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Show PRESIDENT VETOES FARM RELIEF BILL The President in vetoing the Mc-Nary-Hougan farm Relief bill makes some very pointed remarks : "No one can deny that the price of many farm products have been out of line with the general price level for several years. Reasonable and constructive con-structive legislation to that end would be justified. The difficulty with this measure is tat it is not framed to aid the farmers." "The measure provides for the payment pay-ment by the Federal board of all losses, loss-es, costs and charges of packers, millers, mil-lers, cotton spinners, or other processors proces-sors who are operating under contract with the board. It contemplates that the packers may be commissioned by the Government to buy hogs enough to create a near scarcity in this country, coun-try, slaughter the hogs, sell the pork products abroad at a loss, and have the losses, costs, and charges made good out of the pockets of farm taxpayers." tax-payers." "It seems almost icredible that the producers of hogs, corn, wheat, rice, tobacco, and cotton should be offered a scheme of legislative relief in which the only persons who are guaranteed a profit are the exporters, packers, millers, cotton sninnprs nnrl nthpv processors." "The bill would impose the burden ef its support to a large degree upon farmers who would not benefit by it. The products embraced in the plan are only about one-third of the total .American farm production. There are several million farmers who do not produce any of the designated products, pro-ducts, and they must pay the premiums premi-ums upon the products designated in the bill. In some commodities such s oorn and mill feed the farmers are practically the sole consumers. H is proposed to increase the price of corn and mill feed to American farmers, and therefore the costs to the dairy and cattle feeeding industries whose products are omitted from the bill." "The effect of this plan will be continuously con-tinuously to stimulate American production pro-duction and to pile up increasing surpluses sur-pluses beyond the world demand. We are already overproducing." "It is proposed that the admisistra-tion admisistra-tion of this plan shall be in the control con-trol of a board whose members are nominated to the President by agricultural agricul-tural organizations for his transmission transmis-sion to the Senate for confirmation. That appears to be an unconstitutional unconstitution-al limitation on the authority of the President, but, far more important : than this, I do not believe that upon ;serious consideration the farmers of .America would tolerate the precedent .of a body of men chosen solely by one industry who, acting in the name of the Government, shall arrange for contracts which determine prices, secure se-cure the buying and selling of commodities, com-modities, the levying of taxes on that industry, and pay losses on foreign dumping of any surplus." "The main policy of this bill is an entire reversal of what has been heretofore here-tofore thought to be sound. Instead of undertaking to secure a method of orderly marketing which will dispose of products at a profit, it proposes to dispose of them at a loss. It runs counter to the principle of conservation, conserva-tion, which would require us to produce pro-duce only what can be done at a profit, pro-fit, not to waste our soil and resources resour-ces producing what is to be sold at a loss to us for the benefit of the foreign fore-ign consumer." "This is not a measure to help cooperative co-operative marketing. Its effect, on the contrary, is to eliminate the very conditions of advantage that now induce in-duce farmers to join together to regulate regu-late and improve their own business." busi-ness." "Surely, a real farm relief measure must be just and impartial and open the way to aid for all farmers. Surely, it must not contemplate, as this measure mea-sure inescapably does, that farmers in some regions should be penalised for the benefit of those in other regions. re-gions. Surely, it must be aimed to promote pro-mote the welfare of the community at large. Agriculture must be helped and strengthened. To saddle it with unjust, unworkable schemes of gov- 'rnmental control is to invite disaster worse than any that has yet befallen our farmers." "Other plans have been proposed in Congress for advancement in this recovery, which plans offer promise of sound assistance to the farmers without with-out these unconstitutionalities, invasions inva-sions of Executive authority, this contracting con-tracting with packers and flour millers mil-lers and other manufacturers, this overproduction with its inflation and inevitable crash, without this indirect price fixing, buying and selling, this creation of huge bureauoracies. They arc, on the contrary, devoted entirely entire-ly to the principle of building up farmer-controlled marketing concerns to handle their problems, including occasional surplus production, and applicable ap-plicable to all agriculture and not to a minor fraction. I have frequently urged such legislation. I wish again to renew my recommendation th it some such plan be adopted." |