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Show Marquis Child's GOP Slipped Badly at Farm Meet WASHINGTON As Democrat Demo-crat appraise the remit of their conference In San Francisco on electric power and Irrigation, the Republican are taking stock of the reaulta of their Sioux City farm conference. The Democrat Demo-crat profea to the optimlitic; the . Republican! are something lea than hopeful. The latter complain, and with considerable reason, about how difficult It I to Ulk against a "giveaway"' program like the Brannan plan. The Sioux City meeting tended to become a down-wlth-Brannan session. A the Republican! themselve real-Ize, real-Ize, that kind of negativeneaa ,ia not calculated to win fervent upport Jame O. Pat ton. head of the Farmers union, the only farm organization to support the Brannan plan, turned up and provided aome carefully planted upport for the fair deal farm program. Even though one or two farmer tmton itatt Teaderi-took Teaderi-took the opposite line, the result re-sult waa to make the meeting sound Ilk a debate with forces divided on the basie iaaue. Skillfully Organised In contrast, the San Francisco Fran-cisco conference was skillfully organized, the session were al-moat al-moat alwaya filled to overflowing, overflow-ing, panel speaker discussed Power dama and reclamation project of Immediate concern to the western states. And, above all, of course, the weight Jf a government In power in an era of government spending was In evidence. The farm lull nrnw-, become Increasingly Important aa th consumer go on paying pay-ing high prices for food and th government goe on buying "surplus" commodities from the fanner and holding them off th market That I where th Brannan plan ha the edge In appeal. It would giv th average aver-age citizen thr benefit of lower price. It weakneaa, politically and economically, 1 that no on can teU what it will cost th government Boost Not -Enough Merely to push up the minimum mini-mum parity level from 60 to 79 In order to appease farmers nervous about price I not enough. Since the end of the war the government ha paid out $487,000,000 for corn and ts09.000.000 for 4,000,000 bale of cotton that 1 held off th market. The loss on th pur- . chase of egg ha been 138,000,-000. 138,000,-000. The consumer n the city ' py 70c to 90c a dozen for eggs. Perhape the biggest hitch over advancement of the Brannan plan I right inside th. Democratic Demo-cratic camp. Sen. Clinton An-derson, An-derson, who stepped out a secretary sec-retary of agriculture In the Truman Tru-man cabinet to defeat Patrick i Hurley for th senate In New Mexico, ha com up with Jil own farm program. Promoting It assiduously, he I now confident con-fident it will be adopted. A. Jealous Eye There 1 more than a suspicion that Anderson may look with a jealous eye on the fam of hla successor, Secy. Brannan. At any rate, he ha In a remark- ' ably abort time changed hi point of view a between executive execu-tive and legislative branch of th government. Several senator wer surprised sur-prised when Anderson sp-proached sp-proached them about the bill proposing substantial pay Increases In-creases for officiala in the department.- These followed fr th moat, part th recommend- tmna of the Hoover commission. But Anderson felt that the bureaucrats bu-reaucrats didn't deserve any pay Increase or at least not such big raises. Thl Is all th more surprising sur-prising because laat year when he was on th other side of th fence, Anderson In several statements state-ments and speeches pleaded eloquently elo-quently for the government servant serv-ant Awful Comblnatloa Before the Economic club in cVew York he said: "Reckless accusations can help to make government become be-come what Ita worst critic claim it la. Continual sniping and carping, combined with rigid low limit on salaries of top-grade people, discourses ven th tough-hided public servant He might continue to take on or th other of th handicap because be take prid in public service. But th combination Of unrealistic criticism criti-cism and , low pay for heavy responsibility become to much, to take." A he proved In New Mexico last year, Anderson Is a forceful force-ful campaigner. But if th ad-minletration ad-minletration continue to tak a atand on the Brannan plan, a now seem certain, Anderson will not be In a very strong position to hit th trail In next year congressional elections. But a political year can bring about some atrang conversions. As th Republicans are sadiy aware, th Brannan plan ha a glittering attractiveness. It seems on th surface to resolve ' that most foolish of paradoxes . high prices In th midst of overflowing abundance. Yes, there I an Imperialism In th world today but It la not American imperialism. It come from th east It is a most subtle type of Imperialism, using us-ing all the Communist tactics of Infiltration to permit a virions minority to dominate and thwart the will of the majority Rep. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. |
