Evening star., 1935-10-27
Permanent A. A. A.

President Roosevelt has declared him
self for a permanent and longtime pro-
gram of agricultural adjustment. In
his statement calling for such program
the President makes highly significant
suggestions. Whereas in the A. A. A.
programs of the immediate past and
present benefit payments have been
made to the farmers for not producing
crops the President now proposes that
"the benefit payments can be made on
a basis that will encourage individual
farmers to adopt sound farm manage
ment, crop rotation and soil conserva-
ton methods" The farmers are to be
paid in the future not SO much for doing
nothing with some of their land as for
doing something constructive with 1t.
Furthermore the President suggests that
the time may come when the A. A. A.
will prove as important in stimulating
certain kinds of production "as it has
been in removing recent burdensome
surpluses."
The administration is now seeking
new psychology in connection with the A.
A. A. The idea of prosperity through
scarcity has an odd, doleful sound when
put into so many words. The payment
of hard money to farmers for not pro-
ducing a certain amount of pigs and
corn, wheat and cotton, while the Amer
lean consumers are meeting the taxes
to make those payments and at the same
time paying higher and higher prices
for food has been having its effect among
the great mass of the people who do not
live on farms. Such payments may be
popular in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas,
but they are not so popular with the
men and women who are sweating for
living in the manufacturing plants of
New York, Connecticut and Michigan,
for example.
The statement of the President re-
garding the longtime A. A. A. program
is not specific in its details. 1t suggests
these changes without stating how they
are to be accomplished. except in very
general terms. However, it is admittedly
more in the interest Of the people gen.
orally and the farmer, too, to pay benefits
for something affirmative which the
farmer may do, rather than for doing
nothing.
The President, in his declaration for
permanent A. A. A program, says nothing
about the jeopardy in which the benefit
payments, through the processing taxes,
find themselves. Yet there is the posi-
bility that the Supreme Court of the
United States will declare the process
ing taxes unconstitutional. In that
event the hundreds of millions of dollars
to finance these payments must be found
elsewhere, and apparently through gen.
eral taxation. In his revised budget
statement, made recently, the President
indicated that if the processing taxes
we're made impossible through action of
the court, it might be necessary to ask
the coming session of Congress to pro-
vide revenue from other sources. This
would mean new taxation.
Farm prices have advanced since the
Roosevelt administration came into
Office. Whether this has been due to
the operation of the A. A. A. or to the
drought is question upon which there
has been disagreement. One thing Is
certain, however, the farmers have re-
ceived from the Government a bounty
in the shape of checks for not planting
wheat and cotton and corn and tobacco
and not growing hogs. The drought is
not responsible for those checks. They
were the results of the planning of the
administration to bring the farmers into
compliance with the restricted produc-
ton program. They were the bait. They
are to be continued. 1t is these checks
which have had much to do with main
tanning the popularity of the Roosevelt
administration in the great farm States
of the West.