The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-30
Roosevelt
Report
On Distress
Plow Under, Richberg
Says, Disregarding
Needs of Jobless

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30.
The policies of the Roose-
velt administration in dealing
with the nationwide farm
crisis, which have brought
millions of farmers and farm
laborers to ruin since 1888,
are not to be changed, said Donald
Richberg, secretary of the National
Emergency Council, in report to
President Roosevelt today. The
report, second of series of eight
documents on the present status of
various emergency measures adopt
ed by the New Deal administration,
deals with the problem of Relief of
Agricultural Distress"
Declaring that "the mechanics of
adjustment" must go on, Richberg
clearly indicates in his sixteen pages
of data that the crop reduction and
plow- under program of the Agricul-
tural Adjustment Administration,
which together with the recent
drought has been the cause of wide
spread misery in the farm country,
will continue. Only by maintaining
A.A.A. restrictions, Richberg's report
maintains, can farm prices be per-
manently maintained and re
covery" speeded.
Administration Theory
Maintaining the fundamental adj
ministration theory that what to do
with surplus acreage is not to grow
food for the jobless, but to pillow
under, Richberg states:
THE A.A.A. is the agency charged
with responsibility of restoring the
equitable balance between the price
of things farmers sell and the price
of things farmers buy, through adj
justing production of certain basic
agricultural commodities to the eff
fective demand for such commo-
dities, by voluntary adjustment pro-
grams or marketing agreements
Richberg's own estimate, how
ever, admits that this sought-after
balance has not been restored. IN
GLIDING the so-called benefit pay
ments to the farmers for limiting
acreage, prices of seven basic farm
products rose in August 1884, to 116
per cent of pre-wsr prices, while
the prices of manufactured articles
bought by farmers rose to 1872 per
cent.
Richberg admits that the farmers
are not receiving great benefit from
the recent price rises. Rises in prices
of wheat, corn and cotton, the re-
port states, reflect to certain degree
the drought, and therefore the
high prices do not mean a fully cor
responding increase in farm in
come"
Implying the danger Of food
shortages. the document declares
that by the program (A.A.A) and
the unprecedented drought, supplies
of basic commodities have been re-
duced to nearly normal proportions
or less. The wheat stocks of 1882,
which were 4oo,00O,OOO bushels, are
now approximately 290,000,000
bushels and by next summer prob
ably will be 25,000,000 to 100000, 900
bushels. The 1884 program is
aimed at further adjustment of this
type"
Referring to the wanton butch
cry of live stock, Richberg indicates
his approval by reporting that the
excessive numbers Of livestock on
farms at the beginning Of this year
are now being reduced to something
like normal proportions"
The 1933-34 farm crop income is
given as $5,083, 100000, an increase
of 81, 202, 100000 over 1928. No
attempt is made to calculate the
actual rise or to indicate by how
much prices would have risen had
not the dollar been devaluated.
Various government cotton loans,
the report estimated, yield borrow
ers profit-realized or accumu-
lated-of $48,O00,000 The report
does not state, however, what pro-
portion Of this sum went to tenant
farmers or to large plantation own
ers. This, observers here pointed
out, was an extremely significant
omission.