The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1932-11-17
Solons Would
'ChlOrOfOrm'
Farm Board
Shannon Committee to Urge
Abolition of Body or Cut
ting Off Funds
COURSE IS UNDECIDED
Inquiry Group Holds Bureau
Is Tragic Experiment
in Agriculture"


the federal farm board as a tragic
government experiment in agricul-
ture," may be recommended by the
shannon congressional committee
in its report to the lame duck"
session of congress which meets
next, month. So it was indicated
today by members of the commit
tee, which is delving into govern
ment as a competitor of the tax
paying business man and farmer.
As to the method, they are unde-
cided whether to suggest that the
federal marketing act be repealed
outright or to recommend that the
farm board be chloroformed by TAX
ing away its finances, knocking out
the sterilization" feature and turn
ing over most of it's remaining
phases as a wet nurse to co-opera-
tive marketing to the agricultural
department. Either way means
thumbs down for the farm board.
The disclosure of the committee
views came at the close of a hear
ing in which witnesses dwelt upon
the activities of the federal farm
board and it's subsidiaries as an eff
fort to establish a governmental,
dictatorship in foodstuffs. BY CO.
ercion, the board was declared to
have established reign of terror"
among many co-operatives and to
have driven on the rocks, establish
ed middlemen agencies and grow
ers, while upwards of half a billion
dollars of tax money has been
squandered in a price fixing gam
BILE" which has seen prices slump
to record lows.
The plight of the cherry growers
and Gamers in Michigan, in the
Grand Traverse Bay region and in
Wisconsin, in Door county was de-
picted by Howard c. Morgan, of
Traverse City, Mich, and Marc c.
Hutchinson, of Fennville, Mich,
president of the National Gamers
Association, as illustrating demon
alization wrought, by government
in business"
9utlawry'' in effect has been de-
creed against commission mer-
chants by the operations of the
farm board, according to the testi-
mony of Horace H. Herr, director
of the National League of Com
mission Merchants. His thesis was
that the government, through the
farm board, sought to become
both Moses and Mussolini' for the
cooperative marketing movement.
"Its avowed purposes, he said, sis
to kill off the competitive market
ing system and establish a mon
opoly in both production and dis
tribution.
Mr.. Herr was in the midst of his
denunciation of the farm board
methods when Congressman Will
liam H. Stafford of Milwaukee, re-
publican, interjected a few re-
marks.
Cali these acts for the farmers"
said Mr.. Stafford, "are merely
throwing a sop to the farmer. All
this relief legislation by the pro-
fessionl believers, while ostensibly
for the benefit of the farmer, SIM
ply coddles agriculture into a posi-
ton which it cannot maintain
Mr.. Stafford, it developed, was
one of the only two republican
members of the house who voted
against the farm marketing act, the
other being his old Harvard col
lege chum, Congressman George H.
Tinkham, wet republican of Bos-
ton.
Apart from the farm question,
charges of unfair business tactics
in violation of the laws were laid
against the government in business
by the Chamber of Commerce of
the United States. Henry D. Sharpe
of Providence, R. l., president of
a special committee which has stud
led governmental rivalry with pri-
vate business, Edward c. Crossett,
of Chicago, and George A. Miller,
of Mishawaka, Ind, amplified the
charges of the chamber.
Mr.. Miller, who proved a stsr wit
ness, blamed business men for run
ming to Washington with their
troubles"
Bureaucracy is dangerous
trend" he said, eff the government
will apply business methods OF cost
accounting to government in bust
ness and put it on a profit and
loss basis, private business would
nick the pants off government COM
petition"