Long Range Farm Program

Present: Representatives Hope (chairman), Andresen, Hill, Hoeven, Harvey, Lovre, Belcher, McIntire, Williams, King, Harrison, McMillan, Abernethy, Wheeler, and Jones.

Also present: Senator Humphrey of Minnesota and Representatives O'Hara, McCarthy, Wier, and Marshall of Minnesota.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee and the meeting will come to order. We are operating today, as I think some of you know, under very severe limitations as far as time is concerned. The best we can do is to take a very short lunch period and have about 300 minutes to hear testimony. We have over 75 witnesses already. It does not take a great mathematician to figure out that that is not very much time for witnesses. We are not going to take any time on behalf of the committee except I do want to present the members of the committee so you will know who they are and where they come from. I could deliver a long eulogy on them because I am very proud of the members of the committee. I would like to tell you more about them but I am not going to take time to do that.

We also have with us very distinguished members of the Minnesota delegation from Congress.

Without any further preliminaries I want to present the members of our committee who are present here today. I am not going to go into any particular order of seniority or politics or anything else, except as I spot them. Of course I want to first introduce your very distinguished dean of the Minnesota delegation in Congress, August Andresen, whom I am sure most of you know.

On my left I have John McMillan, of South Carolina, a member of our committee from that State.

Next, Charles B. Hoeven of Iowa; Robert D. Harrison of Nebraska; Mr. William R. Williams of New York; Mr. Belcher of Oklahoma; Mr. William S. Hill of Colorado; Mr. Harold Lovre of South Dakota; Thomas G. Abernethy of Missisippi; Paul Jones of Missouri; Karl King of Pennsylvania; Clifford G. McIntire of Maine, a long way from home; Ralph Harvey of Indiana, and Don Wheeler of Georgia.

You know the members of your Minnesota delegation better than I do. I want to present them to you so that you will see that they

are here.

Your very distinguished junior Senator, Mr. Humphrey, whom all of you know, I am sure. Also, Roy Wier, Fred Marshall, and Eugene McCarthy. Here is a newcomer, Joe O'Hara.

Are there any other Members of Congress here who have not been introduced?

The Chair wants to explain the situation as far as time is concerned. We do have a large number of witnesses. Due to the necessity for taking a plane to our next stop, we have to leave here at 4:20. The very latest moment to which we can conduct the hearing will be about 3:45 or 3:50. We will stay just as long as we can. I am going to have to ask the indulgence of those who are to appear here and urge their cooperation with us in the interests of time so that we will be able to listen to all who have been so kind as to come here and appear before our committee.

At the head of our list we do have representatives of some of the major farm organizations, as well as some of the other farm organizations that are more specialized. The feeling of the committee was that perhaps those representing the large organizations should have a little more time perhaps than the individuals. We are sorry that is the case. For the time being we will proceed with the witnesses from the farm organizations and we will not shut anybody off short of 10 minutes. If anybody can make it in 5, we will appreciate it. Everyone here will have an opportunity of filing a statement with the committee, which will be reproduced and made available to all members of the committee. So that whatever you have to say will be read by the committee and the information you give us will be available to the members of the committee.

With that understanding let us proceed and see how we get along. I know a great many of you have statements that you can file. If you will make a brief oral statement and then file your written statement that would facilitate our meeting.

The first witness on the list is Mr. J. L. Morton, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation. We will be glad to hear from you at this time, Mr. Morton.

STATEMENT OF J. L. MORTON, PRESIDENT OF THE MINNESOTA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION

Mr. MORTON. I have some prepared testimony. I think if I follow it quite closely it will be a lot better. I can get through quicker and I will say some of the things that I would like to say. There are a lot of things I would like to say. Of course trying to get it in 10 or 15 minutes is rather hard to do.

My name is J. L. Morton. I own and operate a diversified farm in Stevens County, near the village of Hancock. I have operated that farm for nearly 30 years. It is a family-operated business. It is seldom that I hire any help. Like most farmers I lean toward certain specialized operations-in my case it is Holstein cattle and seed production.

I have been a member of the executive board of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation for some 20 years. I have been president for the past 2 years.

First as a Farm Bureau member and local officer I saw how Farm Bureau policies were developed in the local community. It has been

my good fortune to be connected as member and officer of a number of cooperatives, REA, dairying, breed associations, grain growers and others. These specialized organizations do their duties well, but none has the setup that permits farmer members to express themselves effectively on general farm questions.

The Farm Bureau resolutions process is developed after careful study and debate, with initial action coming from the township Farm Bureau unit and carried from there through the county and the State organizations to the national organization. The Farm Bureau, alone of all of the hundreds of farm organizations in America, has an affiliate in every State. Its membership, at the beginning of this year, was 1,492,282 farm families. Its membership at the beginning of next year will pass the million and a half mark.

Right now, throughout Minnesota, Farm Bureau members are making an intensive study of all aspects of the farm problem, that of declining prices and fixed costs of operation. Probably never in the history of the United States has there been anything like this study that is now being carried on, not only among the 50,000 farm families who make up the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation, but throughout the other States as well.

The problem of converting an industry from war to peace is of great magnitude, as any manager of a city industrial plant will tell you. The industry of agriculture, more complex than any other, has its great problem of conversion. That is why farmers today are studying as they have never studied before, in their farm policy development meetings in homes and town halls and schoolhouses and farm bureau headquarters buildings throughout the State, in an effort to get all possible information on our problems so that at the annual meeting of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, November 30 to December 2, and at the annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau, to be held December 14-17, they will be well informed on the longtime needs of their business and the best way of filling these needs.

As they carry on their studies-not a new thing because this is the way the Farm Bureau has always functioned-they will realize that behind them are millions of fellow citizens who are not farmers. They are there in the ratio of 85 city and village people to 15 farmers. The farmer realizes, as he develops his thinking, that he has a deep obligation to these other people. He is practical enough to know that if he does not realize this, realization will be forced upon him. The weight of public opinion is an important factor in the deliberations of farm bureau members as they develop farm policy in the meetings now under way.

Farmers know that you gentlemen of Congress want to shoot square with the man on the land, that you want to go as far as possible in fulfilling the requests of farmers. Farmers have no intention of placing Congress between the millstones, with a small stone and a large one grinding away at each other and partly destroying each other while destroying everything that comes between them. Many a farm bureau member places himself in the role of lawmaker and asks himself if the thing he wants can be defended when the question of national interest is raised. Good farmers are good citizens, first of all.

Never in the history of the United States have the people of this Nation been so blessed with bountiful food supplies and the money

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Long Range Farm Program: Hearings Before the Committee on ..., 第 10 篇