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Show POTATO j NULLIFICATION? j i One of the AAA's biggest problems! lias been the potato control legislation legisla-tion paired by the last congress. Unheralded Un-heralded and unknown to most of us, it burst across the sky with meteroic br lliance when a few enterprising newspaper correspondents published in their periodicals the fact that it regimented every man who grew a few bu.shels of spuds, provided for potato stamps, and against potato bootlegging, and was designed to ' raise the price of the humble tuber to the point where it could look pork chops and bacon in the face without blushing. : So great was the outcry from small potato raisers and householders already al-ready bedeviled by the high price of flour and pork products that there wns intimation it might be impossible to enforce the regulations because the hits Senator Long had filibustered filibuster-ed an appropr'ation bill to death. Some- friends even intimated that the passage cf the potato regulation act was a Republican plot to put the Era in Trusters "in bad" with the housewife. Iator it developed that the act was sponsored by a true and loyal Democratic statesman from North Carolina. j But at any rate, the agitation against potato reg'mentation had its effect and newspapers of October 3 quoted Secretary Wallace that "I am going to do all I can to avoid enforcing enforc-ing the Potato Control Bill." Later he is said to have added, "I've merely mere-ly indicated my own attitude." i But the good secretary reckoned without all his host. The potato moguls mo-guls from every state which boasts of potato mosruls assembled in Wash- ington in a belligerent mood. Their expenses were not paid by the AAA or any other branch of the government. govern-ment. They dug down in their own jeans and bought their own tickets because they were angry and wanted to do something about it. The session in a department of agriculture ag-riculture edifice was a stormy one. The potato moguls were really sore about the statement credited to Mr. Wallace that he would do what he could to avoid enforc'ng the potato control bill. Late in the session Secretary Sec-retary Wallace is said to have appeared ap-peared and made a "clarifying statement state-ment but only after the potato barons bar-ons had intimated that the AAA had been bluffed out of its potato regulation regu-lation plans by the Liberty League or Congressman 'Jim' Wadsworth, who had announced that he would raise as many potatoes as he pleased." Secretary Wallace is said to have smiled beneficently to the assemblage and to have explained that his personal per-sonal attitude in no way altered the enforcement of "compulsory legislation." legisla-tion." It is said that he also suggested suggest-ed a referendum to find out just how much support the potato act has among the spud growers of the country. coun-try. The significant thing 's not the division di-vision of opinion among potato growers grow-ers on the reguation law. It lies in the fact that the secretary of agriculture agri-culture proposes, according to the press, to do what he can to avoid enforcing the law. Is it an intimation intima-tion that he desires to render aid and comfort to potato bootleggers or that he thinks there are more votes than votes to be gained in enforcing it? The time was when people had an I old-fashioned idea that when congress ' passed laws it was the duty of the ' executive department to enforce them. Mr. Wallace is a very important impor-tant member of the executive department. de-partment. But evidently the impression impres-sion that laws were passed to be enforced en-forced belongs to the horse and buggy bug-gy days. If we are going to have a referendum why not let the potato growers vote on whether or not they want to have the law enforced? What 'in a little thing like constitutional rights of congress among friends? ' And to tli ink what the sturdy Democrat Dem-ocrat Andy Jackson said ami did about nullification! j |
