Evening star., 1935-11-03
A. A. A. Now Rates as
New Deal Success
By Queen L. Scott.

OtOlys 4A1CJ lldNC Jtop bSCAA SAAASAASA
by pair of contestants who were near
the tag end when the race began back
in 1888.
The line in and out of the White House
during recent months has disclosed few
"big shots" wearing the smile that goes
with job well done. AS a matter of
fact, one hard luck story has followed
hard on the heels of another.
Gen. Hugh johnson took the count
early, bit sour on this part of the world
He had aspired to the honorS now going
to rivals. Donald Richberg followed
rather quickly after the big N. r. A.
show had been closed by the Supreme
Court.
Harold Ickes has stayed in the race
with his pump -priming P. w. A., and,
after touching a new low late in Sep
tember his stock Is moving up a bit
The opposite Is true ofs Harry Hopkins,
Works Progress administrator. with four
billion dollars to command. Mr.. Hopkins
long was out in front. Now, however,
he is tangled in the work relief tumble
and finds himself slipping.
The money-lending job done by Jesse
Jones has made him a presidential ia
vorite, but the r. F. C. is a Herbert
Hoover creation and so Mr.. Jones is
counted out. Joseph P. Kennedy got
recognition for good job done with the
securities act DR.. Rexford Guy Tugwell
wants to get in the running with the
5000, 900 he has been given to resettle
and rehabilitate farmers, only he is late
in getting started.
*
But when Henry Wallace and Chester
Davis came arm and arm out of the
White House the other day, each
wreathed in a boyish smile, there was
no mistaking the fact that the honorS
were theirs.
The Secretary of Agriculture and the
administrator Of the agricultural adjust
ment act took plan of which farmers
were suspicious and city people did not
understand, and in two brief years
turned it into something that farmers
are ready to fight for and even Repub-
licanS do not dare attack.
Mr.. Roosevelt has been quick to sense
the significance of that performance.
He jumped at the chance the other
day to announce that the A. A. A. has
passed from New Deal experimental
stage into the class of a permanent
agency of Government.
BY that stroke he honored the men
who have built the first New Deal plan
ming machine that seems to work, pre-
empted for the New Deal any political
credit that goes with the performance,
and served notice that even Supreme
Court decision upsetting processing taxes
would not bring an end to the plan.
X y
Actually, Mr.. Wallace and Mr.. Davis
in two and one-half years have con-
Structed the most intricate and at the
same time the most smooth running and
effective machine this. Government has
seen.
That machine is designed to utilize the
powers of Government to bring about
planned control of major crops. The
object is to assure farmers what Con-
gress believes to be a fair share of the
national income.
Part of the plan-the major parts
voluntary, depending on the willingness
of farmers to cooperate in return for
payments intended to assure them
parity price for their products. An
other part, now of highly uncertain
legality, is compulsory. based upon the
demand of cotton farmers, tobacco
farmers and now potato farmers, to force
control on non-co-operating growers.
A good deal of humor has been de-
rived from the fact that farmers were
asked to say whether or not they wanted
to continue to receive checks from the
Federal Treasury.
Yet there are number of reasons why
there might be doubt on that score. One
&C. hot ho fov I,nrc tr7icl,
supplies the money for the checks. has
come in large part out of the price of
the hogs-or in other words out OF the
farmer-rather than from an additional
contribution by consumers. Meat pack
with farmers.
next year hog raisers probably could
make more money by feeding cheap
corn to the biggest possible number of
hogs than they could by going along with
the Government program.
What has happened, though. Is that
Mr.. Wallace has sold farmers on the de-
STABILITY of keeping the control ma
chinery that has been built up.
The Secretary of Agriculture is very
patient man and a very tolerant one.
ouI WltIldl IlOC q Ddo pOllLlCldIl, OeSplCe
opinion to the contrary. Also he is q
philosopher and something of an anna
teur economist. Exercising his abilities,
he has gone carefully about the business
of educating farmers. He also has used
his abilities to shape policies in such
way as to dig the A. A. A. deeply into
the economic life of the country.
X y
Mr.. Wallace now is trying patiently to
educate the rest of the country into an
understanding of what the A. A. A. is
all about.
To him, and he has sold millions of
farmers on the idea. the checks that
farmers receive are only deserved Offset
to the advantages that industry gets
through the protective tariff. They are
not bounty, but part of the price that
the farmer gets for his product. Both
tariffs and the A. A. A. involve taxes on
the consumer. If one is bounty, so
is the other. Such Is the Wallace
argument.
When demand slackens, industry plows
workers into the street. Production is
slashed in order to put bottom under
prices so that profits still can be made
on q smaller volume. When industry
cuts wages Of organized workers, those
workers strike, or threaten to strike,
holding up their share of the national
income. The A. A. A., in Mr.. Wallace's
opinion, merely gives farmers the ma
chinery to get into this game.
But to provide machinery to cause