The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1935-11-15
TAXES-REAL AND
IMAGINARY
Remarks by Henry A. Wallace, Sec
rotary of Agriculture, over
the National Farm and
Home Hour

One of the amazing things aDou'
the public attitude toward the farm
program in general and the process
.ng taxes in particular is the extent
o which that attitude is NOT based
IN facts. l mean simple facts, not
omplex ones; facts which must be
Omitted whether you favor, oppose,
r are Indifferent to the program.
mean facts as unmistakable as the
leight of the Washington Monument,
CT the number of acres in a quarter
ection of land.
By way of illustration, let me tell
you about an experiment an acquaint-
nee of mine has lately been trying.
Wherever he finds group of people
COMPLAINING about high food prices,
md attributing &he high price to the
tax, he asks these people
o do little estimating. Since they
usually mention meat prices, he asks
hem to estimate how much the pro-
,essing tax amounts to in a dollars
worth of beefsteak.
So far he has collected several
core of answers, mostly from city
people, and the answers range from
} cents to SIS cents. And yet there
S not now, and never has been, any
processing tax whatsoever on beef.
Not more than one out of every 20
people this man has talked to know
hat simple fact.
This situation was brought home
o the Washington Office of the AAA
rather strikingly only few weeks
ago. George Farrell, in charge of
he wheat section, walked into
butcher shop near his home here to
ouy a steak. The butcher picked
)ne out for him, and then apologized
or the price. Sorry it's so high, !"
he butcher said, "but it's because
If the processing tax" When Mr..
Farrell replied that there was no
processing tax on beef, the butcher
wasn't shaken a bit. But" said
Mr.. Farrell, I'm in the AAA myself
Don't you think 1 ought to know"
The butcher then asked what he did
the AAA. When Mr.. Farrell said
ne was in the wheat section, the
butcher replied: "Oh, we'll, you may
know something about wheat, but
neat is my department, and that's
why l know about the tax on beef. !"
SO far as l know the man still be-
.ieves there is a processing tax on
beef
From a woman in eastern Ohio has
come protest against high prices
Of foodstuffs, notably, at present, two
staples, meat and potatoes" Then
she asks, How are we to pay the
increased and increasing prices of
.hese two named commodities, pro-
iuction OF which is so decidedly cur
tailed when our purchasing power is
yet at such low ebb?"
Now what are the facts? First the
facts as to curtailment programs.
There is no curtailment program for
beef, or veal, or lamb, or chicken.
The only curtailment program she
could possibly be talking about is
that involving pork, and that pro-
gram, as now shaping up, calls for
material increases in production.
And as for the curtailment pro-
gram on potatoes, not one pound of
potatoes or one solitary acre of po-
alto land has yet been affected by any
such program, for the simple reason
hat the much-talked of potato act
has not yet gone into effect.
The complaint about the price of
potatoes is difficult to understand.
With potato growers getting around
SO cents bushel, as they have for
two years now, the price to the farm
err is the lowest in many years. Com
pare it, for instance, with $1.31
bushel in 1929, or $166 in 1925.
1t seems grotesquely inaccurate to
talk about the high price Of potatoes
when consumers are paying about
cent and one-half pound, and farm
ers are getting less than cent a
pound. In 1880, for example, con-
sumers paid 3.6 cents a pound. l
just don't believe that consumers
want bargain foodstuffs when they
know the farmers shirt goes along
with the bargain.
! It is SO easy to forget what prices
were a few years ago. 1t seems to