, 000 59, 303, 000, 000 3, 081, 000, 000 4. 9 1932______48, 355,000,000 46, 551,000, 000 1, 804, 000, 000 3. 7 Labor. I pay especial tribute to the able and loyal chairman 1933______45, 771,000, 000 43, 174,000,000 2, 597, 000, 000 5. 7 of the Committee on Labor, the gentlewoman from New 1934______52, 540,000,000 49, 164.000,000 3, 376, 000, 000 6. 4 1935______57,007,000,000 52,770, 000.000 4, 237, 000. 000 7. 4 Jersey [Mrs. NoRTON]. She has rendered a service to the wage 1 9 3 6------~ - 66, 722, 000, 000 61, 599, 000. 000 5, 123, 000, 000 7. 7 earner unequaled in the annals of the House. I wish she was HJ37 ------70, 753, 000, 000 65, 282, 000, 000 5, 471, 000, 000 7. 7 1933______64,687.000, 000 60, 236, 000, 000 4, 451, 000, 000 6. 9 a member of the Committee on Agriculture. 1939 i______67, 608,000,000 63, 150,000, 000 4, 458, 000, 000 6.6 And while we are discussing those who have forgotten the farmer, let me also mention the Director of the Budget. In I Nn.tional incom e available for living. For method of derivation see The Agricul· tural Situation, M ay 1, 1937, p. 19. view of the promise to give the farmer a minimum of 100- ' Preliminary estimates. percent parity, and our utter failure to keep that promise, we The second column shows the total national income for the would naturally expect the Budget to favor the agricultural United States, and the last column shows the percent of the appropriation b:Il, especially on those appropriations affecting national income paid to the farmer. It shows that the farm income. What is our surprise to receive a Budget esti­ farmers, who constitute 25 percent of the Nation's popula­ mate which cuts the farm bill deeper than any other appro­ tion, are receiving less than 7 percent of the national income. priation bill, cutting funds for purchase of surplus commodi­ And it shows that while labor and industry have been receiv­ ties and food stamps in half and eliminating appropriations ing more and more, the farmer has been receiving less and for parity payments altogether. Of course, funds for such less each year under our present farm program. purposes will not solve the farm problem. They will not pro­ But the most striking contrast is in the trend since the war. vide parity prices. But they do add to the farmer's meager In 1919 agriculture, labor, and industrial incomes were at the income, and until the Committee on Agriculture provides peak of wat" inflation, and all the Nation was prospering. And something better, half a loaf is better than no bread at all. then the war ended, and farm prices dropped like a bucket in But they are omitted by the Budget, and our subcommittee the well while everything else advanced, and the tables above was under explicit instructions from the whole committee not show that while farm products are bringing today approxi­ to exceed the Budget estimates, and in compliance with those mately one-third of what they brought in 1919, labor is re­ instructions we submit a bill more than half a billion dollars ceiving three times the wages paid in 1919, industry has more under the expenditures for the current year. It is, in round than maintained wartime prices on everything the farmer figures, $155,000,000 under the Budget estimates, allowing 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 775 room for judicious expansion in collaboration with the Senate, ·Secretary Wallace tells us some permanent plan must be if occasion requires, without materially exceeding Budget adopted. The Department of Agriculture, after painstaking figures or committee mstructions. investigation, submits impartial statistics which leave no room Let me say on behalf of the subcommittee that we made for doubt. Every farm organization and every notable farm these reductions reluctantly. Had we followed our personal leader agrees that a remedy must be found. preferences, especially with reference to those items in which Louis J. Taber, master of the National Grange, said at the our colleagues were particularly interested, we would have Seventy-third Annual Convention .of the Grange: made no cuts at all, and in numerous instances would have We have not yet solved our farm problem. The farmer is not increased such appropriations. The fact that we have re­ l'eceiving his share of the national income. Although he has edu­ duced any particular item is no indication that funds for cated, housed, clothed, and fed 31 percent of the youth of the land, the prices he has received for the last 10 years equal only 78 per­ such purposes would not be advantageously extended. It cent of the prices he has paid for commodities and services used in simply means that under the necessity of cutting somewhere rural life. we selected those items which were less essential, which William Hirth, president of the Missouri Farmers Associa­ duplicated or overlapped other activities. and which could tion and chairman of the historic Corn Belt Committee, who more justifiably be deferred until national finances are in led the fight for the McNary-Haugen bill, and without whose better balance and national income at least equals national support it could not have been passed, .says: expenditure. Agricultute is facing a ·new crisis. Already Secretary Wallace has Mr. WOODRUM of Virginia. Will the gentleman yield? sounded a warning that there is no assurance that the new Con­ Mr. CANNON of MissourL I yield to the gentleman from gress will be Willing to keep on appropriating hundreds of millions Virginia. of dollars, • • • and thus it is not unlikely that the farm Mr. WOODRUM of Virginia. May I say, with the gentle­ reiief of recent years, economically unsound • • • as it has been, will come to an end, and the farmers will once more be left to man's permission, that, being much interested in the agricul­ root hog or die. • • • Will the Democratic leaders have the tural appropriation bill, I have carefully examined the pains­ courage to tell the consumers of the Nation that they l:ihould be taking hearings conducted by the gentleman's committee and willing to pay the farmer cost of production, plus a reasonable profit, for the products of his toil? Or, to put it another way, when the report. I think the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. CAN­ they tell our millions of city workers that they are entitled to an NON] deserves the commendation of the House and the coun­ American standard of living, will they have the honesty and courage try for the fine hearings and the splendid work which his to tell them that they should be willing to concede the same kind of committee has done on this bill. At a later time I shall have living standard to the farmer? • • • lf the farm men and something a little more specific to say about that. But his women of the United States were Willing to ignore partisan politics and would s~ak with one voice, they would make demands for bill is $154,000,000 under the Budget estimate. Today, be­ economic Justice to agriculture which neither party would dare cause of the action taken by the Congress to date under the ignore, and the time is close at hand when farmers must act in this President's Budget, instead of being within $61,000,000 of our manner if the Republic is to be preserved. national-debt limit we are three hundred and some million Likewise, John Vesecky, of Kansas, president of the Na­ dollars under it, and that much farther away from the neces­ tional Farmers' Union, was instrumental in securing the sity for a tax bill. I think the gentleman is to be congratu­ adoption at the annual meeting of his organization of a legis­ lated, and I hope the House will back his efforts at making this lative·· program demanding parity and proposing the enact­ a real economical bill, but one which in no way cripples needed ment of a ·self-liquidating plan for maintaining the prices of items for agriculture. [Applause.] agricultural products. · Mr. CANNON of Missouri. We appreciate the gentleman's In similar vein, Edward A. O'Neal, president of the Ameri­ cooperation, and now that the committee has performed its can Farm Bureau Federation, writes January 30, 1940: duty we trust he and all other friends of agriculture will also I am willing to support any feasible and reasonable farm pro­ cooperate in finding a solution for the real farm problem. gram, and support any and all reasonable expenditures in behalf of This bill cannot solve it. No amount of appropriations-no agriculture, if only there is some prospect that a solution will be hand-outs, however generous--can permanently dispose of it. found. In the light of the experience of the last few years, with generous appropriations to carry out a program for curtailing sup­ We must have legislation standardizing income and fixing ply and expanding demand, is there anyone so bold as to insist that minimum prices as we have standardized wage scales, fixed we have found the solution, or, if not, approximate solution? It retail prices, established freight rates and certificates of is results that we are after, and I believe I express the sentiment convenience and necessity, and the equivalent of all the of a majority of farmers that they seek results rather than ex­ other legislative and administrative devices contrived to perimentation. insure industry's costs of production and a reasonable profit. And I especially want to quote briefly from a statement I trust the gentleman and all other farm-minded Mem­ made in the 121-st few days by Earl Smith, of Dlinois, one of bers will appreciate the importance of taking steps at this the most able farm leaders in America, when he said: session to prepare for the shock which will follow the close Everything yet done by Congress for the solution of the farm of the war. For every additional dollar in national income problem has been to appease the farmer rather than directed fully received during the war $1.7·5 will be subtracted from the to the solution of the agricUltural problem. There have been reams of evidence presented and filed with the Agricultural Com­ national income when the war closes. Our munitions mittees of both Houses of Congress relative to the agricultural plants, airplane factories, and the myriad war-sustained ac­ problem and its remedy. tivities of the Nation will draw their fires the night peace is There has been evidence presented that before any fair jury in the land would have been convincing that a full and effective declared and throw their armies of workmen into the streets. permanent solution of the farm problem is a first essential to the Domestic markets will shrink as unemployment· mounts. We solution of the unemployment problem and the balancing of the will have all the gold in existence. We will be the one great National Budget. This evidence has been temporized with by creditor nation of the world and the most hated nation on both Democrats and Republicans. earth. Foreign nations will have nothing With which to buy. As a result, politics has crept into both unemployment relief 1 and the farm-surplus problem. Vast expenditures have been and International trade will fade with the echo of the last gun are being made for the temporary relief of both, but the real farm and economic chaos will sweep across land and sea. Unless problem, as related permanently to the future welfare of every we prepare now for the inevitable catastrophe, agriculture will citizen of this country, has not even been approached. be 1920 Is there anyone who can successfully deny that by giving the the first to suffer, and conditions in will seem mild in American farmer a price for his products that represents a fair comparison. If we cannot maintain farm prices at three­ exchange value for the products of industry the increased buying fourths of parity, aided by drought and war arid billions in power of farmers resulting therefrom would require the absorption pump priming, what can we expect when the props are re­ into the normal labor channels of industry of practically every able-bodied man in America who wants a job at a decent wage? moved and we must depend on normal conditions without That we have temporized with this fundamental problem of foreign markets and war orders, or Government aid? The relationship of farm prices to the cost of things the farmers buy present system will not do the work. Even if it did, we can­ is shown from the fact that the buying power or exchange value of the farm dollar has been increased only from 61 cents in 1932 not indefinitely finance one class or one industry, however to 77 cents in 1939. While progress has been made, it is entirely deserving, out of the Public Treasury. President Roosevelt too slow and must be immedtate1y speeded up if the Nation is to has emphasized that fact in both his message and his Budget. avoid more serious difficulties. · 776 .C.ONGRESSIONAL ~E _CO~D-HO:U.SE . JANUARY 30 Every departmental official and agricultural authority, devoted to explaining why these counties were selected and every farm organization and recognized farm leader in the others excluded. And within the counties in which loans Nation is demanding action. The time for temporizing is were made, the applications, both of those who wished to past. The war will finally burn itself out. It is not a con­ borrow money and those who wished to sell land, were vastly tingency. It is not a possibility. It is not a matter of chance. in excess of the facilities available. When beset by irate It is merely a question of time, and when it ends no one who farmers who had been denied loans, when their neighbor just witnessed the tragic misfortunes of agriculture following the across the road, whom they invariably took pains to explain close of the last war can entertain any doubt as to what will was not so good a farmer or in such dire need as themselves, happen. And if the Committee on Agriculture, which is had been given loan, you were in the predicament of a man up charged with this dire responsibility, permits Congress to a tall tree and anxious to remain there. Even farmers who adjourn without opportunity to legislate, and the war closes owned their farms, or tenant farmers who did not apply for before the next session, they will be calling on the rocks and a loan, who were very few, criticized the program on the the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the ground that the Government was picking out a pet of the wrath of the betrayed and exploited farmers, who have administration and subsidizing him at the expense of the depended on the members of that committee to represent taxpayers. them and protect their interests. [Applause.] Mr. JONES of Texas. The gentleman has an unusual dis­ [Here the gavel fell.J trict, then, because in every district from which I have Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield myself 10 · additional heard they all want that particular program. The men who minutes. have purchased farms have paid more than 100 percent of Mr. O'CONNOR. Will the gentleman yield? the payments due. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from Mr. CANNON of Missouri. It is the usual Missouri district Montana. in that respect, 3,s evidenced bY. this clipping taken from the Mr. O'CONNOR. Does this bill carry any appropriation to Missouri Farm Bureau News. Here is the headline: "Disap­ provide the $347,000 deficit due the Montana farmers alone pointment for Many." And under that is a subhead: "There · to meet the deficit in parity payments to the farmers under Are Twenty Times as Many Applicants as Loans." And then the 1939 appropriation bill. the article goes on to say: Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I have introduced a bill for that The Farm Security Administration estimates that it has available purpose-House Joint Resolution 434-which has been favor­ funds this year for 6,971 loans under the Bankhead-Janes Farm ably reported by the committee and is now on the calendar. Tenant Act to enable tenants to buy farms. For these there are on file 133,096 applications. This is the third year of the operation It has also been included in the urgent deficiency appropria­ of the act and during the first 2 years 6,180 loans were made to tion bill. It is expected to pass both Houses and go to the that number from among 147,972 applications. President illJ the next few days, and will be in operation in ample time to meet all requirements. No parity payments Of course the number of applicants given here is but a few will be omitted, reduced, or delayed. of those who wanted loans, but who had to be told it was Mr. O'CONNOR. I wish to correct the figur-es I quoted. hopeless to apply because loans were not being made in that The amount we are short today to meet the parity payments particular county, or for various other reasons. For every due the farmers for the year 1939, instead of being $337,000, one of these loans you made there were hundreds of disap­ is $9,634,000, and $347,000 of this amount is due the farmers pointed tenants and hundreds rankling with a sense of the of- my State for parity payments under the 1939 program. I injustice of denying them prices for their products which wish to make this statement as a correction of the figures I would enable them to buy their own farms, and then denying just gave. I also wish to submit the observation to the gen­ them the loans the Committee on Agriculture says are solving tleman that notwithstanding the appropriations that have the tenancy problem. heretofore been made by the Congress by way of parity pay­ But the principal objection to the appropriation of funds ments, we have restored the prices of the American farmer's for the farm-tenancy program at this time is the fact that products up to only 75 percent of parity with the necessities it does not achieve the purpose for which it was designed. the farmer has to purchase, such as goods, wares, and mer­ It does not cure farm tenancy, and the testimony before our chandise; in other words, the farmer has still a 75-cent dollar committee is that every year it bas been in operation farm notwithstanding the $225,000,000 that was appropriated for tenancy bas increased rather than declined. parity payments a year ago. Mr. JONES of Texas. That has been true for the last 40 Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The gentleman's figures are years up to 1933. There has been practically no increase in correct. The resolution makes available $11,000,000 to cover farm tenancy since 1933, and does the gentleman think, if all possible deficiencies. his statement were correct, that he would want to abandon Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman the one step we have taken that tends to solve this problem? yield? Mr. CANNON of Missouri. It is to be regretted that the Mr. CANNON of Missouri. · I yield to the gentleman from statistics submitted to our committee by the Department of Texas. Agriculture do not bear out the gentleman's conclusion. Ac­ Mr. JONES of Texas. It is reported, although it does not cording to the statement before the committee farm ten­ seem to be in the bill, that the committee saw fit to eliminate ancy is increasing at the rate of approximately 40,000 a the farm tenancy program. Is this correct? year. Dr. Alexander testified that 4,296 of the 6,000,000 farm­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The bill, as reported by the ers of the United States had been put on farms in the year full committee, makes no appropriation for farm tenancy. 1938-39, and 4,296 subtracted from the 40,000 who lost their Mr. JONES of Texas. Does the gentleman agree with the farms during that year would leave a net increase of 35,704 in gentleman from Virginia that this step can be taken, that farm tenancy, notwithstanding the farm-tenant program and this machinery can be broken up, without injury of any the $40,000,000 appropriated to finance it. There is only one kind? thing that can solve the-problem of farm tenancy and that is Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The farm-tenancy appropria­ to increase agricultural prices so that the man on the farm tion, judging from our experience with it in my own will be able to make cost ·of production and have enough over State, occasioned more dissatisfaction than any other meas­ to pay taxes and stand off the sheriff. [Applause.] ure that has been actually provided for in this bill. It is my Mr. . JONES of Texas. The gentleman is just as wrong as observation that it did more harm than good. he can be. Mr. JONES of Texas. I should like to know on what basis Mr. CANNON of Missouri. No. What is wrong is the price the gentleman makes that statement. of farm products. Prices paid the farmer for what he sells Mr. CANNON of Missouri. In the first place only a mi­ are so low, in comparison with the prices he has to pay for nority of the counties were allotted funds for farm-tenancy what he buys, that he cannot make enough to buy a farm. loans and a large part of the time given to the subject was Or if he owns a farm cannot make enough to pay running 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 777 expenses and have enough left over to pay taxes and interest. You are paying the farmer less than 75 percent of parity. You could put the best tenant farmer in the United States Why do you not do something about it? Until you do some­ on the best farm between the two seas and unless you paid thing about it, the farmers will continue to lose their farms him enough for what he grew, it would be merely a matter of and farm tenancy will continue to increase and the entire time before the sheriff would have the farm. What brought Nation will continue to suffer from lack of business and un­ on all this wholesale loss of farms under foreclosure of mort­ employment due to the lack of buying power on the farm. gages? It was the fact that agricultural prices were below Mr. JONES of Texas. Will the gentleman yield further? parity. That is the sole cause of farm tenancy and you will Mr. CANNON of Missouri. With pleasure. never cure farm tenancy until you go right back to where it Mr. JONES of Texas. We have authorized parity pay­ started and pay the farmer fair wages for his labor and ments. Does the gentleman think he will accomplish that by decent prices for his products. If you want to solve the farm­ cutting out the provision for carrying out those stipulations? tenancy problem, let the Committee on Agriculture bring out Mr. CANNON of Missouri. As the gentleman perhaps a bill to put a floor under farm prices just as the Committee knows, there was no provision for parity payments in the "On Labor has reported and passed bills putting a :fioor under estimates submitted to Congress by the Bureau of the Bud­ wages. [Applause.] get. And as the Committee on Appropriations, long before Mr. JONES of Texas. There is no use to bring out a bill the report of the subcommittee on this particular bill, had if the Appropriations Committee is going to kill it. [Ap­ issued explicit instructions that no bill should be reported out plause.] Let me say to the gentleman, he has not thought this session in excess of the Budget estimates, and was in this thing through, and that is plain. As a matter of fact, position to enforce such instructions, the question of an I ·favor an increase in prices, but it so happens that when appropriation for parity payment was not before the sub-. prices increase, land prices increase also; and the gentleman committee at any time. Under the circumstances, there was will not solve the tenancy problem in that way, because ten­ no means by which it could have been brought before the ancy has increased more when prices were high than when subcommittee for consideration. they were low. And the gentleman is :fiying in the face of Mr. JONES of Texas. I am glad the gentleman makes that· the facts when he states they can own their own homes in statement, because I have always regarded him as being in·­ that way. They are beginning to own their own homes under terested in this problem, and I was amazed that while they the present farm-tenancy program, and the gentleman now have made comparatively few reductions on other bills, they kills it. cut this one 47 percent. It is a surprising thing, coming from I agree with a measure of economy, but when the gen­ the gentleman from Missouri, and I am glad to have his tleman takes a maehete and an ax and tries to destroy every explanation ·that he was acting under the instructions of the step that is being taken in that direction, I do not agree with full committee, and I absolve him of that, but that docs not him that nothing is being done. We have the lowest farm solve the problem. interest rates that ever prevailed in this country; we have Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I hardly see how provision for rural electrification; we have provision for dis­ there can be any misapprehension as to my position on parity posal of su.rPluses, which the gentleman's committee, I under­ payments. I have made the tight for them, both in the com­ stand, has practically killed; and we have a provision for mittee and in the House each year they have been pro­ starting on the solution of a problem that has been accumu­ vided. Last year I brought the appropriation of $225,000,000 lating for 75 years-farm tenancy-and you cannot cure it for this purpose back from conference by one vote, and, in 1 year, and the gentleman now offers to further that on my motion, largely through the valiant cooperation of the program by destroying it, which is an absurdity. [Applause.] gentleman from Texas [Mr. JONES], the House agreed to the Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I am surprised to hear the appropriation by the slender margin of five votes. No oppor­ chairman of the Committee on Agriculture say that we ought tunity has yet been afforded to secure consideration of an not to give the farmer a fair price for his products because it appropriation for parity payments this session, but in due will increase the price of land. time I trust we can again find occasion to call on the gentle­ Mr. JONES of Texas. The gentleman cannot misquote me man from Texas, and in such event I am certain we can again in that way. I have said that I want to increase farm prices. depend on him to put it through. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. But the gentleman said that it Of course, the amount we are able to provide for parity increases the price of his land and, apparently, that is the payments will not bring on the millennium. They were not reason he will not bring in a bill to give the farmer fair able this year to push farm prices up to even three-fourths of prices. parity. And we all realize that they are merely emergency Mr. JONES of Texas. The gentleman misinterprets my provisions, and we cannot depend on appropriations of this statement. I favor fair prices for the farmer, but while that character from the Federal Treasury as a permanent policy. will solve the price question, which needs to be solved, there But, in contrast with the tenancy program, which benefits are various wings to the farm problem, .and you will not only one farmer here and there over the State, parity pay­ solve the entire problem by solving one wing of it. When ments reach every farmer in America, and this year added 11 you solve the price question, you will not solve the question cents to the price received for every bushel of wheat, 1.6 of ownership unless you tackle that problem directly. cents on every pound of cotton, and 6 cents on every bushel Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, no one can sur­ of corn, paid by Government check. And the $225,000,000 vey the results of the farm-tenancy program without being added to the buying power of the farm was reflected in the impressed with the utter futility of the attempt to solve the business of every merchant in the Nation and contributed to farm problem by such means. Even in years when the Fed­ the employment of thousands of workmen in factory and eral income is in excess of expenditures, it is a disturbing fac­ shop and plant throughout the land, who otherwise would tor. In the most favorable light it merely selects one farmer have been without a job. in a hundred thousand, with no advantage whatever to the But parity payments are at best merely a stopgap. They other millions of farmers in the Nation. The great problem pay the farmer less than 75 percent of parity. I trust the before the farmer and the American people today is the low gentleman's committee will meet and bring in permanent price of farm products. This program cannot affect that legislation to standardize farm prices at not less than 100 problem in any way. It cannot add a penny to the price of percent of parity on. the same basis on which every other any farm product or to the individual or national farm industry and service is now enjoying parity or better. Many income. We have promised the farmer parity prices and he proposals have been suggested for consideration and enact­ expects us to keep that promise, and yet farm tenancy has ment, including specific measU1'es recommended by the Sec­ so occupied the attention of the Committee on Agriculture retary of Agriculture and farm leaders and farm organiza­ this session that apparently they have completely lost sight tions. Surely out of all this wealth of material some plan of the important duty before this Congress of discharging can be formulated to meet the situation. I trust the com­ that obligation. mittee will at least meet and consider them. That is all we .778 JANUARY 30 ask. It is niy understanding that up to this time there has from the measures he has mentioned. They have supported been no consideration of any means to meet the situation we the market to the extent of preventing a return to 1932 must face when the war closes. prices, as was pointed out by Secretary Wallace whom I Mr. MASSINGALE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman quoted. But they have not and cannot give us parity prices. yield? Secretary Wallace testified positively and emphatically they Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from could not and would not support parity. It is not a matter Oklahoma. of surmise or conjecture. We have tried them out. And Mr. MASSINGALE. Siri.ce the Secretary of Agriculture even under the most favorable conditions, with a, drought in has been· fair enough to state that he never can accomplish the Northwest driving up the price of wheat-to the specu­ i parity or cost-of-production prices for farmers under his bill, lator not to the farmer who sold it long ago--even with the ·I understand the position of the gentleman from Missouri is drought and with three-fourths of the nations at war and . that we ought to abide by what the Secretary says in that the other fourth arming for war, and suppfemented by bil­ respect and have the guts to get up here and either give them lions of <;lollars spent for relief, the best they could do was cost of production or parity as a :floor under farm prices, so just a little short of three-fourths of parity. If that is true· that when this war does end, if it ends soon, the farmer will now what do you suppose will happen to farm prices when not be left without anything on earth for his farm products. the war closes with Euro:Pe and Asia bankru:P·t, and our war Mr. GANNON of Missouri. Any farmer who went through industries closing down? And most significant of all-a de­ the last war can testify to that. It would be presumptuous to pleted United States Treasury unable to supply further pass on the merits or demerits of any of the measures which parity payments or finance the many other activities which have been submitted, but in multiplicity of counsel there is are. providing a market for farm products now and will be wisdom, and I hope the Committee on Agriculture will meet missing when peace ·and exhaustion and destitution come to and consider the entire field; and when they do, I have every Europe. Even if they would do as wen after the war as confidence that they will be able to evolve a plan, or a com­ now, would you consider that enough? The Qovernment bination of plans, that will answer our needs and protect the promised the farmers parity and it promised Members of interests of the farmer and the country. Congress their salaries for services rendered. If, when 'you Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman y.:.e:d? went to collect your salary, they paid you 75 cents on the Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to my colleague from dollar-would you think the Government had carried out a Missouri. splendid program? Well, the farmers feel the same way Mr. NELSON. My colleague, than whom the farmer has about it. · no better friend in Congress, has referred to the collapse in Mr. O'CONNOR. Mr: Chairman, will the gentleman yield? farm prices which h,e anticipates will follow the present World Mr. CANNON of Missouri. · I yield to the gentleman from War, and has made reference to the collapse which came at Montana. the close of the World War a quarter of a century ago. Obvi­ Mr. O'CONNOR. Parity payments are cut out of this bill; ously there can be no such collapse-that is, to such a degree in other words, if this bill is passed we get no parity pay- as came then-because up to now the farm prices have not . ments. · advanced in any respect because of the World War now being Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Parity payments never were waged overseas. What the farmer buys has to a considerable in the bill. They were not even submitted in the Budget extent advanced in price, but not what he sells. estimates. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I regret that I cannot agree Mr. O'CONNOR. I realize, just as was said by the dis­ with my colleague. All authorities agree that the situation tinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. NELSON], that there will be infinitely worse unless legislation is enacted to protect is not in the House of Representatives any more zealous farm prices from the same conditions which followed the advocate of the farmer than the distinguished gentleman last war. It is true that farm prices cannot fall so hard, from Missouri [Mr. CANNoN]. May I not say to him that I because they will not have so far to fall. At the close of the believe his committee could carry out the instructions of last war wheat was selling at $2.40 a bushel. Today it is a the full committee to stay within the Budget recommenda­ little under a dollar. When the armistice was signed in tions of the President providing they would take from this 1918, hogs were selling at $24.50. I sold some on the St. Louis huge anticipated appropriation to be made to construct market at that price, myself. Today they are down to ap­ battleships that will never be needed-at least we hope they proximately $5. Eggs were 60 cents; corn was $1.50. A drop will never be needed-and give that money to the American from those prices was a greater shock than a fall from the farmer, and maybe some of the poor people on relief. prices. we are receiving today. But the shock was cushioned Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Unfortunately, this subcom­ then because the Government lent European nations $10,- mittee did not have the battleships before it. In such case 000,000,000, which they spent exclusively in the United States, we might have made some adjustment. and which provided a market as long as it lasted. This time Mr. O'CONNOR. The gentleman would be in favor of we will not lend them a thin dime, because, with the excep­ that, would he not, taking it from building battleships and tion of Finland, none of them have paid back what they giving it to the farmers and unemployed? borrowed then. As a result, the reaction will be more im­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Of course, the gentleman un­ mediate, more certain, and more drastic than before. Still, derstands that the appropriation for parity payments on the the Committee on Agriculture has considered no plans to 1940, this year's crop, the 1940 crop, have already been made. protect our farmers from the smash every Member of this It is the provision for parity payments on the 1941 crop that House knows is coming. is in question. Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. RANKIN. Mr: Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to my good friend from Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma. Mississippi, who knows more about the farm question than Mr. FERGUSON. Does the gentleman want to leave the any man outside of the committee and who has rendered as impression that the present agricultural bill, which definitely valuable a service to agriculture as any Member of the . controls production of those crops that produce a surplus, the House. program of loans, the program of control, the program of Mr. RANKIN. I agree with what the gentleman from insurance, the program of benefit payments, the program of Montana said. We all know that the gentleman from Mis­ parity payments, which the gentleman so ably supported at souri [Mr. CANNON] is always in sympathy with the farmer. the last session, have all beefi wasted, and that American The gentleman from Missouri said a while ago that we agriculture has not in any way benefited from the program were not subsidizing the farmer; that we were subsidizing under this administration? the people in the city who eat the things that the farmers . Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The gentleman evidently over­ produce. As a matter of fact,- are we not subsidizing the looked my statement on the benefits to agriculture accruing middlemen who are profiteering on both producer and con- 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 779 sumer? I hope to place in the RECORD an article from · the The President has given assurance that if that expectation New York Times of January 23, which shows that ()ne M:r. is not realized by the time the bili is returned from the Senate, F. A. Countway, manufacturer ()f soap made from C()ttonseed he will request an appropriation for the purpose. Of course, oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, and so forth, is raking down a the President has from the first favored parity payments in salary of $496,000 a year and had $200,000, if I remember the absence of other legislative means of securing parity, with correctly, added to that salary within the last 12 months. the provision that Congress provide the revenue to pay them. There are many other processors of farm products drawing His position on that point is unasmilable. We should enact salaries larger than the salary of the President ()f the United permanent legislation for the purpose. It is to be hoped that States. They are the ones who are profiteering on the Ameri­ the Committee on Agriculture will meet soon to take up the can farmer, not only the American farmer but also on the consideration of legislation with that in view. man in the city who buys the things produced by the farmer. mere the gavel fell.] Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The gentleman has touched on Mr. DffiKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the one of the vital phases of this question. The hearings before gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. TINKHAM]. the committee developed the fact that there was not only a Mr. TINKHAM. Mr. Chairman, the United States is slowly wide difference between the price received by the farmer and but surely treading the road to war both in Europe and in that paid by the consumer, but that the margin is rapidly Asia. increasing and the middleman is taking a greater toll today, It is proceeding toward tragic involvement in the present both from the producer and the consumer, than ever before. wars step by step, as it did in the last war; first, arms; then, It is a situation which merits attention, considerably more credits; and finally, men. than passing attention, and I trust the gentleman from Missis­ The United States has abandoned neutrality. Neutrality, sippi will follow it up. the rule of impartial treatment of all belligerents, is the only Mr. HOUSTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? policy that has kept and can keep a nation out of war when Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield. war comes. It kept the United States out of war in Europe Mr. HOUSTON. This morning the Budget estimate for the and Asia for 150 years, until the World War of 1914-18, Surplus Commodities Corporation for food stamps went out when abandonment of neutrality led directly to our partici­ on a point of order. Can the gentleman tell us whether the pation. $100,000,000 available from 30 percent of the customs receipts The United States has substituted political intervention wm provide for and take care of those cities that have already for neutrality both in Europe and in Asia. Political inter- been approved for this stamp plan up to this time? vention means war in the end. · Mr. CANNON of Missouri. That is true. The original President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull have as­ estimate for the amount which would be available from sec­ sailed in offensive and provocative language country after tion 32 of the act-that is, ao percent of the customs duties-­ country with which the United States is at peace. was $90,000,000. Under the revised estimate just received the In 1935 they took provocative and hostile action in the amount. is in excess of $100,000,000. This will be available to Ethiopian war far in advance of the League of Nations, and continue the stamp plan in those cities in which it is now in the consequences, by reason of subsequent events, were use, and additional cities wiD be added as conditions justify. humitating to the United States. The system has proven so satisfactory to the producer, the Our Government subsidized China in 1938 in the Sino­ consumer, and the merchants through whom it operates that Japanese war, in the same amount in dollars as Great the bulk of commodities available for relief will be distributed Britain, and strange as it may seem, we thereby allied our­ through this agency. selves in Asia with communistic Russia, which is actively Mr. HOUSTON. Is that over and above the 2& cities that supporting the Chinese. participated in the program last year? There may be other They sent American officials to Czechoslovakia in 1938 cities that have not been listed but which have been approved. to support Great Britain in the political crisis there which Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I am only familiar with those eventuated in the Munich settlement, and again the United cities listed in the report. A small part of the $100,000,000 States was involved in the humiliating and disastrous will be- sufficient to take care of the 28 cities listed. The denouement. expectation is that other cities will be added as the program The President and the State Department openly and ag­ progresses. . gressively supported Great Britain every step of the way Mr. BOLLES. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? and at every turn up to the moment of the actual declara­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield. tion of war by Great Britain and Germany. Mr. BOLLES. Does not the gentleman from Missouri be­ Hostilities between Russia and Finland began on November lieve that one of the helps we could have at the close of the 30, and within two weeks President Roosevelt and Secretary war would be the abrogation and repeal of all reciprocal­ Hull had authorized a loan of $1(),000.000 to Finland and trade treaties, saving this American market for the American sanctioned shipment to Finland of United States airplanes people? built for our Government. The administration now pr()­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I believe that would be the most poses that the Congress authorize a further loan of $30,000,000 unfortunate thing for the American farmer that could be to Finland. These acts are in flagrant violation of neutrality. done. If we close our borders, if we refuse to buy we cannot They are hostile acts. They are acts of war. expect to sell. All testimony before the committee on that No matter how great are our sympathy and our admira­ point was C()nclusive. Market demand for farm products and tion for 1'1nland, the Congress should not officially approve prices of all farm commodities are materially higher than United States intervention on that war front, or on any other they would have been but for the stimulating eifect of the war front in Europe or Asia. To do so would be to commit reciprocal-trade treaties. I trust the gentleman will take the United ·states inescapably to war. time to read the hearings on that question. In the present war between Russia and Finland, the Presi­ Mr. JENSEN. Will the gentleman yield? dent and Secretary Hun are having the United States pursue Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from exactly the same policy as is being pursued by Great Britain. Iowa. In the Ethiopian war, in the Sino-Japanese war, in the Mr. JENSEN. Can the gentleman inform the House Czechoslovakian crisis, and the Munich settlement, and in whether or not there was a penny recommended by the Pres­ the Russian-Finnish war, the "parallel action" to which ident in the Budget for parity payments or anything recom­ Secretary Hull has so often alluded when vehemently deny­ mended by the Secretary of Agriculture for parity payments? ing that there was any alliance between the United States Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Nothing was recommended by and Great Britain is clearly evidenced and is compelling the Budget for parity payn:ents in the belief that as the proof of the alliance of the ruling heads of Great Britain European war progresses farm prices will rise. If they reach and the executive branch of our own Government. parity, there will be no need for funds for these payments. £Applause.] 780 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 minutes. failing faith in the capacity of government as now con­ Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, it was in no spirit of stituted to find the answer; and when that lack of faith be­ exaltation that I listened to the confession today that the comes sufficiently widespread, then you have got a real farm problem has not been solved. It was with no exalta­ problem on your hands that is not dissimilar from that tion that I listened to the confession that our industrial prob­ which has taken other countries and deposited them from lem has not been solved. But when all is said and done and the side of democracy to the side of totalitarianism. The all the rhetoric has been wasted, you gentlemen know just as best language and the best answer you can get to this whole well as I do that the two primary problems of this country, problem you will find in Isaiah. I do not remember the the problem of employment on which, of course, hinges relief, chapter and the verse offhand, but there appears this and the problem of equal purchasing power for the farm language: dollar, have not been solved. Our country is akin to Russia. And it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they in one sense, in that those are the two major countries where shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look you have such a division between agriculture and industry upward. that both of them are primary problems. I can think of That was written by the old patriarch on parchment sev­ countries in South America where agriculture is dominant. eral thousand years ago, but it is just as persuasive and it I can think of countries like Japan and Germany where is just as logical and it is just as durable as it was the day industry is very preeminently dominant. But in our country Isaiah wrote it. we have to find a solution for both problems, and that solu­ Today you hear people say that since we are not finding the tion has not been found. solution to these problems perhaps our Government no longer It is essential that a solution be found, because all the has the capacity to do so as presently constituted, and there­ things we are doing are so futile until that solution has been fore we ought to do something about it; we ought to get a new found. When last in this Well, speaking on the independent Government. That is the thing that brought Hitler out of offices appropriation bill, I pointed out the forward march of the crucible of bitterness and despair; that is the thing that foreclosures by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and that brought Mussolini out of the realms of despair. When the as of this time about 178,000 foreclosures have been author­ war was over I had a chance to go into Italy to make some ized. This is not going to stop until unemployment and relief observations. I saw it. I saw that brooding and dismal have been solved. Diminution of national income, reduction despair on every hand in Italy. I saw people completely lost in national revenue, is not going to be solved until these pri­ and having no sense of direction. They did not know where mary problems are disposed of. I make so bold as to say that they were going. I doubt our ability actually to reach a balanced Budget until I never think of a lack of ·direction but what I think of a you put the ax at the cause. The cause, of course, is the story of a Kentucky judge back in the days when Abraham drain upon the Federal Treasury. Until that drain is re­ Lincoln was in the legislature in Illinois. This judge had a moved not only on the Federal Treasury but upon State rather happy habit of having a bottle of corn in his inside treasuries and local treasuries as well, we are not going to get pocket. He had a rubber tube running from that corn up to anywhere in seeking a solution to this problem. his pipe. He would sit on the bench all day puffing, without If I wanted to document my remarks today, first, as to how any smoke coming from the bowl; but in the afternoon he got much we expended, and, secondly, whether we have found the pretty mellow. He came out of the courthouse one afternoon solution, I would ask you to look at page 1032 of the Budget and threw a saddle on his horse, ready to go home. A young for 1941. This is not my budget. It is the President's lawyer standing there said to him, "Hey, judge, you've got the Budge~. There he says: saddle on backward." The judge looked at him with that Moneys for recovery and relief, total amount provided to October species of judicial contempt that only judges know and said 31, 1939- to him, "How the devil do you know in what direction I am Here they are-- going?" That is the answer today. There is a lack of direction, as grants, aids, and expenses, $15,452,000,100. Federal Public Works projects, $3,542,000,000. Total nonrepayable- there was a lack of direction over there. When there is a lack of direction to thinking then people say, "Well, let's get Not my language; the President's language; the Budget a new kind of government." Bureau's language- I remember, as you remember, the observance of the birth­ Total nonrepayable, $19,001,000,000. day of this country on March 4, 1939. There stood the Presi­ Now, then, the President said this in his message on Jan­ dent, there stood the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the uary 3, 1940: President pro tempore of the Senate, the Vice President, and our beloved Speaker. Here was the Cabinet and here were We have not yet found a way to employ the surplus of our labor which the efficiency of our industrial processes has created. the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Sen­ ate, and the Members of the House, all together under this That is not my confession. It is the confession of the one seal-studded roof. We were having a birthday party for President of the United States, who has indicated to the our country, 150 years old. country time after time since his campaign messages of 1932 I sat somewhere along in there. I closed my eyes. I could that a solution would be found. And here writ into the just fairly imagine our great and illustrious predecessors record he says there have been $19,001,000,000 of nonrepayable marching through the Well of this House-they who were a expenditures. Then when we look at the score, we find that part of the national stream-James Madison, in the First on the 27th of January 1940 the American Federation of Congress; Abraham Lincoln, who served one term in this body Labor reports 9,379,000 people out of work. in 1846 and 1847; McKinley; James G. Blaine; and Garfield, Mr. Chairman, we have not found the answer. When we who sprang from the House to the Presidency-all contrib­ talk about the farm problem and about appropriations for uted to the moving stream of our history and then disap­ agriculture, you cannot divorce that from the industrial peared on yonder shore. I thought of the contributions they problem, because there is a great segment of the consuming had made, and then I began to wonder about those 150 years public on short rations, and until their fortunes have been we had survived without any major change in our Government. rehabilitated we are like Ishmael shouting in the wilderness Will there be a two-hundredth anniversary? I do not rather futilely and making a gesture without finding a dura­ know. Will there be a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary? ble solution. I do not know. But when I see these disintegrating forces I wish time permitted my going into a rather fulsome dis­ in the country and in the world, I begin to wonder some cussion of this whole industrial matter, but I am not going whether after 150 years we can hold our country together. to do so. I am going to leave one thought after this ad­ Of course, the danger is that people whose bellies are empty, ministration confession and apology, I am afraid that if we whose minds are bitter-and you know it and I know it--may do not find a solution pretty soon, there is going to be a undertake sometime to raise their voices in crescendo; and if 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 78t there are enough of them they will say, "Let us get a new No. 3. We made loans to withhold commodities from the form of government." market. I think one of the most interesting exhibits in all So, Mr. Chairman, we have not found. the answer to this the West are the thousands of corn cans, galvanized cans, problem, but when I prefaced my remarks I said that it is no holding 2,500 bushels of corn which stand out in the Com gloating or exultation on my part. But how provincial, nar­ Belt. You see them in the villages and the towns and ham­ row, and bigoted it would be for me as a Republican to draw lets. There you have an articulated example of what was the party line so closely and so narrowly as to say, "Well, done to reduce supply. In other words, withholding supply that is swell. You Democrats have not found the answer. from market. And so we made loans and put the 1937 corn We will make mincemeat out of you in 1940." We may or and the 1938 corn in these galvanized com cans for the pur­ we may not do that; that remains to be seen. But that pose of keeping it from the market in the hope that there certainly would be a provincial attitude, because it does not would be no diminution in the price. find a solution to the problem. After all, our own political My good friend from Illinois hands m~ a picture, here, of destiny and the destiny of any one party should always be these cans. They look like a lot of oil tanks in Texas. As a subordinate to the welfare and the well-being of the country. matter of fact, they are galvanized corn cribs in Dlinois, and So your President stood here on the 3d of January and I suppose this is an aerial picture that was taken of them, confessed that we had not found the answer to the problem, but it is only a part of the whole program to reduce. supply. and in the Budget message he said we had expended $19,- The next step was marketing agreements. What was the 100,000,000. That is No. 1. · purpose of marketing agreements? To hold things off the No. 2 is the farm problem. We have not found the solu­ market for a while, to regulate the speed with which com­ tion to that problem, either. I live out in the Com Belt. modities find their way into the markets; and it is nothing I want to get everything I can for my farmers. I want to else except a regulation of supply which was designed to get that kind of a policy that is most durable and most bene­ improve prices. ficial not only for the farmers in the Com Belt but for the Finally, we had surplus removal operations, trying to g€t farmers in all sections of the country. I can think of nothing rid of the supply through various methods with which the better we could do as we think of this farm bill for a little Department has been empowered and, finally, we went in for while than to get a clear-cut perspective of what we have a land-acquisition program. You may say to me that we are done, how much money we have expended, and.what the score taking marginal land out of cultivation. It does not make is at the present time. any difference much whether it is marginal or submarginal, We have 6,812,000 farms in the country. It may be well to or any other kind of land. remember that figure, and it is not hard to remember- It may raise 10, 15, or 20 bushels of corn to the acre, and 6,812,000. That was indicated by the agricultural census of in that proportion it has been contributing to the supply. 1935. We have 513,000,000 acres of cropland and we have Now, I notice from the hearings that we have taken 10,- 31,800.000 people who are identified with agriculture. 157,000 acres out of circulation, so to speak, because the con­ Ever since I can remember we have been trying to get trol or ownership is vested in Uncle Sam today under the land­ parity for the farmer. What is parity? Well, first of all, acquisition program. So there you have a whole host of panty is a condition under which there is such a relationship steps-crop reduction, crop destruction, curtailment, with­ between what the farmer has to spend and the price he must holding from market, marketing agreements, export subsidies, pay for the things he must buy and the prices which he land acquisition, surplus removal operations-all for the pur­ receives for his products, so that he will buy on the level that pose of diminishing the supply, in the hope of achieving this was attained in the base period from 1909 to 1914. In other elusive thing that we call parity. words, we want to go back to that good old period of 1909-14 You can get at it from the other side also. To get parity when there was a balance between what the farmer had to you can reduce the supply or you can expand the demand­ pay and what he received. So the first and most important or attempt both. We have been trying to do that every way thing is that parity·is a condition; and when you do not have possible. There are any number of programs on the books that condition, you can try to do something about it by legis­ today. But what I am interested in, and what you are in­ lation. You can try to induce artificial parity, or, rather, terested in today, is the score. I am not going to take the induce it artificially by various restraints, controls, subsidies, responsibility for giving you the score. I am going to let a benefits, and so forth; and this is the thing we have been greater man in the field of agriculture than I do it. That is laboring on since 1932; and while there has been some prog­ none other than Edward A. O'Neill, who is president of the ress-oh, you cannot deny that; many conditions are better American Farm Bureau Federation, and who spent a whole than they were back in the dismal, dark days of 1932 and morning with the committee in the finest kind of fellowship 1933-yet we are a long way from the goal. as we sought to get the benefit of his information; the bene­ Now, there are some ways of attempting to provide parity. fit of the accumulated information of the American Farm If prices are low because you have got too much farm com­ Bureau Federation and its executive council. Here is Mr. modities in the country, then one way to get parity is to O'Neill's testimony, after all the effort that has been made in reduce the supply on the theory that if you have less avail­ order to get parity. He said: able in the market prices will go up; There is another way The gross farm income in 1939 is 26¥a percent, or $1,800,000,000 to bring about parity, and that is to expand consumption under parity. and demand. We have attempted both of them. We have done a lot of Now, we spent a lot of money, gentlemen. We have spent both of them; and when r' think of reducing supply, here is a lot of money over a peliod of 5 or 6 years in the hope that what we have done, just to get the perspective in your minds: we could ameliorate the farm condition. Mr. O'Neill tells us Und€r reduction of supply, in the hope that reduction would that we are still 26% percent below parity on the basic com­ raise plices, first of all, we plowed under, and there was lots modities, or a total of $1,800,000,000. of crop destruction, particularly in the Southland. There is How much money have we expended for farm payments? no need to bother you about the millions of acres to be plowed Mr. O'Neill and his very able assistant, Mr. Ogg, who is the under. All I need to say is that it is uncontroverted that statistician for the American Farm Bureau Federation, ad­ there has been destruction of crops for the purpose of reduc­ vised the committee that the farmers have received $3,112,- ing supplies; and, secondly, we have gone in for acreage reduc­ 000,000 in payments; that on the 15th of December 1939 tion, under the original Agricultural Adjustment Act, under cotton was 6.16 below parity. That is a long way. Corn was the act of 1938, and by other devices, trying to reduce cotton, still more than 25 cents a bushel below parity. Wheat was trying to reduce rice, reducing corn, reducing wheat and other almost 31 cents a bushel below parity on the 15th of December basic commodities. What was the purpose of it? To reduce 1939. Rice was 70 cents per 100 pounds below parity. Va­ the supply in the hope that the plice would go up. This is rious kinds of tobacco were ·below parity in prices ranging item No. 2 in the progra:m. from 1 cent to 3 cents a pound. 782 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 Now, there Is the score, after an the thtngs that we have Mr. DffiKSEN. Let me show the gentleman what that done. Frankly, I just wonder where we are going. I share approach is. Here is John Jones, a farmer out in Tazewell with my genial chairman from Missouri [Mr. CANNON] the County, Ill. They come along and say: "Mr. Jones, you are belief that something else has to be done about this thing; a good citizen and we know you are going to cooperate with that we are not getting to the heart of the problem or finding this farm program." John swells out his chest and, like a the solution by constantly doling money into all kinds of pay­ true American, says, "Yes; ·I will cooperate." All right, they ments, only to :find after 6 or 7 years that we are still $1,800,- give him an allotment; they reduce his com acreage; but 000,000 from parity on the five basic commodities that are it is a challenge to his ingenuity just as it has been to all dealt with in the Farm Act of 1938. farmers. Then one day he skims the pages of the paper and In the course of all this program we have made a lot of con­ notices that there is a chance to take less acreage, plant cessions; we have made a lot of sacrifices. For instance, the better seed, hybrid seed, yet produce more corn. world wheat acreage is up 30,000,000 acres. Our wheat acre­ Mr. JONES of Texas. Does not the gentleman believe that age is up a little, but they have been taking advantage of the is a good thing to stimulate? fact that we have been reducing and paying money to reduce. Mr. DffiKSEN. I do. The true world corn acreage is about 13,000,000 greater than Mr. JONES of Texas. Does the gentleman believe it is a in years past. Our decrease is about 12,000,000. You know good thing to have unlimited production of a commodity, you cannot sit out in the middle of the Corn Belt and see all regardless of the amount on hand? those fine golden ears hanging on those sturdy stalks, hoping Mr. DIRKSEN. I am not so sure whether I do or do not. that they will be translated into terms of adequate income for Mr. JONES of Texas. If the manufacturers of automobiles farmers, and then see some of the most fertile land out there had done that in 1931 and 1932, we perhaps could have got­ that God ·ever placed on this footstool being diverted to other ten automobiles at $100 apiece and plows at about $10 or uses and taken out of cash crops on the theory that by $15 apiece; and then we could have a:fiorded to have pro­ reducing we will e:fiect parity. We have not done it. duced without regard to the market. Mr. AUGUST H. ANDRESEN. Mr. Chairman, will the Mr. DffiKSEN. But, Mr. Chairman, I must remind the gentleman yield? gentleman that the administration had never made it its Mr. DffiKSEN. I yield. responsibility to give everybody an automobile. It has, how­ Mr. AUGUST H. ANDRESEN. While you have been re­ ever, said that there would not be any starving people in ducing corn acreage 12,000,000 acres in this country, Argen­ this country; and while they may not be on the ragged edge tina this year has doubled its acreage. of starvation, yet when you put a fellow on $44 a month on Mr. DIRKSEN. I would not be a bit surprised. When I W. P. A. and let him try to nurture a family of four or five think of corn reduction, we are going to have another reduc­ kids, he is so close to starvation that it is not even funny. tion in 1940. On the 29th of December the Department issued Nine millions of our people are still out of work, many of a release-1940 State corn allotments in commercial area them are on the fringe of starvation. I am sure the gentle­ announced, with this language from the Department of man will agree that reduced production of foodstu:fis and Agriculture: fibers in the face of this condition does not seem very per­ suasive. The 1940 allotment is 12 percent less than the allotment for 1939. Mr. JONES of Texas.. Does the gentleman believe it is going to solve this problem to reduce the appropriation for Now, take 12 out of every 100 acres of corn away from us these policies 47 percent? That is what this bill does. under the production of 1939, and finally we get down to the Mr. DIRKSEN. I am not so sure about that. I am not place where we have cut o:fi the dog's tail a little at a time, so sure but what a new Domestic Allotment Act might be a until there will be no dog left, and all the volume gone; all better answer than the present act. the jobless people who refiect that lack of farm volume, as a Mr. JONES of Texas. This problem has been going on for matter of fact. That is why I say, with all deference to my 100 years-ever since the first tari:fi bill was enacted. We good friend from Texas [Mr. JoNES] we are much better o:fi, cannot solve it in 1 year, but the gentleman is not going but after this tremendous expenditure that was made, but we to help solve it by destroying any chance to work it out. are still so far away from parity; and here. we are fighting Mr. DffiKSEN. I do not want to destroy. I am willing the same old problem of making an assault upon the Fed­ to pay to produce, but with all the e:fiorts under this admin­ eral Treasury and aggravate the Federal deficit with no hope istration and all the billions of dollars expended we have of a solution in sight. not gotten the answer yet, and the gentleman knows that I am willing to support any feasible and reasonable farm is a fact. program and support any and all reasonable expenditures in Mr. JONES of Texas. The farmer's total income has been behalf of agriculture if only there is some prospect that a nearly doubled since the program started. The gentleman solution will be found. In the light of the experiences of the knows that. last few years with generous appropriations to carry out a Mr. DffiKSEN. I have high regard for the incisive think­ program for curtailing supply and expanding demand, is there ing of the gentleman from Texas, but what do we find when anyone so bold as to insist that we have found the solution we look at the situation we have been trying to improve; or even approximated a solution? It is results we are after, what have we got for our great expenditure of money? and I believe I express the sentiment of the majority of Mr. JONES of Texas. Let us not stop; I say let us keep on. farmers that they seek results rather than experimentation. Mr. DffiKSEN. We have gone pretty far. We put an Mr. JONES of Texas. I agree with the gentleman that N. R. A. on the books; we put a Wage and Hour Act on the this whole problem cannot be solved by reduction, but does books; we put the Wagner Labor Relations Act on the books; not the gentleman realize that the total production of corn why? For the purpose of putting a ceiling over the hours of in this country the past year is far above average and that labor and a floor under the wages of labor. we have not really reduced the production of corn in [Here the gavel fell.] quantity? Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 additional Mr. DffiKSEN. The gentleman knows full well that back minutes. in the lush days we had 110,000,000 acres of corn, whereas The result of this is reflected in higher prices for all the today we have go·,ooo,ooo acres of corn. things the farmer must buy. Having done that-you voted Mr. JONES of Texas. Over a 10-year period we produced for it and I voted for it-what have we done? We have 2,300,000,000 bushels of corn. We produced about 3,000,- kicked up the level that must be reached before we can get 000,000 bushels last year. That is but one phase of the pro­ parity; so parity is a shifting quantity, or a shifting condi­ gram. The gentleman must realize that there are other wings tion, that goes up under the impact of so many things we have to this. done in the Congress. The result is that we are almost as far 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 783 away from parity today as we were in 1937 and 1938. There 40,000 a year. On page 1186 of the hearings on the 1940 is illogic in that. departmental bill he stated the increase in tenancy was Mr. JONES of Texas. I agree that the final answer has 55,000 to 60,000 a year. These are not my figures. This is not been found, but I do not agree that we have not made a Mr. Alexander, the Administrator of the Fal'm Security Ad­ good start or that we have not made great progress. ministration, speaking. Let us see what we have done on I believe we are doing that. The gentleman mentions a loans. They made 1,832 loans in 1937 and 1938, 4,296 in 1938 certain thing that has been talked about here and that is and 1939, and they estimate 7.200 loans in 1940. The total price fixing. No one knows what the final answer will be, but for 3 years is 13,328 loans. That is what percent of the tenant if you try price fixing on corn, 85 percent of which never farmers in the country? It is less than one-half of 1 percent. crosses the county line and is fed in the county in which it To be exact it is .47 of 1 percent. On page 960 of the 1939 is produced, does the gentleman think any price-fixing scheme hearings Mr. Alexander stated: could apply there? It w:l!ll take $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 a year to alleviate this Mr. DffiKSEN. Let me ask the gentleman, How are we condition. ever going to reach panty if we are fixing all along the line Mr. KEEFE. That is for 20 or 25 years. wages in industry and in one thing and another, so that there Mr. DIRKSEN. Yes. This does not inspire an increase in is a tendency for prices to go up rather than come down~ then farm prices. require more money for relief payments and parity payments in order to reach that elusive condition? That is the illogic Secondly, we are saving up a problem for future genera­ of the thing. tions. You make a loan for 40 years to a man who is 40 years old now and he will have to live to be 80 years old to Mr. JONES of Texas. When we have about $40,000~000,000 of industrial production that is protected at an average of at pay it off. It is not likely that many of them will live that least 20 percent, about $8.000.000,000, the amount that is long. · Then what? You throw it into an estate. Then spent on an effort at farm parity is a drop in the bucket what? Oh, somebody will come along and the farm which compared with it. The farmer has in the main assumed that Uncle Sam financed will certainly revert to tenancy again. burden. I am not talking about the merits of the program. What was the experience of South Dakota in connection It is a program, and the gentleman believes in that program. with farm-tenancy loans? Mr. Chairman, this is not a new Mr. DffiKSEN. I may say to the gentleman we have been subject. They tried making rural loans in South Dakota. approaching parity from one standpoint alone. How much did that State lose? It lost over $30,000,000 on a Mr. JONES of Texas. No. rather short experiment in that field. Now, we were ad­ Mr. DffiKSEN. I will prove that statement. We have dressing ourselves to 2,800,000 tenant farmers in the country approached parity from the· standpoint of letting these and we are washing out less than one-half of 1 percent of wages and prices reach a level, sometimes under the impetus the loans a year; meanwhile the number is increasing over of legislation by this Congress, then trying to reach up to and above the number to whom we can give farms with that level. I wonder whether there is not an approach from Federal funds by about 40,000 a year, on the basis of their own the top down in the hope that perhaps there can be a reduc­ :figures. It just does not make sense. tion downward insofar as industrial prices are concerned Mr. Chairman, the average size of these farms is 134 acres, and then we can reach parity without such astronomical average loan $5,395, and there have been 4 percent· defaults expenditures. That is a thing that has received no atten­ in the number of borrowers. tion to speak of from the Congress of the United States. Some borrowers have paid ahead so that the moneys that Mr. JONES of Texas. There may be some merit in the have been paid are probably 160 percent of maturities, but 4 gentleman's position on that, but certainly the tendency to percent of the number of borrowers are in default. Are we make it further out of balance does not justify the abandon­ solving the problem when we are wrestling here with cash out ment of efforts to bring it into balance. of the Federal Treasury in order to effect parity and an Mr. DffiKSEN. No; I rest on the broad conclusion, which appreciation in prices if we then launch out in a farm­ is not controverted, I am sure, because it is documented here, tenancy program? And one of the conditions of that loan is that we failed in finding a solution to the two primary prob­ that the borrower has to be a cooperator. lems, the problem of unemployment and the relief drain and Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman the probrem of equal purchasing power for the farm dollar. yield? There is not a soul in this chamber today who can controvert Mr. DffiKSEN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas. the truth of that statement. Mr. JONES of Texas. Of course, that figure of 4 percent is Mr. JONES of Texas. I agree with that, but we have made high. At the present time, I understand, they have only 3 a great deal of progress toward it. cases out of 145 on which payments have come due and are Mr. DffiKSEN. We just fiddle away at a solution of many in default. This is an amazingly small percentage. That other corollary problems, and we cannot do anything until problem has been a long time developing, an~ apparently the those two problems are solved. When the chairman of the program is working to date. Would the gentleman knock the Subcommittee on Appropriations was speaking, the chairman baby in the head because it could not walk the first day? of the Committee on Agriculture was quite interested in the I may say to the gentleman that we introduced the bill with Farm Security Administration and farm tenancy loans. So I from a billion to two billion dollar program, but we found here want to address myself to that subject for a moment. I this criticism: "Wby go into that large an expenditure until doubt whether the House has had an adequate picture of you have tried it out and seen how it works? Why not start what this farm tenancy program is. I am going to give it on a small scale?" So we started in a modest manner. We to you. These are the facts and you can stand on them. are not going to solve that problem in 1 year. If the gentle­ In the first place, we are making 40-year 3-percent loans man had a chance as I did to go into a number of different to people with which to buy farms. We made available ·districts and investigate .the individual farms that have. been $10,000,000 in 1938, $25,000,000 in 1939, $40,000,000 in 1940, purchased, he would find that in the main this program has and the present bill carried $25,000,000 when it came out of been working in a very remarkable way. the subcommittee, but this was stricken from the bill by a Mr. DffiKSEN. Let me say to the gentleman that I ex­ vote of 25 to 9 in the full committee. perience a complete sense of frustration when I think that There are 6,812,000 farms in the country, according to the we will make 4,000, 5,000, or 7,000 loans in a year, and mean­ agricultural census of 1935; 2,865,000, or 42 percent, of those while there are 40,600 other people who are sliding into farms are tenant farms. tenancy, so that we are taking one step up and dropping four Mr. Alexander, of the Farm Security Administration, came steps down. before the committee last year, and he came before the Mr. JONES of Texas. I agree that when one :first looks committee this year, and gave us facts about the increase in at it it looks that way, but we first started out with only a farm tenancy. He said it was increasing at the rate of $10,000,000 appropriation and that was gradually increased. 784 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY . 30 We are now having hearings on a measure which we hope to the taxpayer's dough invested he left the Government and got report out soon that would parallel the Federal housing himself a job elsewhere. So the liquidation is one of the method and broaden and expand this. If you break down responsibilities of the Farm Security Administration. In the machinery, it breaks down the chance really to solve this addition to the projects, they built some auxiliary factories, problem. like hosiery mills and garment factories and wood-working The gentleman talks about 40 years. In Denmark, where factories. Up to the 1st of December 1939 they had !:qui­ a program such as this succeeded better than anywhere else, dated 15 of these projects. The 15 cost the taxpayers they have a 60-year program. If you give a man a chance $3,551,000. Now, did we get that much out of them when to work toward daylight on home ownership, you have given they were sold? him something to work for, and such programs have worked Mr. EATON. And the worst one was in New Jersey. in nearly every country in which they have been tried. I Mr. DIRKSEN. Let me tell you what they got. They got do not know how it worked in South Dakota, nor do I know $2,006,000. So in the first 15 we have lost $1,038,000. They what their method was, but in nearly all the countries where have got 1 down in Alabama that cost $1,038,000 and it was they have tried it they have worked out a program and are sold for $194,000. Yes, out of the great benevolence of our holding onto their program, not abandoning it. collective hearts we were going to scatter these great bits of Mr. DIRKSEN. There is nothing complicated about the masonry over the country and let losses fall on the taxpayers. method they used out there. You just loan a man money We were going to be good to everybody at the expense of the and say to him, "These are the conditions under which you taxpayer. can get yourself a farm," and it failed. - - · [Here the gavel fell.] Mr. JONES of Texas. I am not willing to concede that we Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 additional cannot succeed at all when a great many other countries have minutes. succeeded. · Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman Mr: GJFFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? yield there? . Mr. DIRKSEN. I yield to the gentleman from Massa- . Mr. DIRKSEN. So we built the· Alabama project for chusetts. · $1,038,000 and we got $194,000 back, which reminds me of Mr. GIFFORD. The gentleman says we go ahead one step the fellow who sold suits below cost and when someone asked and then go back' two. . him how he could do it, he said, "Well, it is because I can sell · Mr: JONES of Texas. I did not say anything·about going so many of them." -[Laughter.] I suppose by that lqgic the back two steps. That is what the gentleman from Illinois more of these things you have built and on which you lose thinks we are doing. _ seven or eight hundred percent, the more solvent the Federal Mr. GIFFORD. The gentleman has said the progress is Treasury will become. · that way. I suggest that the boy tried to get to school. · He Now, my notion about that is that the liquidation of the said. he could not get there; that he went forward pne step resettlement projects ought to .be turned over to the United and went back two. They asked him how he finally got there. States Housing Authority, or it ought to be turned over to He said he turned around and started for home. - the Federal Housing Administration. That is the proper place : Mr. JONES of_ Texas. I ]1qpe the gentleman does not for it, and not in the Department of Agriculture. believe that by denying the tenant the right to secure a Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman · yield? home he will enable that tenant to start home. How can he start home when he has no home? What we are trying Mr. DIRKSEN. I yield. to do is to start the tenant home. . Mr. JONES of Texas. I agree with the gentleman that the project buildings were a mistake, and when the Committ_ee Mr. Dii:U~SEN. No; it proceeds on the assumption-and on Agriculture reported the bill under which this farm­ probably an unwarranted assumption-first, that tenancy is tenancy program is working we forbade the construction of all wrong. I can show you lots of tenants .who would not any more of those projects and provided fm·· the financing of swap. I will show you acreage out there in our country that individual homes. Now, it is true that the Federal Housing is administered on a tenancy basis where the tenant is infi­ Administration has been doing some work, but they are not nitely better off as a tenant th~n as an owner. We start on equipped to do this type of work, and they found they were an unwarranted assumption. unable to handle it because they have a different method of Mr. JONES of Texas. The gentleman does not mean. that. approach. However, the new bill we have under considera­ .The gentleman may mean a condition prevails, but the. gen­ tion and which we expect to hitch onto this one does follow tleman recognizes that there is nothing worth more to the the Federal housing plan, and I think gives great promise of country than home ownership on an average-sized farm. effective work. I hope the gentleman will not fight to do away Mr. DIRKSEN. Yes; but the idea of addressing ourselves with the program before it has had a change to prove itself, to a farm-tenancy program _when we are gqing to make only especially when it is working so well up to date. a few loans compared to the total number of tenant farmers. Mr. DIRKSEN. I have one rule, I will say to my good Mr. JONES of Texas. The gentleman realizes that there friend from Texas. I think the first and foremost respon­ are 30 applications for loans for every case where the tenant sibility of the Congress of the United States is to make a gets the money? heroic-effort for the people of the country to approximate a · Mr. DIRKSEN. Yes; there are nearly 30 applications and balanced budget. is it any wonder when we give such largesse out of the Fed­ Mr. JONES of Texas. Yes. eral Treasury? Who would not go up to the bowl and get his - Mr. DIRKSEN. Now, every man must have for himself a share of porridge? formula for determining whether an expenditure is justified Mr. JONES of Texas. There is no largesse in this. or not in marching toward a balanced budget, and the only Mr. DIRKSEN. Let me address myself now to this ques­ formula I have is whether or not the matter is indispensable tion of the liquidation of resettlement projects, and I want or whether we could best back off from it for a while rather the gentleman from .Texas to hear this because here again than use borrowed funds for the carrying on of that kind of we got into this high, exalted idea that we ought to go out function of government. Weighed, I believe, by that for­ and dot the countryside with resettlement projects and sub­ mula, we can just as well go along with the overwhelming sistence homesteads. In the first place it cost $1,500,000 to sentiment of the Appropriations Committee this morning and administer the liquidation. There are 160 of these projects leave that $25,000,000 in limbo for a year or two, or until we that are being administered by the Farm Security Adminis­ can determine how far we are going to go to escape the re­ tration as a sort of successor in trust to the old, defaulted quirements which the President has placed upon us-that Resettlement Administration under .the benign guidance of there must be new taxes if we are going to expand. our cherished and distinguished friend, Dr. Rexford Guy I am not unmindful of the fact that the Budget Bureau, Tugwell. After the good doctor got that all built and got when it sent the item to us, lopped off $15,000;000. I do not 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-- HOUSE .785 know what the reason was, but I would say offhand that when there in the Corn Belt, where we have the problem of low lard they capriciously took $15,000,000 off of an expenditure of prices, and low corn prices, and all that sort of thing. So $40,000,000 they certainly did not evaluate it on the side of much of the solution is bound up in finding the remedy for the indispensability, or they would have insisted on the full problem of unemployment and its twin sister, relief. amount of $40,000,000; but they did not do that. They said, Mr. IZAC. And therefore we had better turn our attention "You can get along with $25,000,000," and after we went into to the solving of that problem, does not the gentleman think? it, we said, "You will get along with nothing," and I hope Mr. DIRKSEN. I yield to the gentleman from California. that the Congress of the United States will support the full Mr. VOORHIS of California. Of course, that is the central committee in taking that viewpoint. problem we have to solve. But let me ask the gentleman Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman whether the argument which he made a while ago, when he yield? was speaking about the restriction of production, is not an Mr. DIRKSEN. Yes. argument in favor of the expansion of the Surplus Com­ Mr. JONES of Texas. I will state to the gentleman that I modities Corporation stamp plan of enabling people to con­ have no objection to making the regular amount of reduction, -sume so-called "surpluses" of our agricultural crops? Does but does not the gentleman think that when he takes the he not think that he was really making an argument in favor entire activity and reduces it 47 percent-and I have had the of that plan? secretary of the committee figure that-it is going a little Mr. DffiKSEN. Maybe we can; maybe we cannot; 'but it is strong; and when he takes an organization that has been 3 scratching the surface. We are not going anywhere as far years building up and makes it impossible for it to function as the whole problem is concerned. at all, and practically destroys the activity, that that is pretty · Now, before I get through, having talked about unemploy­ strong action for a committee to take without going into it ment and relief, it would be unfair to develop a thesis with­ pretty fairly? cut having an answer for it, and I think there is an answer. Mr. DIRKSEN. The logic of it is this: If your wife sent That answer is just this: No less a person than Governor you to the grocery store with a $5 bill and gave you a list Eccles, of the Federal Reserve Board, said last Monday that and you find there are twice as many items as you can buy employment depends upon private enterprise. Well, it is an with the $5, there are two ways that you can go about it.· old remedy, but it is a true remedy. It is an old problem, and You can buy half the amount of each and thin it· out. -If it is going to take an old-fashioned remedy. It reminds me you follow that philosophy, you will have inefficient adminis­ of the young wife who called in the doctor for the baby. The tration. Or you can eliminate some of the items entirely, doctor punched the baby around a little and finally he says, · and I believe that is the way to get to a balanced Budget. "Now, my dear, you give the baby some caster oil." She was Mr. JONES of Texas. You would not spend it all for meat one of these ritzy young mothers, and she said, "But, Doctor, and nothing for vegetables? castor oil is such an· old-fashioned thing." The doctor says, The CHAIRMAN (Mr. EDMISTON). The time of the gen­ "I know; but babies are such old-fashioned things." tleman from Illinois has again expired. [Laughter.J Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 additional This· is an old..;.fashioned problem, and it takes an old­ minutes. · fashioned remedy. But what is the remedy? The remedy Mr. IZAC. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? will be found in the expansion of private enterprise and in Mr. DIRKSEN. I yield to the gentleman from California. the encouragement of venture capital into new fields of Mr. IZAC. I do not want to break in on ·the gentleman's enterprise. thought about farm parity and these other matters, but I did Now, what is the score? When Jerome Frank was l:>efore want to break in earlier when he was talking about when the committee in connection with the Securities and Exchange we are going to have a change in the type of government in Commission I had him put into the hearings on the inde­ this country. It is not going to be due to a handful of Com­ pendent offices appropriation bill a statement showing the munists or subversive agents that some fereign government amount of new money each year that had been spent in plants in this country, but it is going to be due to the one­ private enterprise. third of our people who are ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed. [Here the gavel fell.] I· would like to have the gentleman reiterate that that is his Mr. DffiKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 additional own idea. · minutes. Mr. DIRKSEN. But let me add one thing to it if the House I also assembled some figures from the Financial Chronicle will indulge me just a moment. I remember standing in the to see how the last few years compared with prior years in bridgehead in Germany in 1918. I had been a courier from the amount of new enterprise capital invested. Uncle Sam's general headquarters up to Cologne. I could What is the answer about new capital and new enterprises? attune my ear and hear the machine guns on the homes, on Let me give you the high spots. tops of buildings in the town of Dusseldorf, Germany, and In 1929 we were up to $8,600,000,000, not of refunding capi­ what were they doing? They were mowing down their own tal or refinancing capital but new capital. In 1930 we were citizens. I ~aid to myself, "It is impossible. There is solidity down to $4,900,000,000. of character about that type of people that would not permit How much was it in 1933? One hundred and sixty-one them to go that far. They will not get·off of their base." But million dollars; a little drop in the bucket for new enterprises. despite all those attributes of character they were mowing It got up to $1,115,000,000 'in 1937. In the first 5 months down their own citizens .. Why? Because of despair, because of 1939 it was back to $179,000,000. There, Mr. Chairman, is of hunger; because of desperation. Was it because they were the answer to our problem. subversive? Was it because they were lacking in devotion to Mr. Chairman, I like to go back to Scripture once in a their country, to their ideals, their traditions, and their cul­ while. You read somewhere in St. Matthew about the·house­ ture? Oh, no. It was bitterness and despair of the conditions holder who had a vineyard. He went into the market place, that made them do it, and to cut down their own citizens. saw men idle, and hired them. He went again, saw more men May I say to my friend, I am much concerned about these idle, and hired them. Then the Scripture said that in the problems, as much as anybody. So I want to subordinate my eleventh hour-he went into the market place and there saw partisanship in the hope that, in pursuance of the general more men idle. He said unto them, "Why-stand ye here all welfare, we will find the answer, because therein we are going the day idle?" And one with more temerity than the rest to find a major share of the answer to this farm problem. stood forth and said, "Because no man hath hired us." Take 9,000,000 families, instead of having to live on soup That is the answer to the unemployment program. Who bones and cheap cuts, they might go into a butcher Ehop and has not hired them? Those who could if there were any lay down a dollar bill and say, "Give me a dollar's worth of encouragement for new-venture capital to find its way into pork chops." That is the kind of stuff that registers way out the establishment of new enterprises. How could this be LXXXVI--50 . 786 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-- HOUSE JANUARY 30 done? A little encouraging word froin your President and Budget. It is a question of undertaking to bring about some mine to the business element in the country would go a balance of the budget of the American farmer, and I re­ long ways toward finding new jobs so that these people might spectfully submit that no suggestion of the gentleman could earn and help us dispose of the farm surplus of the country. by any stretch of the imagination be construed to relate to When all is said and done, there are but two employers in the solution of that problem. our land-one is business and the other is Government. His comments with regard to providing more capital for Government cannot hire all the unemployed and remain private enterprise are not applicable in any way to the farm solvent. Hence we must go back to business, industry, and problem, although they might possibly be applicable to the enterprise. If private interprise is to take up the unemploy­ problems of industry and the unemployment situation. The ment slack, there must be some incentive for it to do so. problems of the American "farmer cannot be solved by oratory. Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Mr. Chairman, will the gentle­ If that could be done, he would be riding today on the crest of man yield? a wave of great prosperity. What we need to have done, if it Mr. DIRKSEN. I yield. can be done, is that those who have been so liberal in the use Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Before the gentleman yields . of their words of sympathy for his condition and in their the floor, I wish he would give us some insight into the criticism of what is being done for him may, when the oppor­ reasoning of the committee which led them to eliminate the tunity is afforded them translate those words into acts. The provision necessary to carry out the Sugar Act of 1937. ·only way you can translate words into acts in an effort to aid Mr. DIRKSEN. Let me say to the gentleman, first, that the condition of the American farmer today in connection when it came before the committee in December-or in Janu­ with this bill is by making appropriations in his behalf which ary, I believe it was-the quotas had been lifted by Presi­ have been authorized by law. You cannot legislate in an dential proclamation. Several factors were involved. The appropriation bill. If a new program should be embarked second one is that the Sugar Act expires in December 1940, upon by legislation which would substitute other procedure for if I remember correctly. The third is that the Supreme that which now exists under the Agricultural Adjustment Act Court of the United States killed the processing taxes on of 1938 perhaps it may or may not be more satisfactory in help­ every other basic commodity, but we are still collecting ing the agricultural population of the country. I did not vote $68,000,000 in excise taxes from sugar consumers of the for the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. A great many country. The fourth reason is that there is dissatisfaction of those who are opposing some of the appropriations which in the administration of the Sugar Act of 1937, and they are have been carried in this bill in the past, such as parity pay­ not agreed at all as to what the Congress ought to do. ments, did support that legislation, which impliedly promised The Secretary of Agriculture has indicated time and time parity payments. I would like to see other and improved again that sugar is an inefiicient industry and that it ought to legislation substituted for the farm program which now be destroyed. If it ought to be destroyed, then I am willing exists, but I know and you know it is not worth while to talk to give it the coup de grace right now instead of spending of that now and that if we do not use the machinery of that additional millions of dollars. program now in an effort to help the American farmer there Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Does the gentleman realize is absolutely nothing that can be done. that the tax on the sugar grower is still retained? As a member of the subcommittee which reported this Mr. DIRKSEN. But that matter can easily be taken care appropriation bill to the House, I dislike very much to create of by the Congress. [Applause.] the impression that there was dissension among the member­ ship of the committee as to what should be the terms of the [Here the gavel fell.] bill. In the main I may say that we were in substantial Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 min­ accord, but there are certain matters which are contained in utes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. TARVERl. the bill, or which have been eliminated from the bill, that i: Mr. TARVER. Mr. Chairman, if the ills of the American must discuss; otherwise I would feel that I am recreant in farmer could be solved by words, I know of no one better my duty, not only to my constituents but to the membership qualified to act as specialist in administering the treatment of this House. than our genial friend from Illinois. I have listened to him First, I want you to take notice of exactly what has been carefully for 60 minutes. He gave to himself every minute done to the appropriations for the Department of Agricul­ of time permissible under the rules of the House for one ture. Those appropriations for the present fiscal year are Member of the House to consume. I judged from his remarks $1,185,115,315. They were reduced by the Budget estimates that he is very much dissatisfied both with the machinery of to $780,924,519-a reduction of $404,190,796. They have been the existing farm program and with the execution of that further reduced by the action of your subcommittee on agri­ program; and also that he is very ·greatly dissatisfied because cultural appropriations and the subsequent action of the full of the condition of the American farmer. After consuming committee by the amount· of $154,530,263, which makes the most of the time during which he addressed the House in a bill for the next fiscal year, as reported to the House, approxi­ discussion of his criticisms of the things that he contends are mately $626,000,000, as against approximately $1,200,000,000 wrong, he did make some reference in the concluding part for the present fiscal year. The exact cut below the figure of his speech to what he suggested might be the remedy' of last year is 47 and a fraction percent. stating that it would, in his judgment, be unfair to enter upon As I have said, I am in favor of economy-that is, reason­ the extensive criticisms he voiced without at the same time able economy-but in view of the admittedly distressed con­ suggesting some remedy. dition of the agricultural population of this country, I can What remedy does he suggest? I want you to go back think of no justification for making the farmer the goat in over his remarks mentally and find the things to which he this Budget-balancing program which is being carried on and made reference as remedies. First, he referred in a facetious as against very much smaller reductions made in the ap­ way to the old-fashioned remedy of castor oil. I do not propriations for other departments, cutting the Department assume, of course, that he desires to administer that to the of Agriculture activities and benefits to be received through American farmer. That gentleman is suffering enough al­ its activities by the farmers of the country by approximately ready from dysentery of the tongue on the. part of some 47 and a fraction percent. Of course, I realize that one of politicians. the major items in that reduction has ·been the elimination of His next remedy is the balancing of the _Budget. Of parity payments. I do not know if it would be possible at this course, I am as heartily in favor of balancing the Budget as time, even if the subcommittee had been authorized under the he is, and I think my record on that question may favorably rule adopted by the full committee to report it, to secure the compare with his, because I have voted against the making approval of the parity appropriation by the membership of of approximately $15,000,000,000 of appropriations which this House. I hope that later it may be possible to carry int.o have been made since 1933. The question here involved is effect that provision of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of of more importance even than the balancing of the National 1938, at least in time for necessary appropriations to be made 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 787 for the 1941 crops. The 1940 crops were provided for iq la~t :Mr. TARVER. I yield. year's bill. · Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Is it not a fact that the testi­ I call your attention to the fact that this question of rising mony in connection with the appropriation to carry out the farm prices and whether or not they will continue ought not sugar legislation was taken on December 6, at which time the to be decisive of our action in determining whether or not quotas had been lifted, and as a consequence the committee parity payments should be provided in this bill. There is did not, perhaps, have full knowledge of the fact that by no assurance they will rise to parity. You have been told by Executive order the quotas had been reestablished? the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. CANNON], chairman of the Mr. TARVER. Of course, the gentleman will not place on subcommittee having jurisdiction of this bill, and I am sure me the burden of explaining the reasons which actuated other you agree with him in this particular, of the probable effects members of the committee when I have stated to him that I of an early conclusion of the European war upon our agri­ entertain a contrary opinion. culture and of the disastrous drop in farm prices which may Mr. PACE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? r.easonably be exp_ected immediately after the conclusion of Mr. TARVER. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia. that war. Nobody knows whether it will have been concluded Mr. PACE. The gentleman has expressed the hope that the before the expiration of the next fiscal year or not. One thing Committee on Agriculture would bring out legislation to pro­ we do know and that is if we make parity appropriations in vide a means of paying these appropriations. There seems this bill under the same restrictions as the parity payments to be a very grave doubt in the minds of many with regard to which have been carried in preceding bills, they cannot be the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture to propose used to make parity payments to farmers if the prices of the a money-raising bill. They seem to feel that the Committee farmers' products shall have risen in 1941 to 75 percent or on Ways and Means should begin a study of that question. more of parity. In other words, if the anticipated increase in Mr. TARVER. May I say to the gentleman, who I know is the prices of farm products comes about, if there is no neces­ deeply interested in this problem, that I believe, while I do sity during the next fiscal year for making any payments to not claim to be an authority on parliamentary law, that any the farmer in order to bring his prices up; not to parity, but legislation which involves principally the question of raising to 75 percent of parity, then not one single dollar of parity taxes would necessarily go to the Committee on Ways and appropriations, if made in this bill, would be expended. Means, but legislation which deals generally with the farm I agree with one argument--! believe that the President of problem and which only incidentally involves the question of the United States is absolutely correct in his insistence that raising revenue is properly referred to the Committee on Agri· the Congress should make provision by appropriate legisla­ culture. The old, original Agricultural Adjustment Act went tion for financing this farm prograin in some way other than to the gentleman's committee, and there is no reason, in my from the general funds in the Treasury of the United States. judgment, why legislation similar to that should not be re­ I hope the fact that these parity payments have been elim­ ported from his committee. inated for the time being, at least, from the pending bill may Mr. COOLEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? serve as a spur to the Committee on Agriculture and to the Mr. TARVER. I yield to the gentleman from North Committee on Ways and Means to devise and report to this Carolina. House some legislation of a permanent character which will Mr. COOLEY. The legislation to which the gentleman enable us to finance the farm program in some other way refers would be primarily for the purpose of raising revenue. than by general appropriations from the Public Treasury, Does not the gentleman believe such a bill should come from which cannot be indefinitely continued. the Committee on Ways and Means, and not the Committee Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Mr. Chairman, will the gen­ on Agriculture? tleman yield? Mr. TARVER. I do not agree that it would be primarily for the purpose of raising revenue. In my humble judgment, Mr. TARVER. I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska. the existing farm program needs correction and revision. Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. I take it that the gentleman The proposed bill may very well involve extensive proposals may be suggesting a processing tax as a means of financing in connection with the revision of the existing Agricultural the program. May I call the attention of the gentleman to Adjustment Act, the act of 1938, and therefore would go to the fact that under the sugar legislation that was passed the gentleman's committee instead of to the Committee on recently a processing tax was established, and the growers · Ways and Means. are now paying that processing tax? Under the present bill, Now, may I pass on, because there are two or three other however, the appropriation for carrying out the provisions of parts of the bill to which I desire to make some brief that act has been eliminated entirely and, as a consequence, reference. the growers who are now paying the processing tax on sugar I believe the elimination of the farm-tenant land-purchase beets and sugarcane will get no returns whatever this fan. appropriation in this bill was absolutely unjustified and was Mr. TARVER. I am not undertaking to suggest to the an attempted destruction of a program which has been of able members of the Committee on .!\,griculture what they very considerable benefit to a part of the farm-tenant popu­ should do, but they could report to the House a bill substan­ lation of the United States, who comprise 2,800,000 farmers. tial ~y the same as the· old Agricultural Adjustment Act which About the only objection there is to the program now is that was outlawed by the Supreme Court and which would proba­ the objectors believe it is not extensive enough to reach a bly now be upheld by that tribunal. considerable number of the tenant farmers, the idea seeming That legislation, of course, if reenacted by Congress, would to be that because you cannot help all the tenant farmers provide for the levying of processing taxes. I am simply you should not help any of them. Originally the principal pointing out that the President's position, to my mind, is ground of objection was that the tenant farmers would not unassailable, and that it seems to me to be the duty of the pay back the money and therefore we were just giving them appropriate legislative committee or committees of the House largesse from the Treasury of the United States, and it was to provide by legislation reported to this body for some perma­ an inexcusable waste of public funds. nent source of revenue to continue this farm program. Now, it comes down to the point where only three of the With reference to the Sugar Act, may I say to the gentle­ large number mentioned by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. man that I had expected to discuss it later if I had sufficient JoNES] in his colloquy with the gentleman from lllinois [Mr. tJme to do so? I do not come from a sugar-producing area, DIRKSEN] a few moments ago are in arrears at all on their but I may say for the benefit of the gentleman that I was one payments. The .total amount of repayments exceeds by a member of the subcommittee who was not convinced that it considerable sum the amount of obligations to repay now due; was advisable to eliminate the appropriation for the Sugar in other words, the Government is not going to lose anything Act of 1937 at this time, and I did not vote so to eliminate it. on this program as it is being carried on at present, and Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Will the gentleman yield for a therefore little, if any, stress is laid by its opponents on its further question? being a waste of public funds. 788 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 There was considerable discussion in the subcommittee on Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? agricultural appropriations with regard to suggesting to the Mr. TARVER. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma. appropriate officials of the Government that this program Mr. FERGUSON. I certainly appreciate the gentleman's should be financed in future on a larger scale through the statement about water facilities and I- wish to say that the securing of loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corpora­ possibility has just been started of really developing water tion just as it is proposed to finance the R. E. A. by securing facilities for small units to individual farmers, most of the loans in the amount of $40,000,000 for the next fiscal year. money being loaned, and they have done a fine job and I hope These loans are just as safe, just as certain of repayment, the gentleman's amendment, if he offers it, will prevail. just as much of an investment for the benefit of the American Mr. TARVER. I have no intention of offering an amend­ people as are the R. E. A. loans. The fact that the program ment, because I do not come from that section of the country, is being carried on only in a small way is not only not an but I shall support such an amendment if it is offered. argument for its abandonment but is argument for its ex­ There was an item in the Budget for $603,000 for combating pansion. The amount authorized for the next fiscal year is what is known as the· white-fringed beetle, one of the most $50,000,QOO, and certainly there is absolutely no justification destructive pests which has ever operated in our country. for the proposed cutting below the amount of $25,000,000 The Committee did not vote to eliminate that item from the approved by the Budget and, in fact, the elimination of the bill, it was eliminated upon a point of order, the chairman of activity altogether. Of course, gentlemen who come from the subcommittee taking the position that no authority of sections of the country where the farm-tenancy problem is law exists for the making of the appropriation. I was under not very grave perhaps do not realize just the situation in the impression, and still am, that legislation passed by Con­ sections where 70 percent of the farmers are farm tenants. gress two or three years ago authorizing the making of ap­ We held out to them some 2 or 3 years ago, when we passed propriations to combat grasshoppers, mormon crickets, ·and the Bankhead-Janes Act, some little ray of hope that those other pests of that character would be sufficient authorization who were industrious, those who showed that they were hon­ for the making of an appropriation of this kind, but the chair­ est and would repay their debt, those who showed that they man of the subcom-mittee entertained a contrary view. Cer­ were capable farmers, might eventually obtain a small loan tainly, it will be disastrous to a very large area along the Gulf from the Government by which they might purchase for coast-it does not touch my congressional district .immedi­ themselves homes; and· a small number of them have been ately-if the Senate does not restore this appropriation which, able to do it. I am sorry that the number has not been as I have said, is backed up by a Budget estimate. greater, but in the long run it will not cost the United States You have already heard of the action which has been taken Government anything, and if it has brought happiness to even with regard to the projected appropriation for surplus com­ a small number of tenant families in this country who would modities. I do not think that any money appropriated by not otherwise have been able to own their homes, I feel Congress has been more usefully expended or expended in a we have been justified in the support that we have been able way more calculated to be helpful to the farmers of the to give to this program, and I earnestly hope that the House country and also to the low-income families of the country may reverse the action of the full committee and at least than the money which has been provided for surplus-com­ reinsert the $25,000,000 which was approved for this purpose modities purchase· and distribution to low-income families. by the Budget. Talk about this being of small benefit and However, with regard to that item, the subcommittee was just a scratch on the surface. The first appropriation for absolutely powerless. The law only makes a permanent ap­ rural free delivery in the United States was only $10,000, propriation of 30 percent of the tariff receipts for that pur­ and objections were made against it then on the idea that pose. There is no authorization of law for an appropriation they could serve only a few of the millions of farmers in the by Congress in addition to that 30-percent proportion. So United States, and that it was absolutely useless to try to that if any amount is included in this bill for surplus com­ institute such a program, and yet from that small beginning modities it must be added by the Senate, after which the there has grown today a Rural Free Delivery Service which House may concur in the Senate's position if it should see touches almost the entire agricultura~ population of the proper. country. I feel that among the other activities which this adminis­ Mr. SOUTH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? tration has been responsible for and which have been of very Mr. TARVER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas. great benefit, are the submarginal land activities; that is, the Mr. SOUTH. Is it not a fact, so far as the gentleman land utilization projects. I say that as a resident of a sec­ knows, that the farm-purchase program is the only part of tion of the country where very little of that money has been the attempted relief program which does not cost and will or will be spent. I am being guided by evidence which has not cost the Government a single dollar in the long run; in from time to time been submitted to ow· subcommittee as to other words, it is self-supporting, is it not? the value of the work which has been done. The Department Mr. TARVER. I would not say that it is the only part of asked for $10,000,000 for this purpose. They wanted to the program which is self-supporting, but I will say to the carry on substantially· the same program that they have gentleman that, in my judgment, it is self-supporting, and, this year. They were cut down to $1,000,000 by the Budget. instead of being a waste of Government funds, it constitutes Dr. D. S. Myer, of the Soil Conservation Service, testified a wise investment. before our subcommittee, and I trust you will read his evi­ There are certain other items in the bill which I thought dence in the hearings, that in many of these submarginal land ought not to have been eliminated. Some of them are items units they have purchased tracts of land which are not con­ that are not of any interest to the section of the country nected and that it is absolutely necessary, in order that there which I represent. be orderly control or management of these units, that they be Let me refer, first, to the Budget estimate of $500,000 for permitted to purchase the intervening tracts, so as to com­ water facilities for arid or semiarid lands. Not one single bine all of the lands in connection with one project into one dollar of that, if it had beeri included in the bill, would have body. He said that without starting any additiomil projects been expended within a thousand miles of my congressional whatever, but solely for the purpose of making purchase of district, but I have heard considerable evidence from time lands dividing tracts that have already been acquired, there to tiine as to the value of the work done under that appro­ would be necessary for the next fiscal year $5,000,000 in addi­ priation, and which is being done today, and no justification tion to the amount approved by the Budget. The subcom­ was advanced in the hearings before my subcommittee for the mittee did not make provision for that. However, the sub­ elimination by the subcommittee of the Budget estimate of ­ committee did add approximately $1,000,000 to the amount one-half million dollars, and I certainly hope that the House, carried in the bill for submarginal land purchases. upon further consideration of the matter, may see fit to Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. Will the gentleman yield? restore it. Mr. TARVER. I yield. 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 789 Mr. COFFEE of Nebraska. I think the Congress voted Mr. JONES of Texas. Then will there be further general about $10,000,000 a couple of years ago for submarginal-land debate? The gentleman is in position to know whether there purposes, primarily for the purpose of trying to connect these will be. Many of us have not had a chance to get any data purchases together, but in my section of the country that together, for we did not know with what we were going to money was not used for that purpose, and I think the com­ be confronted. It seems to me that general debate ought to mittee did well in cutting it down. run over Thursday. The gentleman is in position to give us Mr. TARVER. It might be possible that in the gentleman's some information on that, I believe. section of the country expenditures have not been conducted Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, we must, of with the same care that they have been in other sections. I course, dispose of the bill by Thursday night. am advised that in some sections of the country at least, I Mr. JONES of Texas. Why is that true? think practically everywhere unless in the gentleman's lo­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I shall be glad to give the gen­ cality, discretion has been used in the management of these tleman from Texas, to whom we always listen with pleasure matters, and there has not been any general complaint of the and profit, or anyone whom he may suggest, all the time he character which the gentleman voices at this time. may require. I shall be pleased to recognize the gentleman I have taken all the time of the House which I feel justified now, if he desires time, for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour. in consuming. I want to repeat that in my judgment the Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would much prefer drastic cut here of 47 percent below the appropriation for the to have time tomorrow, not knowing until today at noon what present fiscal year for the Department of Agriculture is un­ was going to happen. The subcommittee and the main com­ justified, and to express the hope that it may be restored mittee have taken, and I think properly so, 2 or 3 months to either by this House or by the Senate, not to the full amount get this matter ready, but they throw it at us at 12 o'clock appropriated last year, because I do think that certain with all its implications, and while I want to talk a little economies can be effected without injury to the Department and express some of my feelings about this, still when a man or its activities and I voted for them in committee; but cer­ has not had a chance to read the bill it is very difficult for tainly to an amount which will not place an undue, dispro­ him to present his argument, for he has to take a lot of state­ portionate burden upon the farmers of the United States, who ments simply on faith. I would rather do it the other way. have certainly suffered to a greater extent than any other If there is to be no further debate, if we are going to be backed element in our population because of depression conditions up against the wall and face the firing squad within 2 days which have existed during the last several years. after the bill is reported, then I have no other choice but to Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. Will the gentleman yield? take time this afternoon. Mr. TARVER. I yield. Mr. CANNON of Missauri. Mr. Chairman, no one here, of Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. I have listened with a great course, can say how long general debate will continue, because deal of interest to the gentleman's informative address. I had we are proceeding under the orders of the House. I may say hoped that he would touch on several other very serious cuts to the gentleman from Texas that if general debate is con­ which, in my judgment, if permitted to stand, will do a great tinued tomorrow I shall be glad to give the gentleman any injustice to the farmers of the United States. I wonder if time at my command. the gentleman would be kind enough to discuss the reduction Mr. RAYBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? that has been made in the appropriation for the adminis­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield. tration of organized soil-conservation districts. Last. year Mr. RAYBURN. May I ask the gentleman from Missouri there was more than $4,000,000 appropriated for that pur­ and the gentleman from Illinois how many applications for pose. That one item has been cut more than one-half for time they have on this bill? the ensuing year. This reduction, if permitted to stand, will Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I have few applications. Five make it impossible for many districts heretofore organized Members have asked for a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes. and approved to function because of the lack of sufficient With the requests now pending with me we could complete funds. general debate tonight. Mr. TARVER. That is a cut which, in the judgment of Mr. DIRKSEN. I have requests for about 2 hours' time. the committee and in the judgment of myself, was justified Mr. JONES of Texas. I resent this action of bringing in a under present conditions. I cannot agree with the gentleman bill that is cut half in two, practically-a 47-percent reduc­ as to its effect. I think we all agree that it is necessary to tion-with a proposal to close general debate before the exercise all of the economy possible in an effort to bring Members have had a chance to read the bill. I protest any about an adjustment between our national revenue and our such procedure. national expenditures, and to do this we must cut some Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I believe it things we would like to see untouched. I am heartily cooper­ ought to be said that we are following the regular procedure. ating with those who are trying to bring about that adjust­ The gentleman speaks as. if this were extraordinary. ment; while I deplore unreasoning economy, at the same time I do think that some of these worth-while activities Mr. JONES of Texas. Then I protest the regular pro­ ought to be willing to stand a reasonable cut in an effort cedure. I protest the hab:t of the Appropriations Committee's to bring about a financial balance. withholding all information as to what items are in a bill The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from until they report it to the House and then go immediately Georgia has expired. into its consideration. I protest that. [Applause.] Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, this bill comes an inquiry as to whether or not it is planned to continue the up regularly year after year. It has come up ever since the debate over tomorrow. This is a rather important bill and gentleman has been a Member of this House. the hearings were extensive, and the bill was not made avail­ Mr. JONES of Texas. I protest a continuous procedure of able to any of the Members of the House until today at 12 this kind. It is wrong. o'clock. Many of us have not had an opportunity to read it. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The newspapers of the city I was wondering if these gentlemen were not going to permit have carried from day to day practically verbatim a report general debate to run over tomorrow. of the changes made in this bill. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The committee is proceeding Mr. JONES of Texas. Oh, no; they have not. I have under directions from the House that general debate be con­ asked the gentleman from Missouri, I have asked every mem­ tinued for the day. Tomorrow is Calendar Wednesday, and ber on the Democratic side of this committee, and some on the the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads has the Republican side, what the bill contained, and they said they call and I am informed will call up a bill for consideration were under orders not to disclose any information; and I by the House. We will, however, resume consideration of could not get any accurate information. I have had news­ this bill at the close of Calendar Wednesday business. papermen ask me what the bill was, and I had to say that I 790 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 had no idea. That is what they got from these gentle­ Mr. MASSINGALE. On what does the gentleman from men, too. Missouri [Mr. CANNON] predicate his statement that we can­ Mr. CANNON of. Missouri. The newspapers have carried not debate this bill on Thursday or Friday? accurate reports on the bill. We could not, of course, report Mr. MICHENER. Mr. Chairman, a parliamentary inquiry? those things which came up at the last minute. The item The CHAIRMAN. Will the gentleman yield for a parlia- to which the gentleman refers in particular is one which mentary inquiry? · none of us could anticipate, which by a vote of 26 to 5, I Mr. CANNON of Missouri. The program adopted by the believe, was eliminated by the whole committee this morning. House leadership and by the Committee on Appropriations is That action could not be foreseen. to bring in an appropriation bill every Tuesday and debate it Mr. JONES of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I am not protesting during the entire legislative week. We debate the bills, dis­ the action of the subcommittee. I have a high regard for pose of them, and get them out of the way at the rate of one the gentleman from Missouri. I am not protesting the action each week. That has been done week after week during this. of the subcommittee, for they are complying with the custom present session and in all previous sessions. In order to dis­ and probably with instructions from their full committee; but pose of the legislative program it is necessary to dispose of one I want to take this occasion to make the statement that I appropriation bill a week and that is all we are asking here. believe, in all fairness to the other Members of the House, Mr. MASSINGALE. The gentleman made the statement the Appropriations Committee should adopt the custom of· that he had not had any requests for time. The gentleman reporting a bill and waiting at least 2 or 3 days before it is knows it is absurd for a Member not a member of the com­ taken up because there are items in this bill-it is not just mittee to think that he can get any time until the committee one item that we are interested it; there are many items­ has exhausted all of the time it wants; therefore, I am sure a that different Members are interested in; and, in all fairness, number of people who are interested in this have not even the men who represent different sections of the country thought of asking for time because they knew it would not be should have an opportunity to study the bill before they are possible to get it. called upon to act on it. A bill should be reported and, Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Happily, that is not the situa­ unless there is gmve emergency, 2 or 3 days should intervene tion. Out of the five men to whom I have yielded time only before it is called up to give the Members a chance to become one is a member of the committee. Anyone who applies may informed of the contents of the bill. have time. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, let me say, in re­ Mr. MASSINGALE. I am talking about the ordinary sponse to my friend from Texas, that these bills are stereo­ procedure. typed-that the same items come up under exactly the same Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Any Member may have all the circumstances year after year; and anyone who has been a time he wants. I have given everyone who applied all the Member of this House during that time, and especially any­ time he requested. one who has paid attention to agricultural legislation and the Mr. JONES of Texas. Will the gentleman agree that gen­ appropriation bills, can surmise that any particular item will eral debate will run over until tomorrow and through be there again, either pro or con, with either an increase or tomorrow? a decrease. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. We are proceeding under the These items come up every year. All of them have been orders of the House. reported here repeatedly, and it is mere!y a question of Mr. JONES of Texas. Will the gentleman agree not to whether the committee will vote them up or down. It is make a motion to close debate before tomorrow night? Will merely a question of amounts, with no change in the merits the gentleman agree to that? involved. Any gentleman here can tell now what will be in Mr. CANNON of Missouri. We never move to close debate. the agricultural bill next year except as to amounts. It is always done by unanimous consent. Mr. JONES of Texas. There are hundreds of items in Mr. JONES of Texas. Will the gentleman agree he will here. A man cannot carry around a library on the assump­ not make a motion? tion that every item is going to be changed, and he has to be Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I have never made a motion to ready for every item. It is just wrong, that is all. close general debate in my life. Mr. RAYBURN. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. RAYBURN. Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask for Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from the regular order. Texas. Mr. JONES of Texas. Why cannot this general debate Mr. RAYBURN. May I ask the gentleman from Missouri continue and be concluded on Friday? if it is not· his intention and if he is not willing to give Mr. CANNON of Missouri. It has been customary to ad­ liberal time for general debate on this bill? journ over the week end. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Yes. We always give liberal Mr. O'CONNOR. W111 general debate continue until time. Friday night? Mr. CANNON of Missouri. That is a matter to be taken Mr. RAYBURN. If it is determined at the close of today up with the House leadership. that liberal debate has not been had and that Members have Mr. RAYBURN. Mr. Chairman, I ask for the regular not had an opportunity to be heard, who are in position, as order. the gentleman from Texas [Mr. JONES] is, of course, to know The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. something about these matters, then would it not be possible CANNoN] has the floor. to extend general debate for a time tomorrow? Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 min­ Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Yes. May I say again, as I utes to the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. FERGUSON]. stated before, if the time is extended I will recognize the Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to know that gentleman. I will be glad to yield l'Jm 10 minutes, 30 minutes, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. CANNON] has adequate or an hour now. These items in which he is interested have time to give to those who want to discuss this bill, and I am been before the House repeatedly, and they have been dis­ sure if I do not finish in my 10 minutes he will be glad to give cussed for years. If the gentleman is unprepared at this me additional time. time, which is a very remarkable situation, he may speak Mr. Chairman, we heard the gentleman from Missouri today later. make the rather startling statement which swnmarized would Mr. PACE. Why is it necessary to finish this bill Thursday mean that all the efforts at farm legislation under this ad­ night? ministration had accomplished very little. In reality I know Mr. MASSINGALE. Will the gentleman yield? that if the present farm bill were submitted to a vote of the Mr. CANNON of Missouri. I yield to the gentleman from farmers, the great majority of them would vote in favor of Oklahoma. the existing legislation. Certainly it has fundamentals that 1940 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE .791 must be contained in any successful farm legislation. No. 1 have done a marvelous work in restoring blowing pastures is control and No. 2 is the machinery to pay the farmer the and blowing plowed fields with native grass. difference between what he gets for his products and what he Without any justification, without any sustaining facts to is actually entitled to. If the gentleman from Missouri was point the way as to how this work would be carried on, the so anxious to give the farmer the parity prices he tells us the committee cut last year's appropriation for dry-land experi­ farmer is entitled to, certainly he could have followed the fine ment stations of $226,000 to the nice round figure of $100,000; example he set for the House the last time an agricultural not because they were shown a way that this great work of appropriation bill was under consideration and urge an appro­ grass development and of resodding could be carried on, not priation for parity payments this year. because they were shown a way that the production of grain Soil conservation during the last 7 years, a subject neglected sorghums that can be grown in dry land could be carried on, by this Nation until with the aid of modern machinery we and not because they were shown a way that the develop­ have accomplished more toward destroying the natural fer­ ment of trees that will actually grow in the plains area could tility and our greatest natural resource, the productivity of be carried on, but just because it made a nice round cut of the soil, has made the first steps toward stopping the complete $126,000, that sum was reduced 125 percent. destruction of the productivity of our greatest natural re­ Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. Mr. Chairman, will the gen­ source, the soil of this Nation. Certainly you cannot say that tleman yield? the present farm legislation is not the first that has recognized Mr. FERGUSON. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma. the need of this Nation to take stock of its resources and make Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. I may say to the gentleman an attempt to preserve the productivity of the soil of this that when the item to which the gentleman refers was dis­ country for future generations. Any time you hear an advo­ cussed in the full committee· and I offered an amendment to cate of letting the farmer produce all he desires to produce restore the original amount and asked the chairman of the you hear an advocate of the destruction of our natural re­ committee why the bill was cut 'so unreasonably, the answer sources and of the export at a loss of our greatest natural was, "We had to cut somewhere." That was the same an­ asset, our soil. Certainly an attempt has been made under swer given as a reason for several other drastic cuts. the present bill to limit the production of the farmer some­ Mr. FERGUSON. I know my colleague does not agree that what in line with the production of this Nation and our pros­ these cuts are justified because the gentleman has a dry­ pective exports, and when you exceed that you are urging the land field station in his district. He knows what a great Nation to deplete its resources and say to future generations, service they render. "We care nothing for your welfare; we want only the imme­ Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. I will say to the gentleman diate gains we can mine from this soil." that I offered an amendment to restore the sum o! $226,000 I do not have time to talk on the general program, but I do for dry-land stations that was appropriated last year. The wish to point out that loans this year on wheat put $300,- committee without evidence or reason indiscriminately 000,000 in the pockets of the farmer that otherwise would slashed this appropriation from $226,000 to $100,000, which have gone to the speculator, that Joans on cotton undoubtedly means that considerably more than half of the dry-land have kept that commodity from staying at 5 cents a pound, stations of the entire country are proposed to be abandoned. and that loans on corn have actually saved the corn farmer. Mr. FERGUSON. The gentleman knows that the dry­ I cannot stand here and say that all the program has been a land field stations have done more toward the permanent failure. Had it not been in effect wheat would have sold this success of agriculture than any other bureau of the Depart­ year on the basis ·of Liverpool at 25 cents; so the farmers, the ment of Agriculture. real farmers who are enjoying the benefit, are in favor of the Mr. JOHNSON of Oklahoma. I agree with the gentleman program. thoroughly. This so-called economy move is in fact false The people who oppose the program are those who are economy. opposed to any farm program and would like to sell the farmer [Here the gavel fell.] again the old Smoot-Hawley tariff and give him nothing else. Mr. CANNON of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 addi­ I hope for the farmer's sake he will not be taken in by that tional minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma. story again. Mr. FERGUSON. The dry-land field stations, the one at The farmers are perfectly willing to pay their way in this Woodward in particular, can be given credit for the develop­ program. No farmer has protested the processing tax. The ment of grain sorghums, such as maize, which has definitely gentleman from Missouri lays on the doorstep of the Com­ proved to be the only crop that can be continuously grown mittee on Agriculture the responsibility of the farm program, with our expected rainfall. This is a contribution to our but I may say that on several occasions the Committee on economy that cannot be equaled by any other single develop­ Ways and Means has been approached on the possibility of ment in the agricultural picture in our country. They have enacting a processing tax or a certificate plan, call it what you determined proper methods of planting wheat, and now we may, to let the present program pay its own way. Personally, are making some headway with the use of native grasses in I am willing to assume the responsibility and the political restoring that blown-over land. disadvantage, if it is such, of introducing a processing-tax I have in my hand a report of the Department of Agri­ bill. I have already done so. I introduced such a tax bill culture made in 1897. Allow me to quote from Grasses and right after the old A. A. A. was declared unconstitutional. Forage Plants of the Dakotas, by Thomas A. Williams: I also introduced in this Congress a processing tax on wheat. It is very important that every possible effort should be made Most certainly I intend to support a certificate plan or any to preserve the native grasses. They are naturally adapted to the other plan that will finance and assure the permanency of-a conditions which prevail in the region, and it is quite improbable farm program. that introduced forms can be had to take their places satisfac­ torily, at least for years to come. Climatic conditions would soon The farmers are willing to vote such a tax because they destroy the ordinary cultivated grasses, but the native species have realize that if we have to continue to depend on appropria­ flourished under it for centuries, and there is no reason they should tions from the Treasury, the time is coming when the whole not continue to do so and still yield plenty of forage if properly program will be lost to the American farmer. Certainly he handled. does not want to have to return to the tender mercies of the This is one of a series of reports following the unprece­ high protective tariff under which he suffered such disastrous dented drought in the nineties. Overgrazing and improper times previous to the enactment of the present farm program. handling had started to deplete the Great Plains in this There are some little items in this bill that have been cut period. The native grasses were then being considered as indiscriminately, without rhyme or reason. I stood on this the greatest resources the Plains country possessed. In all floor and told the House the results of blowing, of the destruc­ the period in between the nineties and 3 years ago, when the tion of the land by wind erosion. Since that time the Soil present grass-breeding project had started, the study of the Conservation Service and the dry-land experiment stations uses of native grasses was neglected. Although millions of 792 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 dollars had been spent in the study of breeding of corn, and again I have seen important bills brought before the wheat, and other commercial farm products, the possible membership of this House for consideration and without any .uses of native grasses had never been expounded until the Members except the committee members knowing the con­ grass-breeding experiment was started under the direction tents, no copy having been made available. of the Woodward Dry Land Field Station 3 years ago. I have This is not fair to the membership of the House. We all seen with my own eyes the restoration of a whole farm that have our different constituencies to represent, and we have had once been plowed to a good stand of various native their various interests at heart. Bills are brought in here grasses. In the name of economy the committee would have affecting those interests, and we do not even know the con­ us abandon this project on which over $100,000 had been tents of the bill until the debate begins. expended. In the name of economy the only sensible ap­ Mr. MAHON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? proach to the restoration of the Great Plains will be aban­ Mr. O'CONNOR. I yield. doned. In the name of economy the. future ability of the Mr. MAHON. I think there is something in what the gen­ residents of that area to pay taxes, maintain schools, edu­ tleman says, but he should not fail to point out that we usu­ cate their children, and live with a reasonable degree of ally have several days on an important bill to read the hear­ security will be greatly hampered, because grass as it was in ings and to read the bill before we vote on it and before it 1897 is the greatest asset that the Plains country possesses. is subject to amendment. Certainly an experiment that is making great strides in find­ Mr. O'CONNOR. There is something to that, but the report ing intelligent methods to restore the grass that once made

from coming into the country and apparently we were suc­ RESULTS Fl!.OM A WffiSTLE cessful in our efforts. "'If you can't keep up with the shoes going past on the belt,' they 1 To me the most amazing fact regarding these aliens, in said, 'blow the whistle. The belt will stop till you catch up.' I i managed to keep up with the belt all morning, but in the middle of ' view of the company's cla-ims of skill, is their youth. I refer the afternoon I fell behind. So I blew the whistle. All of a sudden you to the above table showing the age distribution of the it seemed as if about 20 instructors were around me, shouting: ' so-called Czech instructors imported by the company. One instructions in Czech and German and English. "I vowed right then that I would never blow that whistle again- t expert admitted, Ludmila Rokytova, though listed as an offi­ not even if the factory blew up." cial of the firm, was only 16 years of age. Others ranged through the adolescent years. One-fourth of the total were It is obvious from this article that the Bata system has 20 years or younger. One-half of the grand total were 25 adopted the technique of the American mass-production sys­ years or less. Look it over. tem without the social viewpoint and humane methods of the At what age were these experts employed by the Bata Co. American use of that system. to give them 5 or more years' experience, which according to This same article points out that these youngsters were 1 the company's own petition for admission of these instructors, employed at the minimum wage required by law. The Bata was necessary to develop the skills required to teach the Bata Co.'s petition for the admission of these so-called instructors methods. Is it possible that this company employs such large alleged that the best results could be obtained by employing numbers of youth in their plant at Zlin? young people and paying them a comparatively high rate of I have here in my hand a booklet published in three lan­ wages. Does Mr. Bata think that the minimum established guages, including English, by the Bata Co. for distribution by law is a high rate of wages? to visitors and those interested in the Bata system. On page The report of a memorandum by the Immigration Depart­ 29 is a picture of a child learning to use the Singer sewing ment officials in regard to the second investigation of the Bata machine. This child certainly cannot be more than 8 years Shoe Co., conducted late in November 1939, contains the of age. It is plain from the picture and the caption below it following: that this child is learning skills involving the use of this Although the petition mentioned above also alleged that the best machine. I now take up another booklet published by the results could be obtained by employing young men and women locally and paying them a comparatively high rate of wages, it same company entitled "Zlin, the Place of Activity," and find should be stated that the greater part of these new workers are from pictures on pages 41, 43, and 47 that the use of the being paid the minimum wage prescribed by the Wage and Hour Singer sewing machine constitutes a vital part of the pro­ Division of this Department-30 cents an hour, or $12.60 per week• . duction system of the Bata Shoe Co. with a social-security deduction of 13 cents. · It is beginning to seem to me that the claims of trade-union In addition, . this alien concern is not complying with the · officials, in the hearings before the Tariff Commission, that minimum-wage standards established by this Congress. In a their opposition to the concessions to the Bata Co. were based civil action brought before the District Court of the United · on low wages and the exploitation of youth were well founded States for the Northern District of Illinois, the Wage and Hour 1 in fact. Division charged the Bata Shoe Co. not only with failing to , In the petition for the importation of the instructors the pay the minimum required by law, and failing to pay overtime Bata Co. stated that their- for hotrrs worked beyond the maximum set for the regular · Experience • • convinces the petitioner that the best re- rate by law, but this company likewise, which seeks special sults can be obtained by employing young men and women locally, favors in our midst, was charged with and later admitted, paying them a comparatively high rate of wages. • • • by a stipulation dated December 19, 1939, the full essence of And then gives the real reason for their importation by the complaint. For the short period of 1 year under which continuing- we have been operating under the act, this company, to bring Petitioner believes this plan will accomplish better results than itself under compliance with the act, made restitution of can be had by endeavoring to recruit its force from among ex­ $7,000 in wages to 65 of its employees in Chicago. perienced shoemakers who are not acquainted with the Bata methods. I am reliably informed that the company is also violating the provisions of the wage-hour law in its plant in Maryland. The company proceeded to follow its plan along this line Trade unions, representing a number of employees in that and early last summer- plant, have filed complaints with the Wage and Hour Division Every member of the 1939 graduating class of Harford County recently. They were informed that an investigation would be · high schools received a card inviting applications for employment. Soon thereafter, the invitation was extended to 1938 and 1937 instituted by the Wage and Hour Division. If and when fur­ graduates. ther violations were found in this plant, it seems to me that Thus the company kept the implied promises of Mr. Bata, this visitor in our midst is certainly abusing the hospitality which has been shown him. It is time the administrative · who when dedicating the laying of the cornerstone said, "I intend to employ no one except high-school graduates and agencies of Government required strict adherence to the spirit to educate them in my methods"-copied for the most part and letter of their regulations before conceding further favor­ from American mass-production methods. able administrative decisions to the Bata Co. Mr. Bata, thus absorbs a small section of American youth, The experts and officials of the Department of Labor who 1 but he completely throws on the industrial scrap heap all have made a thorough study of the methods of this company, . American shoe workers now unemployed and those who will of their machinery, of their technique and business methods, , thus be displaced by the so-called economies of his system. have required the company to reduce its alien staff of in­ His statement, just quoted, claims that his system is an structors to a maximum of 10. This ruling was made after a adaptation of American mass-production methods, so we full, fair consideration of all the facts, and all the allegations should look at those methods to see what they produce. of the company in its original petition. Now, instead of com- I In the newspaper article already referred to in the Sunday plying with the regulations of the Department, powerful in­ Star of November 19, 1939, there is the follo.wing quotation terests in the State of Maryland, apparently at the request of regarding Mr. Bata's methods: the Bata Co., are bringing pressure upon the Department of I Labor to change its ruling. These methods are an adaptation of the conveyor-belt system perfected in the automobile industry. Rawhides and other mate­ In behalf of the American shoe industry, I urge the De­ rials begin at the top of the building and flow endlessly down and partment of Labor to stand by its determination in this 1 around from floor to floor, past the benches of workers, who have matter, and I urge the Members of this House to investigate each one a small task to do in the making of the finished shoe. One man polishes the leather of the hide. Another cuts the the facts regarding the Bata Co. before they associate them­ uppers; another cuts the caps; another inserts eylets; another turns selves in the efforts in its behalf. the welt; another sandpapers heels. You should know the tremendous harm which the methods ; "And it is fast," declared an 18-year-old girl, a graduate of Havre ' of this company will work on our already trained boot and de Grace High School last year. , "They assigned me to brushing polish around the edge of the sole shoe people, when the Biggers unemployment census shows 1 that : and they gave me a whistle. 34,000 boot and shoe workers were totally unemployed1 798 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE JANUARY 30 and 15,000 were partially unemployed. It also works a ' us see how much New England has helped my farmers by tremendous hardship on all labor. buying American leather. [Here the gavel fell.l With the permission of the Chair, I place in the RECORD Mr. DffiKSEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute just how many hides have come in from foreign countries and to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts. used in the making of shoes by the shoe monopoly, hides Mr. DICKSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman which come in direct competition with hides from the States yield? like Nebraska: Mrs. ROGERS of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman [Leather and Rubber Division, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic from New York. Commerce] Mr. DICKS'IEIN. The gentlewoman is complaining about CONSUMPTION OF CATTLE-HIDE LEATHERS IN THE UNITED STATES, BY the admission of certain people who come here to engage in TYPES that industry? · A study has been made by tanners showing the types of leather produced from cattle hides in the United States, and according to Mrs. ROGERS of Massachusetts. Yes. If I had had more this information more than 87 percent of the average cattle-hide time, I could have pointed out that many of these persons leather production in the past 17 years were shoe leathers. The really were not entitled to permits. I understand that all but following table shows the average number of cattle hides tanned in the United States yearly during the period 1922 to 1938, in­ a few of them are to be deported on the 1st of February. clusive, and the types of leather produced therefrom: Mr. DICKSTEIN. Exactly; because they came here under a temporary permit as experts to train Americans in that Perr.ent particular industry. Hides of total Mrs. ROGERS of Massachusetts. And they were not ex­ I perts and were not needed. Shoe leathers. . ------18, 434, ()()() 87. 3 Belting leather------­ 885, 000 4. 2 Mr. DICKSTEIN. That is a different matter. Harnes':lleather. ------441,000 2.1 Mrs. ROGERS of Massachusetts. They did not live up to Luggage leather. _____ -----____ ----__ ------______414, ()()() 2. 0 Upholstery leather_------461,000 2. 2 the terms of their agreement, as I have already pointed out. Other leather____ ----______------___ ----____ .------465, ()()() 2. 2 They asked also, I hear, for a permit to stay permanently. TotaL ______Mr. DICKSTEIN. They could not do that under the law if 21, 100,000 1------they came here for the sole purpose of teaching American Principal sources of United Sto.tes cattle-hide imports girls and boys that particular trade or vocation. Mrs. ROGERS .of Massachusetts. If you follow my remarks Pieces Pounds Dollars closely, you will see they tried to evade the law. I may say to the gentleman-- 1938 Mr. DICKSTEIN. Then they will be sent back in due Argentina_------­ 525,060 24,052,418 2,443,060 course. Uruguay __ .------­ 15,000 866,820 101,841 BraziL_------Canada______171,554 9,237, 467 576,155 Mrs. ROGERS of Massachusetts. They are to be deported 488,301 21, 119,442 1, 527,366 Mexico. __ ------____ -----______13,300 549,392 32,099 very shortly, I understand. You see what a hardship it places Australia.------__ 10,520 271,422 28,121 on our workers to import foreign labor. We have the best and New Zealand.. ______13,754 577,486 50,657 in Italy . . _------8,679 369,734 108,303 most highly trained shoe workers the world. It seems to Switzerland. ___ ------9,683 965, 39-l 138,626 me one of our most vital needs today is to put our people China._------­ 19 282 55 l------l------4------back to work, and we cannot sanction any such activity as Total worl

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 44 minutes p. m.) the House adjourned until tomorrow, On Wednesday, February 14, 1940, at 10 a. m., there will be Wednesday, Janua.ry 31, 1940, at 12 o'clock noon. a hearing before the Special Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and Reorganization of the Committee on the Judiciary on the COMMITTEE HEARINGS bill