Evening star., 1936-04-05
Benefit Payment Controversy
Dynamite as Political Issue
Wallace Faces Dilemma in KNOWING
Subject VIII Bring Discord Euen
If Data Are Held Back.

SCAfCu ~EAo,o1o III IWO yCdIo IOI uOL
raising 1887 hogs. He had 4S5 acres
and vandenberg figures that, on the
basis Of A. A. A. percentages, he must
have formerly raised $4,000 hogs on
this place, which would have crowded
the hogs together like sardines. The
average benefit payment in Iowa,
Vandenberg points out. was only $500
One explanation Of Wallace's against
making the payments public. Incl
dentally, was that the farmers are
"envious" people and would become
restless If they saw the big payments
to neighbor.
That, of course, is exactly what VAN
denberg knows. They will become
much more envious when they see the
huge payments made to insurance COM
panies which had foreclosed on farms
and which really didn't know what to
do with them until the A. A. A. came
along and paid them for turning them
under.
Other Big Benefits.
In the South, where the average
payment for not raising cotton was
81 1900, one corporation, cited by yar-
denberg. received $4,000 for not
planting 1000 acres The average,
wheat payment in Kansas was $500,
but there was one A. A. A. check, COW
ering two years of curtailment. total
ing s78,63s. The Senator has cited
the case of Puerto Rican sugar cor
poration which received 1861 ,064 for
1884 and 1885, and whose stock On
the New York Exchange has jumped
from value Of s4800,0o0 in 1884 to
$4,000, 900. A New York bank, as its
residuary interest in sugar planta-
tion, received 100000.
A report which cannot be confirmed
Is that a British-owned plantation in
Mississippi received several hundred
thousand dollars. Countless other
rumors Of this nature are circulating
as result of Wallace's refusal to make
the payments public. That's the rea-
son the Republicans say his failure 20
make them public will afford Just as
good ammunition as will the figures If
they do become public.
If they are made public the picture
will be presented, as any student Of the
farm ownership situation knows. that
the greatest benefits went not to the
poor. plodding farmer, who was hav-
ing hard time keeping the wolf from
his door, but to absentee owners. to in
surance companies, to large corpora
tions and the like.
Southern Senators Opposed.
The odd thing about it is that
Southern Senators, in urging passage
of the Bankhead farm tenant bill at
the last session. presented pretty much
the same picture which is 1ow un-
folding. They loudly proclaimed that
in their ection Of the country the big
land owner, often living in The East.
was receiving the benefits while the
poor farmer, the tenant farmer and
share cropper, vas in distress. The
Bankhead bill would Rave further
filled the pocketbooks Uf this class by
establishing fund of sl,000,00 900
with which their lands could be bought
dllo cOl0 W LlLC iC1ldlLS anu
croppers on terms, giving them so
years in which to make -epayment 1t
passed the Senate.
James P. Howard, former president
of the American Farm Bureau Feoer-
atipn. has charged publicly tEat 10
individuals received 1852. 900 in bene-
1T payments in 1888, and that five
cotton growers received S980,O00 the
same year. There nas ..so been the
published statement that S93 200 was
paid to two Southern State peliiteE-
tiaries for their cotton curtailment
activities. In its February 3 issue,
Barron's Weekly, financial publica-
ton, charged that the largest single
corn-hog beneficiary wes a Jersey
City man who raised hogs to take the
city'S garbage. Ee received S48, 8,752.