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Show Compromise Forecast in ' r Z Debate on CCC Extension , 1 Labor to Use Organized Strength to Fight , : Increased Prices; Administration Is Counting on That Support. ; By BAUKIIAGE Nrivs Analyst and Commentator. VTSV Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. A few weeks ago, an earnest and agreeable young man came to my olllce from the American Farm Bureau Bu-reau federation. His name is Ben Kilgore. He is a Kentucky Farm bureau man, a former farm paper editor who has just been put in charge of the bureau's publicity here In Washington, probably as a result of some remarks without any bark on them which Chester Davis, former for-mer war food administrator and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, made at the recent re-cent bureau convention. Davis did not say that the bureau and some other farm organizations were interfering with the war effort and trying to be hoggish by fighting for higher food prices but he did say that the people of the country were beginning to talk that way about farmers. And he told the organiza- tion members that If they weren't as black as they were painted, they had better begin telling the people of the country so. And so the bureau went out for some "new blood." Kilgore ii not new to the farm bureau but he is new to Washington. He has served In Kentucky. He knows his subject sub-ject and can write about it. I couldn't say whether he has brightened the grim picture which Mr. Davis painted to the bureau he has hardly had time but his presence is evidence of dynamics which are energizing this chip of the farm bloc or one might put it the other way, for the Farm Bureau federation is really the tail that wags the dog when it comes to getting congressional action. And soon action will begin, for the grace extended to the Commodity Credit corporation expires February 17 and then the fight over the subsidies subsi-dies begins in earnest. The Federation 'Line' What the publicity plans of the farm organizations are, I do not know, but this is the "line" as Kilgore Kil-gore expressed it to me: "The American Farm Bureau federation fed-eration is not opposing consumer subsidies in order to break down price control and obtain higher farm prices. The present general farm price level is high enough. All we ask is for a few sensible price ad-, ad-, justments on specific commodities . . . Such small and specific adjustments adjust-ments are far more practical and wholesome than a billion or more dollars out of the federal treasury to help pay the consumers grocery bill and to regiment and socialize the farmers of this nation." The War Food administration, charged with carrying out the war farm program, has no publicity plan. As a matter of fact, the office of Administrator Jones Is about the quietest place in Washington as far as the public goes. Its work is carried car-ried on without press agenting right now. One reason why we don't hear much from the war food administrator adminis-trator right now is because the food situation is pretty good. Of course, there is wrangling about prices but that isn't in his department. The last week in January he announced his support prices which can't be carried out unless the three billion dollar agency that keeps floors under farm prices, the Commodity Credit corporation, is continued. Jones made it plain that the 1944 program depended entirely on congressional con-gressional action. In reply to a question, he said it could be carried du "without subsidies." There isn't any question that congress con-gress will favor the support plan. That's accepted as essential in wartime war-time and sometimes welcomed at other times. The reasoning is that you don't ask a munition maker to Bign a contract to deliver machine guns without telling him what the price will be. In order to carry out the farm program, you have to demand de-mand certain things of the farmer In order to get the thing you want. Hence the guaranteed price. But subsidies are a horse of a different color. Support prices protect pro-tect the producer. Subsidies protect the consumer. Without them, the price ceilings crack. Farm income has risen 116 per cent in dollars since 1939 when the war In Europe began. During the last war, it rose steadily, 128 per cent. However, there is a catch in those figures. In the last war, the farmer's dollar rose only 13 cents in purchasing power. Today, the farmer's income has risen 72 per cent in terms of .purchasing power. Preliminary Report Just what is ahead? On or before February 17, debate will begin on the bill extending the life of the Commodity Com-modity Credit corporation containing an anti-subsidy provision. Meanwhile, the farm bloc adherents adher-ents and supporters will probably carry on a pretty good publicity plan for their side and some of the consumer con-sumer groups will be heard from. Labor will shout the loudest and most effectively. But that is simply because it is a large and a well-organized well-organized group. It is a strange thing, but America, which has organizations or-ganizations of almost every kind and description formed largely for increasing in-creasing the income of its members, has very few organizations formed for the purpose of decreasing their expense. Consumers, as such, are not organized. There are, of course, a few cooperatives but they are hardly more than local affairs and, comparatively speaking, small and weak. This is due to the cheerful American' theory that if you haven't got enough money to pay your expenses, ex-penses, you ought to go out and get some more money. In any case, labor (although organized or-ganized primarily to get more pay) is going to use its organized strength to fight higher prices and the administration ad-ministration is at present counting on enough support from the labor lobby itself, the results of the pro-subsidy pro-subsidy publicity on the general public, pub-lic, to sustain a presidential veto of any measure banning subsidies. There is no sign of enough votes to prevent the passage of the bill, but enough are expected to sustain the veto. So that legislative process will have to be gone through with unless the farm bloc feels it has an accurate accu-rate measure of the administration's strength, as revealed by various test votes, so that it can compromise without going through the veto process. proc-ess. Either way, some kind of a compromise will undoubtedly be reached. But the way is a weary one. Preview of Invasion Tactics With invasion in the offing I decided de-cided I wanted a preview. A little difficult to arrange, I admit. I know, however, that you could see a full dress rehearsal at the amphibious base at Fort Pierce, Fla. That institution has been cloaked in the darkest secrecy until recently. Just before the base celebrated its anniversary anni-versary I was allowed to look behind the scenes. No details can be reported of this revolutionary development in American Amer-ican military history that started fresh from zero. For almost a full week I watched and, in some cases, worked with the men who make "amphibious action" ac-tion" possible those who go over the transport side into the landing crsft and up the beach, and the other men who see that they get there, from scouts and raiders who slip in at night, crawling through the wash of a strange beach to throttle the sentries and clear the way for the others, to the last of the reserves. I have never met a finer type of man, soldier or marine, and they are all there army, navy, coast guard, and the engineers, the sea-bees, sea-bees, the medicos, scouts, raiders and the other specialists. Cooperation Coopera-tion is the key to the greatest achievement in amphibious action army and navy working together as one. It is a navy operation right up to the tide water mark, where the army takes command, but a closely close-ly interwoven texture, as much a single unit as a fighting division of land troops or a navy task force. I talked with their leaders, tough, quiet young men, who have learned by doing they know what it is to land on a strange shore in Africa or Sicily or the Pacific. They are a great lot the scouts and raiders (our commandos) some big, some little, some college athletes, some from farm and factory, but all hard, wiry, certain, and anxious for more action. |
