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Show A f.r : y.T -. (l&fiantesi in WASHINGTON By Walter Sheod WNU Corfpondnf WNU Washington Bureau. ISIS Eye St.. N. W. Dept. of Agriculture May Lose Farm Credit Control THE Flanagan bill, H.R. 4873, which sets up a new autonomous bi-partisan board to govern all farm credit and divests the department of agriculture from all authority over farm loans and credit, sailed through the house by a vote of 239 to 80. It is now before the senate agricultural committee. Despite this seeming unanimity in favor of the bill, jour Home Town Reporter is prepared to climb out on the proverbial limb and predict that the bill will not become law, at least In its present form. There are circumstances surrounding sur-rounding consideration of the measure meas-ure which lead to this conclusion. The bill was drawn by a committee representing the three larger farm organizations the American Farm Bureau federation, the National Grange and the National Council of Farmer Co-operatives. Despite this fact, 112 members of the house failed to vote on the measure and included in the 80 who opposed it were some of the staunch supporters support-ers of the Farm Bureau and the other agricultural organizations. These included such agricultural stalwarts as Representatives Cooley of North Carolina, Pace of Georgia, Tarver of Georgia, Hobbs of Alabama, Ala-bama, White of Idaho and others who are usually found on the affirmative affirm-ative side of legislation proposed by the farm organizations. The National Na-tional Farmers Union opposed it. Secondly, Secretary Clinton Anderson An-derson of USDA announced himself as unalterably opposed to the bill which takes from his department all authority over agricultural credit and finance. In the hearings he declared that agricultural credit was as much of a service to agriculture agri-culture as the extension service, soil conservation, marketing, production, produc-tion, or any other of the functions of his department. He concluded that it would be a mistake to divorce di-vorce credit from these operations. Centralization Needed In the third place. President Truman Tru-man has announced, as his policy of government reorganization a further centralization of responsibility instead in-stead of decentralization, and that all departments should, insofar as possible, be brought under the jurisdiction ju-risdiction or responsibility of a cabinet cab-inet member. The President was recently granted that authority under un-der the new governmental reorganization reorgan-ization law, with only a few bureaus specifically set out as exceptions. In view of the President's known views on reorganization and the opposition op-position of his secretary of agriculture, agricul-ture, .it is not too far-fetched to assume as-sume that even should the bill, as now constituted, pass the senate, it may face a presidential veto. Much was made of the fact, during dur-ing debate, that President Truman, when senator from (Missouri, fostered fos-tered a similar bill in congress. At that time, however, he looked at government operation through 'the eyes of a senator. Now with his administrative ad-ministrative responsibility to the nation na-tion as a whole, he sees things differently. dif-ferently. The bill as it passed the house abolishes all present agencies governing gov-erning farm credit. For each one it abolishes, however, it sets up new ones to be governed by a seven-man board, each with a salary of $10,000 per year. A "special assistant secretary sec-retary of agriculture" is provided for, also at $10,000. All board members mem-bers are to serve 12 years. Among other positions set up by the bill are 10 consultants at $9,000 a year. The secretary of agriculture is an ex-ofncio member of the board. Beneficial Amendment One amendment to the measure which was adopted, and which would be beneficial to the farmers, would bring all farm credit agencies at the county level under one head. Proponents of the measure declare de-clare the bill is a culmination of a five-year effort to reorganize the farm credit system into something similar to the Federal Reserve system, sys-tem, and to make it an independent agency, free from political domination. domi-nation. Secretary Anderson in expressing his opposition to the measure said: "Moreover, it seems to me that In the interest of orderly and sound government the responsibility responsibil-ity for all agricultural programs should remain, as they are now, in one department of the government. "To divide responsibility by setting set-ting up another independent agricultural agri-cultural agency would lead to confusion con-fusion in the minds of the farmers . . . with the credit functions in an independent agency, there would not be that continuous collaboration that is required in the interest of the farmers. In fact, there would seem to be little need for such a full-time board, because Congress itself should determine the basic policies of the lending institutions. Such a board might not be responsive to the credit needs of the farmers in the years to come. |