Evening star., 1936-02-16
Seeking a Substitute
for the A. A. A.
By Queen L. Scott.

over itself in a rush to provide sub
stitute.
Mr.. Roosevelt and Henry Wallace
have a new-type soil conservation"
A. A. A. that soon will be law. Former
President Hoover offers plan not SO
far different from that of President
Roosevelt. Republicans in Congress
have another plan which Is similar in
many respects to the others. Appar-
emily almost nobody in official life, or
aspiring to a position in official life, is
ready to allow A. A. A. to 60 the way
of N. r. A.
Why the striking difference? Sew
eral answers are found. One Is that
N. r. A. broke down of its own weight
before the judges acted, while A. A. A.
was functioning effectively. A second
is that A. A. A. merely placed agricul-
ture in position long occupied by
tariff protected industries. A third is
that farmers, like some industrialistS,
like the veterans and like the aged and
the unemployed. have managed to get
their hands into the Federal Treasury
and even the Supreme Court can't force
them out.
The fact, now accepted by Congress
and by leaders of both parties, is that
agriculture has become full-fiedged
member Of that select club Of groups
enjoying special Government protection.
The farm plan upset by the Supreme
Court provided formula by which
farmers could be assured fairly def
mite portion of the national income.
Most large industries have their own
formula for this purpose, utilizing
tariffs, the corporate form of organi-
zation and trade associations to pro-
vide mechanism for an important
degree of production and price control.
Agriculture, along with some other raw
material industries, was out of this
picture until A. A. A. came along.
Processing taxes syphoned money
from the cities to the country. These
taxes were used to induce individual
farmers to curtail their production
according to pattern shaped in Wash
ington. When this method proved in
effective, other taxes were levied to
of their goods than the Government
thought they should market.
Just when this new control system was
becoming deeply intrenched the Su-
preme Court found that it could not be
permitted to function so long as the
present Constitution stands unamended.
Did this decision deeply upset
Washington? Not to the extent that
the N. r. A. decision did. despite the
fact that the Blue Eagle was barely
alive at the time of execution. Instead,
officials quickly shaped up a substi-
tute which Congress is in the process
of enacting into law.
But actually it is not too much to
say that many important New Deal
officials, while disappointed at the limits
the Supreme Court put on Federal
power, still were not a little relieved to
have the A. A. A. machinery uprooted.
How could that beP
Simply because the system OF farm
controls had turned into a Frankenstein
monster that was becoming too powerful
for its creators to guide.
X
AS an emergency measure, the A. A. A.
was intended to get purchasing power
out into the hands of farmers and to
bring a better balance between their
situation and that of other groups in the
population. This is did successfully.
But as the emergency passed, the A.
A. A. was turning out to be machine
for freezing the farming industry into
a pre-depression pattern with increas-
ingly rigid limits.
Individual farmers got vested inter-
ests in the right to grow cotton and
wheat and hogs and corn and other
commodities. and to receive bountles
from the Government for growing them.
The Government assumed the task of
protecting inefficient producers against
the efficient. 1t was being edged into
the impossible position Of controlling
Just about every phase of agriculture.
The result was that the Government
was forced to add marketing control
to production control and to turn a
voluntary program into one involving
compulsion.
The same thing happened in tobacco
and would have happened in wheat
had there been no drought. Present
wheat prices are highly attractive to
Kansas and Dakota farmers. They
we're expanding their activities in spite
of A. A. A. Soon Washington would
face the problem of controlling every
plowed field
Responsibilities growing out Of that
problem now have been removed by
the Supreme Court.
Does that mean that the difficulty
itself is solved, or now is more easy OF
solution? Where does the new program
fit into the picture?
The farm problem is found to stem
from the fact that the farmers OF this
country can produce more commodities
than they can sell at price that Will
enable them to meet their obligations
and support themselves. They can turn
out more of some important commodl-
ties than they can sell at any price.
DR.. Mordecai Ezekiel, economic ad-
wiser to Henry Wallace and an econo-
mist In the Department OF Agriculture
since 1921, says:
Even now we could produce all the
farm products we need with go per cent
of our present farmers. AS soon as
industrial activity is restored and the
urban unemployed are again employed
at useful work, we should turn to the
task of helping these 100000 workers,
unneeded in agriculture, find more
productive occupations elsewhere"
The new farm program, however. is
based, not on the elimination OF sur
plus farmers who would only add to
the city unemployed, but rather on the
payment of subsidies to farmers who
agree to improve their farms by build