Show 0 0 national topics interpreted by william bruckart national Nat lonar press building D C washington therease there Ther eare re many oc tensions tea on record where several im I 1 issues s s it e s ever normal have engaged the granary attention of con gress and frequently one of these issues has aroused roused such bitterness and devel ped such a controversy that it overshadowed all others that has been the case in recent weeks dur ing which president roosevelt Roosevel ts s plan to add six justices of his own choosing to the supreme court of khe the united states completely sub everything else but the crushing defeat received by the president through refusal of the vast majority of democrats in bon congress gress to support his court re organization scheme suddenly has attention to other major questions outstanding among these is secretary wallace s farm bill and the so called wages and hours bill which is claimed to contain corn com protection for the laboring classes it is of the farm bill that I 1 hall write now since it is much more imminent as far as congles dional action is concerned than is the case with the wages and hours Iro proposition position the basis of secretary wallace s program is what he calls the ever normal granary there are other provisions included in the bill but the the idea of a maintained supply of tarm farm products is the heart of the plan now it seems that if the words ever normal granary mean any thing they must be accepted as cleaning rne aning a continuity of supply at a level level which goberm government nent agents ar bit determine as the proper tate rate of accumulation or sale of such supplies tup plies the house of representatives has been muddling along with the ques lion tion for several months it has been under much pressure from secretary wallace and his associates and from some of the farm leaders whom the secretary has convinced of the value of his echeme scheme the farm leaders as a whole are far from unanimous on the proposition despite the fact that secretary wallace and the bremen dous propaganda machine within the department of agriculture has been exceedingly active in an effort to sell the plan to the country as a whole and thereby bring addi dional pressure on congress I 1 shall not attempt to give all of the details of the wallace proposal here it is too complicated for ex in the limited space avail able indeed I 1 have found quite a number of members of the house of representatives who are unable to give a complete explanation of how the plan would work and they ad mit it it is a piece of legislation that must be complicated in order to accomplish things its proponents claim for it and my observation of government agencies leads me to the conclusion it is so complicated that the chances of it succeeding are almost nil in the first instance as I 1 have caid said the ever normal granary idea comprehends a constant level of supplies at first blush it would seem that storage of wheat or corn or cotton or other farm products in a big crop year to be sold in ears when crops are small should work out to keep prices at a satisfactory level that is the theory on the other hand in times past this same sort of scheme has worked out to depress prices instead of maintain ing them and the farmers have been the lowers included in this legislation are provisions for benefit payments to farmers under certain conditions when the price level falls below parity this injects into the lem again the influence of the gen eral price level of all commodities in the united states whether from the farm or from the factory and it also forces upon the united states additional influence wielded by the level of prices in foreign countries where the law of supply and de mand continues to operate without impossible amendment at govern ment s dictation no doubt the wallace proposal would boost prices at present this is true because we have had sev cral eral short crop years and there is no surplus now but with indica eions that the current wheat crop for example is going to be exceptionally tio nally large it is entirely possible that the nation as a whole will have a surplus of wheat this fall in ad there will be wheat crops grown in other countries as usual some of our wheat must be sold in foreign markets and compete with wheat grown in russia or in south america it is easy to see therefore that the lack of a wheat surplus in this country is exceed angly temporary 0 0 the ever normal granary if it it works as the theorists claim would store or keep off it sounds of the market that great portion of the crop which is not need ed for current consumption that sounds fine great users of wheat 4 knust aust buy their supplies far ahead if they do nol not take this precaution they stand a chance always of find mg ing their bins empty and are faced with the necessity of closing their mills it is this feature that causes long range buyers to resort to what is called hedging that is they sell on option nearly as much as they buy on contract they are thus able to offset losses whether the price of wheat goes up or whether it goes down and the losses or the gains are distributed throughout the in austry it is the only way by which the industry can protect itself mr wallace s scheme proposes doing away with that sort of thing not directly but through the effect of the ever normal granary in other words the net result of the ever normal granary would be for the government to hold these stocks and feed them into the market as de mand for supplies requires this sounds feasible and it probably would be except for the fact that we have no means of controlling production in the other wheat pro countries and I 1 repeat that I 1 am using wheat as illustrative of all farm products in fact the wal lace plan provides no control of pro in this country and that question is vital As far as I 1 can see nature is going to operate to give us ram rain or give us drouth in m accordance with the judgment of the higher power no human is going to be very influential in that regard to get back to the question of the price level it should be said that while the wallace plan provides what appears to be an insurance against fluctuation it is more likely to have the opposite effect because of the influence of world prices great storehouses of wheat in the country will hang over the market like an epidemic no one can tell when it will strike and since markets are made up of individuals who are human a portion of the markets is always going to be frightened by the uncertainty of when government wheat will be of for sale it is a perfectly human reaction because it involves the pocketbooks and humans nat aurally want to buy as cheaply as they can and sell as high as they can one of the things that happened in the administration of president hoover t that h at is tried j once f sure to be kemem and failed bared is the utter failure of his farm policy that farm policy centered at one time tune in what was called the federal farm board it if you will go back a few years and recall the op orations erat ions of the federal farm board I 1 think you will agree that the things it undertook to do were exactly comparable to if not e exactly acely the same as the scheme set up up by sec detary wallace in his ever normal granary idea the only difference that I 1 can see and I 1 watched the operations of the farm board from close at hand is a change in the name it must be admitted that the phrase ever normal granary has a pretty sound but when it comes to a question of an attractive ex one that is soothing and one that should convince us all that every problem is solved I 1 submit those favorites which mr wal lace used to use when professor tug well was with him in the department of agriculture who does not re call the 6 more abundant life and who has forgotten the doctrine of scarcity to assure plenty As far as I 1 know neither the house nor the senate committee on agriculture has held hearings on this ever normal granary phase of the wallace legislation thus far the discussion has been largely on questions involving benefits and subsidies and means of marketing no attention has been given to the ever normal granary threat and I 1 regard it as a menace if this discussion were devoted to only the consumer phase of our economic life I 1 think I 1 should be selfish enough to urge enactment of the wallace plan I 1 believe I 1 can see where the ever normal granary idea will make bread cheaper where it will make cotton textile goods cheaper and when cotton is cheaper other textiles are cheaper and where other food and feces saries of life that have their origin on the farm will be reduced in price by such a legislative policy but that is not my idea of a sound economic structure it is just as necessary for the consumer to pay his fair share toward the amainte nance of a living agriculture as it is for farmers to pay their fair share to a living commerce and industry of whatever kind it may be the senate democrats have elect ed a new leader to succeed the late senator joe robinson of arkansas he is senator alban barkley of kentucky in a previous column I 1 mentioned the split among the sen ate democrats and suggested that it would be difficult to replace senator robinson because of the qualities he had in m holding the various factions together in the senate it was not a forecast it was a statement of fact Q western newspaper union |