Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-21
FARM BOARD SURE
TO ACT CAREFULLY
Observer Says Experience
Has Made Relief Experts
80 Conservative.
BY WILLIAM HARD.

~ COnHOIudtcu Ntcrs
TIE Federal Farm Board is going to
no very slow toward erecting the sta
6iliying corporations" or clearing mouse
Associations" which are the chief nov
eIties contained in the present new
farm relief law. The board is centereu
rather upon the solid development ana
enlargement Of the direct financing OF
Agricultural cooperative marketing as
sociations already in some degree un-
dertaken by our existing Feoeral inter-
mediate credit banks under the super,
vision Of our long-estaonsneo Feoerai
Farm Loan Board.
That is a reasonable deduction from
the public statements of the new board
and also and more particularly from
the known records and tendencies OF
many of its members. The board Is
not characterized on the whole by any
strong disposition toward strange al
ventures. On the contrary. OF all the
boards and commissions now on tne
nav roll of the Federal Government, j.
is probably the one that Is nlled most
thoroughly with experienced hard-
headed business men.
Dirt Farmer Board.
These business men on this board are
Almost all OF them dirt farmers.
Actually operating actual farms; but
thew are also almost all of them large
size business men accustomed 10 large
scale financial operations and inclined
accordingly much more toward the
nearby experiment Of capturing oiros IN
the bush than toward the more dlstan'
experiment Of rearing castles IN tne ali
william F. Schilling, for instance, a
member of the board from Minnesota
and from the dairy industry can quail
ify as a true dairy farmer, all right. out
he is also a director Of great corpo-
ration which is composed OF 400 cream
cry establishments and which last year
borrowed S5.0OO,000 and stores away
1000. 900 pounds of butter for future
higher prices and thus stabilized tne
butter market without the help OF any
Federal sterilization corporations
whatsoever
Another member Of the board, c. G.
Tes1,1e Of California. has been for 80
years or so the executive manager OF
an agricultural enterprise which cult
Yates some 1000 acres Of oranges and
lemons and walnuts and which Is &C
cordinely both dirt farming ana dig
business. Mr.. league sells All the
products of his enormous farms or
ranches through the California Fruit
Growers Exchange and the California
walnut Growers Association. OF both OF
which cooperative institutions he mas
been the unsalaried president. ny
league has made farming pay and ne
is at the same time a devout and aroent
agricultural "co-operator' for his own
benefit AND for the benefit of his less
fortunate fellow promoters.
Both Arc Conservatives.
Men like league and Schilling. who
are grounded In the principles OF agrl-
cultural cooperation as actually prac-
ticed and who have known both the
successes and the disasters OF the agrl-
cultural cooperative movement. nave
shown considerable skeptic1sm toward
the stabilize ticn corporations ana
clearing house associations" which the
authors of the present new farm relle1
inserted outstandingly into their legis-
lative efforts.
Mr.. Schilling took part last Spring
IN A meeting of the National Cooper
alive Milk Producers Federation, which
issued a manifesto strongly crlticlzlng
the Federal sterilization corporation"
idea. This manifesto alleged that sta :
bjlization corporations, as proposed
botf, in the Senate farm relief bill and
in the House of Representative farm
relief bill, might readily go insolvent
when engaged in trying to purchase
able surplus of any farm commodity"
and 1t concluded:
Because of the grave dangers to CO.
operative marketing associations in
VOWED In both of these bills, we hereby
clearly and emphatically and COM
pletely disassociate ourselves from all
Of the provisions Of these bills that re-
auire cooperative marketing associa-
tions to own. control and manage sta
bilization corporations, and we voice
our hope that no cooperative assocla-
ton will engage In an experiment in
volving so great a risk"
No Necessity Yet.
This attitude toward sterilization
corporations" Is in fact widespread
among agricultural co-operators in
many branches of the agricultural in
dustry. The new law in its genuinely
novel and adventurous passages, Is
based on the theory that agricultural
cooperative marketing associations will
spring forward to organize "stabiliza =
ton corpora tions" and clearing house
associations" under the new boards
supervision. No such springing in any
large way is yet visible. Only very
scattered instances of 1t can be OBJ
served The general mass OF the agrl-
cultural cooperative movement, when
not hostile to the ideas in question.
seems quiescent toward them. The
new board, meanwhile. is composed
almost entirely Of co-operators who out
Of long experience are accurate re-
Electors Of general cooperative senti-
ment. With that sentiment what it
Is. there is large safety in the proph-
esq that it will be quite a while before
any very large proportion Of the new
boards revolving fund Of 100000, 900
will be advanced to sterilization cor
porations" for establishing Nation
wide corners" in SURPRISES"
The same prophesy may securely be
made regarding clearing house asso-
cations which, under the bill, are to
be called into existence by cooperative
marketing associations IN joint COM
pany with private speculative dealers
in agricultural products. Discouraging
testimony on that idea was delivered
several months ago to the committee
on agriculture Of the House Of Repre-
sentatives by league. He said that
he had lived all through 1t in prac-
tice In California. He maintained that
no clearing house association" Of CO.
operators and speculative dealers to-
getl1er had ever been successful or ever