The Washington times., 1925-02-24
PO4| |CAL
EFFECT IS
GREAT
Solidarity of Interests in
Legislative Efforts Is
Finally Broken
By WILLIAM HARD.

tural relief legislation occupying
the forefront of consideration in
Washington. Spokesman for the
President at the White House
have stated that in the Presi-
dents opinion the passage OF q
bill on behalf of the furtherance
of cooperative agricultural selling
societies is the principal task
now before Congress.
It develops nevertheless that an
enormous difference of opinion
exists on this subject in Congress
and also among the organizations
of farmers.
The contest has to do with a
bill which is called the Haugen
bill as distinguished from q bill
which is called the Dickinson bill.
Object to Rescue
The humor Of the situation is that
the Administration Is determined TO
rescue the agricultural cooperative
selling societies by means Of the
Haugen bill, whereas the co-opera-
tive selling societies in the agricul-
tural field are against being rescued
by the HaagAn bill and wish to be
more or less left alone under the
much milder terms OF the Dickinson
bin.
The outstanding fact about the
struggle is that now at last the
agricultural industry, like the rail-
road industry and like ordinary bust
ness firms, is threatened with actual
control and regulation by the Fed
eral Government.
Up to this time all legislation
passed by Congress regarding agri-
culture has been in the direction OF
simply promoting agriculture and
of giving it a clean bill OF health
and clear field and a chance to
do anything that it might want to
do.
The striking feature Of tho
Haugen bill, which is supported BY
the Administration forces, IL that
Il comes forward and enforces q
registration Of agricultural co-opera-
tive societies and a control Of their
accounts in case they join the Fed
eral cooperative system, just exact
" as a registration and control OF
accounts is enforced upon the
banks which join the present exist
ing Federal Reserve Bank system.
Bill Is Regulatory.
Agriculture, under the terms Of
the Haugen bill, passes out OF
being merely promoted and en-
couraged and comes into being regu.
lated and controlled by Federal
authority.
The Administration support Of
this Haugen bill has split the farm
ORGANIZATIONS right down the middle
into two contesting and conflicting
parts.
There no longer L. any such thing
In fact as a farm bloc" out on the
countryside.
destroyed.
For five years the Representatives
here of the farming element have
more or less gone along together.
Now they are separated and dis
persed. The era Of the farm bloc"
In at an end. No more important
incident in American practical
politics could happen. Hereafter
the farming element in Washing
ton and in Congress is not united
element, carrying everything before
II, but a divided element, part OF
II going one way and part OF 1t
going another way, with, accord
ingly, no chance to be its former
undisputed self as despotic master
Of the situation.
Agricultural societies, like the
Farmers Union and the American
Farm Bureau Federation and the
Grange, have committed themselves
through their leaders to a support
OF the Administration policy re-
garding the principal point of i'm
mediate farm relief legislation
namely. the bill regarding agri-
cultural cooperative selling So
cieties presented to Congress in the
name of Congressman Haugen of
Iowa.
Fought by CO-operatives.
Meanwhile the agricultural CO.
operative societies themselves, repre-
sented most especially by Charles w.
Holman, of the National Co-opera
tive Milk Producers Federation, deny
that they need any Federal legisla-
tive attention and are perfectly viii.
ling to go along on their own en-
deaVors and at the most are will
ing only to take the terms Of the
Dickinson bill, which does not sub
ject them to any kind of rigid Fed
eral scrutiny.
The President, by his support f
the Haugen bill, has driven a wedge
straight through the farm bloc"
For political purposes he has de-
stroyed 1T. Part of the farmers now
want one thing and part of the
farmers now want another thing; and
the age of the farmers as a unified
force and as a dominating element
in American politics for the time
being has come to its finish.
That is the great political outcome
Of the situation. Meanwhile from
the standpoint of immediate Iegisla-
ton the following points may be
noted:
The Haugen bill, with its effort to
induce agricultural cooperative sell