The Farmer's Friends

THE CONGRESS The Farmer's Friends

"I have had more cows' tails wrapped around my ears in fly time than any other Senator." boasted North Dakota's Milton Young. "I am sure that I have custom-threshed more hours than all the rest of the members put together, and no doubt spike-pitched more hours than any other Senator. I doubt if more than a dozen members of the Senate even know what spike-pitching means." Other Senators might indeed be less knowing than Wheat Farmer Young about custom-threshing and spike-pitching.-But they did know plenty about the wants and needs of U.S. farmers—the richest farmers in history, enjoying the richest years of their lives, and determined that other U.S. taxpayers should go on contributing handsomely to their prosperity. All week long the Senators wrangled hotly for the farmers' favor, reminding each other of the awful vengeance awaiting anyone who voted wrong.

Senators Will Hear ... As the debate began. ex-Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson rolled out a bill based on the Democratic Party platform—a sliding scale of generous supports, ranging from 90% of parity down to 75%, depending on the size of U.S. harvests. But North Dakota's Republican Young and Georgia's Democrat Dick Russell were out to do better by the farmers. They proposed an amendment that would keep price supports on basic crops fixed at the flat 90% of parity which had been set up to increase production in time of war, and which the House had already voted to continue for another year. Said Georgia's Russell, ominously: "Senators will hear from their farmer constituents if this amendment shall be defeated."

Vermont's able, gentle George Aiken, who had helped write a sliding-scale program for the Republican 80th Congress, took up the defense of the Anderson bill. The whole idea, he said, was to get away from the increasing government controls which rigid supports would surely bring. Besides, by reducing the support level when farm production was high, farmers would not be tempted into overproducing at government expense. Said Aiken: "Let us not look for a check from the government as the first line of attack in the battle for farm prosperity. Let us work first of all for a decent price in the marketplace."

More & More. On the first vote, the Young-Russell amendment went down by the hairline margin of 38 to 37. But the fight had just begun. Just before dark, the Senate voted to reconsider its decision, and deadlocked at 37 to 37. At that point Vice President Alben Barkley spoke up. "The position of the chair," he said, "has been in favor of support at 90%. In every speech he made last year he declared the same position. He cannot now repudiate it, and therefore votes 'yea.' '

Majority Leader Scott Lucas was boiling mad at Barkley, whom he accused of "telling me what to do all evening." Barkley, equally irritated, rumbled: "I have not done any such thing." Vermont's Aiken cried: "The Senate has now out Brannaned the Brannan plan." He said that the 90% amendment would make the bill as expensive and control-ridden as Secretary of Agriculture Brannan's tricky scheme, which the Senate shies from.