Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-25
Farmers and Farm Board.

Farmers and Farm Board.
After all, it is the farmers and not
the politicians whom the Federal Farm
Board Is out to help and please. Prac-
tically ever since It's organization a
year and q half ago, the body set up
to administer the agricultural marketing
act has been under ceaseless FIRE.
Chairman Legge and his colleagues
have been pilloried rs incompetent. In
efHectiye, and worse, and the act itself
assaiIed as dismal failure. Demands
for the abolition of the board and all
its works now and then echoed across
the country and through Washington.
Today there appeared before the
Senate Committee on Agriculture q
seasoned son Of the soil-"Sam" H.
Thompson Of Illinois, veteran presi-
dent Of the American Farm Bureau
Federation. Together with other farm
organization leaders, he came at the
call Of Chairman McNary, TO advise
with the committee as to the desirable
fly or otherwise of revising the duties
and preEogatives of the Farm Board
by further acts Of Congress. Is the
board making good? Is it really re
lieving agriculture, Is Congress in
tended, or is 1t not?
As far as the American Farm Blu
reau Federation and It's 100000 mem
beers are concerned. President Thomp-
sons answers to these questions are
unhesitatingly in the Affirmative. Des-
perate as agriculture's plight still is. he
holds that 1t would have been i'm
HneaSurably worse except for the
marketing act and what the Federal
Farm Board has done in pursuance
thereof. Mr.. Thompson states that the
American farmer today, despite his con-
tinuing trials and tT1bulations, tnelud-
ing low prices, Is less hysterical" than
his brother of the business world. The
farmer considers that his outlook, on
the whole, Is better than it has been
for some time past.
The veteran farm leader from the
corn country lends his high authority
10 the statement that farmers are now
well advanced on the road leading to
their great goal more direct and
nrm control Of their own business.
They are no longer at the mercy OF the
middleman.. They are narrowing the
spread" that gapes between them, the
growers Of food. and the ultimate con-
sumers, who eat It. For this state Of
affairs, the Farm Board Federation
ehieftain says, the farmers have the
Farm Board mainly to thank.
They thank it because In the face Of
both political and trade-commissio
trade-hostility the board is steadily
and irresistibly developing the CO.
operative marketing idea. Through It's
establishment Of central marketing
agencies at numerous strategic points
the farmer Is enabled as never before
to be master of his own selling destinies.
An ideal situation has not yet been
brought about. But the farmer feels 1t
q on the way. He distinctly feels that
the Federal Farm Board Is bringing
him nearer 70 1t all the time.
Chairman Legge found himself under
political IRE before the Senate Commit
tee yesterday for relieving agriculture
BY invading the wheat market with
Farm Board funds and buying immense
quantities Of grain for price-upholding
purposes. It Is Sam" Thompson's con-
Viction that the boards activity in this
direction, especially Its most recent
flyer IN wheat, undoubtedly accom-
plished Its purpose, viz, the avoidance
Of what might have been Q disastrous
panic and slump in prices wholly un-
warranted by actual conditions. These
conditions include the circumstance
that the American farmer at present IL
virtually On domestic basis" He Is
not burdened with an exportable sur
plus.
As between the views of q dirt farmer
and Q politician "agin the Government"
on principle, the ordinary taxpayer Is
likely to prefer the Judgment Of the
farmer as TO what Uncle Sam Is doing,
on not doing, 70 ameliorate ailing agri-
culture.