FARMERS: Ache, Agony, Anguish

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 passed into U. S. history one January afternoon in 1936, when Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts began reading the majority Supreme Court decision in U. S. v. Butler et al., receivers of Hoosac Mills Corp. The AAA of 1938 has yet to reach the Supreme Court. But last week two of the men most prominently identified with it set out to argue its case before the tribunal of public opinion. One demanded an outright conviction for failure, the other appealed for a suspended sentence.

Mad Farmers. South Carolina's Ellison D. ("Cotton Ed'') Smith took a long time to make up his mind whether he was proud or ashamed of the fact that, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, he brought the second AAA to the Senate floor this year. In his recent campaign he sometimes blamed the bill on the New Deal, sometimes claimed credit for it. Last week, with cotton prices tumbling under a bumper August carryover of 13,400,000 bales and no increased AAA relief in sight, Cotton Ed set his weather-vane for good.

He and seven other cotton Senators— Georgia's George and Russell, North Carolina's Reynolds, Mississippi's Harrison and Bilbo, Missouri's Clark, Oklahoma's Elmer Thomas—marched on Washington to demand that the Government's present 8.3% cotton loans be upped to the 11.75¢ maximum (75% of parity) possible under the Act. There they were told that the President was too busy, advised to take their grievances to AAA. Cotton Ed snorted: "These farmers are mad. Why shouldn't they be? ... I have served here under five Presidents preceding this one. I never was refused an audience and I never was asked what my business was before this." "Do you want to be quoted on that?" cautioned his secretary.

"Hell, yes, I do. Why not?" Surest Way. To Secretary of Agriculture Wallace AAA has recently come to stand for ache, agony and anguish. In defense of AAA he has argued that present low prices are due more to bumper weather (even the Dust Bowl bloomed this year) than to any serious defect in the Act. But in spite of the most far reaching crop control laws ever enacted, all three major U. S. crops are in trouble. Wheat, with a near-record crop of 940,000,000 bushels and a whopping 300.000,000 bushel carryover in prospect for next year, has stumbled to 50¢ a bushel on the farm (against $1.25 in 1936). A plan to subsidize export of 100,000,000 bushels has been so snagged by record surpluses abroad that only 10,000,000 bushels had been moved out by last week. AAA estimated that this year's corn crop was not so large that compulsory marketing quotas need be applied, but corn last week sold at 5¢ compared to 65¢ a year ago. The crisis in cotton, where compulsory marketing has been imposed, was so grave that Oklahoma's Thomas, a faithful New Dealer, reported last week that cotton farmers in his State were deserting their land to go on Relief.

Taking his courage in both hands, Secretary Wallace last week set out to talk to wheat farmers at Hutchinson, Kans. and—cotton growers in Fort Worth, and promised to talk next week to corn farmers at Springfield, Ill. "Fight for the program that you have," he urged, then revealed what he thought should be done to AAA II to make it work.