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Show rrr!". ideas from ether editors From the Clinton County Republican Repub-lican N'ews, St. Johns, Michigan: Mr. Benson Inherited a farm formula for-mula rigid ninety per cent of parity for basic crops designed to spur tremendous production for World War II needs. He is trying, against determined Congressional opposition, to modify that formula, the war having ended nine years ago Meantime the formula works magnificently; surpluses have swollen to scandalous proportions, the Government is running out of places to keep them, and the price of food is kept high In the absence of a modified formula, for-mula, the only hope of cutting into the rapid growth of Government holdings is by controlling what Is produced This has been tried, but up to now the controls have not been tight enough. This year, for example, plantings of wheat, corn and cotton were limited by Government Govern-ment decree, but farmers planted the thirty million acres thus diverted di-verted to such already abundant crops as soybeans flaxseed and I rye The moie Mr Renson tried I to turn off his farm flood the! worse it raged Now Mr Benson has evolved an elaborate system of over lapping and contingent controls A f:irmpr i who violates his acreage for one crop will lose price support not only on that but on all other crops on which he would otherwise be entitled to price support. If he has more than ten diverted acres, he will submit to a new "total acreage allotment" or lose price support on everything. And acreage acre-age which may be planted to wheat will be cut thirteen per cent to the minimum allowed by law. Whether these stringent measures meas-ures will have the desired effect is debatable; human beings are surprisingly resourceful In circumventing circum-venting controls. But the inevitability inevit-ability of the progression is beyond be-yond question. Government largess leads to Government control, at first moderate but step by step harsher until finally the control is total It Is a melancholy progression progres-sion of which history affords innumerable in-numerable instances. What the ninety per cent men in Congress now have to consider is whether they wish to be labeled the advocates not Just of "fair return" re-turn" to the farmer but also of absolute regimentation of the farmer. Does the appeal of the first make up for the curse of the latter'' |