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Show Wickard's Policies Studied By Farmers, Consumers Both Groups Decry Price Fixing Program; Wayne Coy Appointed to 'Chaperon' Federal Defense Budget. By BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. Secretary of Agriculture Ag-riculture Wickard has discovered that he has been elected chief devil by the leaders of two large groups of Americans farmers and consumers. consum-ers. You know you cannot be a successful suc-cessful group leader of any kind unless un-less you have a devil to fight. And so the otherwise genial gentleman gen-tleman who runs the department of agriculture has learned something new. It is something that all news and editorial writers and all radio commentators know: namely, that if you can make both sides in any controversy mad you can sleep with a pretty clear conscience because that means you are walking a fairly just and middle course. In Secretary Wickard's case the farm group leaders say he is forcing forc-ing down prices. They say he has deserted his own and gone consumer-minded. They say this because be-cause he announced on April 3 that the government would support prices of hogs and poultry and eggs in the open markets at certain prices. These prices are somewhat below the level of the so-called "parity prices" and that is one reason rea-son why he is a devil to farmers. Parity prices, as all farmers know, were established in the twenties and were written into the agricultural adjustment acts in 1933 and 1938. These prices were established In this way: The prices the farmer had to pay for the things he bought and the prices which he got for the things he sold in the years 1910 to 1914 were averaged. That ratio thus established was accepted by farm leaders as a goal to shoot at in the long fight in the twenties when agriculture tried to obtain legislation which would give it an equitable share in the national wealth. Later the parity figures were recognized by congress in the drafting of the agricultural acts, the purpose of which was to obtain for the farmer a decent return for his ofFnrtc Viv aHiitctinff cnnrtlv nnH pnn- Today, former assistant Federal Security Administrator Wayne Coy is executive assistant to the President Presi-dent of the United States with the job of chaperoning the biggest peacetime defense budget in history. He was recently made liaison officer of-ficer for the Office of Emergency Management. Mr. Coy has just moved from his office in the Federal Security administration ad-ministration building into a corner of the bureau of the budget office in the state department, with one end of the hall screened off for a secretary. But his quarters do not concern him. He is used to making mak-ing himself at home where he can hang his hat. Just what a President's executive assistant does is not easy to describe. de-scribe. He is supposed to have "a passion for anonymity" and likewise a passion for keeping quiet. His function is to take as many details off the President's mind as possible, to carry messages and give other officials as many right answers as possible. In other words, help them settle problems about which otherwise other-wise they would insist on talking to the President. Before a budget is accepted there must first be hearings before the bureau of the budget where the various vari-ous departments present their needs. Then there are the congressional congres-sional committee hearings. Today, with a whole new layer of defense agencies spread over the regular departments de-partments and divisions and sections sec-tions it is easy to see that Mr. Coy, as liaison man for the whole Office of Emergency Management which is the over-all holding company for defense de-fense has plenty on his hands. He knows his budgets for he worked in the bureau of the budget himself and he had already had plenty of administrative ad-ministrative experience before he reached Washington. Supported McNutt. Everybody in Indiana knows that Wayne Coy was the man behind McNutt. He left the Delphi Citizen to become McNutt's secretary when suming power as a part oi the recovery re-covery program following the depression.. de-pression.. Desires Higher Prices. Now Secretary Wickard wants prices to go up. He does not say how far. All he says is that the government will support a price up to a figure which, admittedly is below be-low the parity prices but higher than they were when he made th announcement and as high as his advisors felt the present situation required. He has received plenty of complaints com-plaints and what is more he has encouraged complaints by saying that he would take full responsibility responsibil-ity for his action. Now we know that one man's meat is another man's poison. Prices that are not high enough for the farm leaders are too high for the consumer group leaders. It gives them a fine opportunity to get together to-gether and chant: "In a crisis you mustn't boost prices." The dead cats from both camps fill the air and all Secretary Wickard Wick-ard has to do is duck with a quick eye and a clear conscience. And, incidentally, he is getting a few moribund felines that are really for Leon Henderson whose job is price fixing under the OEM. Mr. Henderson announced that farm machinery should not sell for any more than it did in the first quarter of this year. And immediately the department of agriculture received a flood of letters which, instead of saying "hurray for our side," said that Mr. Wickard was letting his colleague, Mr. Henderson, get away with murder by fixing the cost of farm machinery at what the writers say is already exorbitant. And so nobody is exactly happy but the unhappiness, according to Wickard (including his own) is fairly equitably distributed! President Appoints Coy To 'Chaperon' Budget A little over a decade ago a young Hoosier from the town of Franklin moved to Delphi, Ind., not with the idea of becoming a Delphic oracle but to run a newspaper. He bought the Citizen and met a lot of other citizens around the court house and over at the post office. handsome Haul was governor of Indiana in 1933. When the governor became high commissioner of the Philippines, Coy went along. He returned to run the presidential campaign for his boss. Earlier, when he was state relief administrator, he had met Harry Hopkins. At the Democratic convention in Chicago last summer he met him again. This time Harry was engineering the t..ird-term nomination nom-ination and Coy and his boss had to step back. But Coy and Hopkins are still close friends. That helps in the present job with Hopkins, virtual vir-tual first assistant to the President. Harry can answer a lot of Wayne's questions without bothering the Chief. Wayne Coy started out when he was in high school to be a newspaper news-paper man. He was a reporter on the local paper in Franklin before he became a publisher in his own right in Delphi. I talked with him as he sat in his temporary office in the stately Federal Fed-eral Reserve building with its marble panels and its indirect lighting light-ing quite a contrast to the office of a weekly newspaper. Naturally I asked him if his editorial experience had been any help in his present job. He paused a moment and then said, "I know this sounds like orating, orat-ing, but there is nothing more valuable valu-able than having to live with people. That's what you do on a weekly newspaper. You live the lives of your subscribers. "Here in Washington too many people forget the people in the country coun-try seats. My experience has helped me to visualize programs in terms of people. That helped me especially when I was in the Social Security administration. It helps you to see that your administration is carried on the county level. The tendency in the federal government is to carry on at the state level." At this point a secretary popped in. "Brigadier General Watson on the phone," she said. "Hello, Pop," said Coy. I knew this was going to be a very private conversation. Presidential Assistant Coy was going to talk with Presidential aide Watson (known to his intimates as "pop") about affairs af-fairs of state. I left the ex-editor ts his new job. |