Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1937-04-13
OTHERS VIEWS
WALLACE'S STATEMENT.
To the Editor:

.
To the Editor:
In an interview in Greensboro las
week Hon. Henry A. Wallace, secre
tary of agriculture, said that tobac
co production control was a matter
for the government at Washington
that there were too many men with
too much influence with the local leg
islatures to get the requisite legisla
ton.
Well, the foregoing statement is {
most significant one and one tina
should be pondered by all of us who
are concerned about the future O.
this republic. TOO many men with
too much influence with local gov
eminent to get what is wanted done
The converse of this statement toe
little influence with the government
at Washington to prevent what is not
wanted, appeals to me as much AS
the counterpart does to the secretary
of agriculture, and for this reason
we control all of the ITO members of
our local legislature, while we con-
troll only 13 of the 531 of the national
legislature at Washington. This alone
gives you picture of our respective
chances of popular government. If the
members of the national legislature
are to our liking. we'll and good; but
if they are not, to put it bluntly, we
are in a hell of a fix Certainly, this
would be true if we should give the
national government control of pro-
duction, which would mean the con-
troll of the details of American life,
for all of us are engaged in some form
of production, and most of what we
produce finds it's way into Interstate
commerce, over which the Federal
government has control. And, mind
you. this is no fanciful picture that
/ am drawing. This administration
has repeatedly asked the court, in
fact, is doing so this week, to hold
that production is part of commerce,
which it will not do.
But let's he little realistic about
this matter so far as the farmer is
concerned. In the first place, what can
the farmer expect from the plan to
revise the court? and. in the second
place, does the farmer want real pro-
duction control if he can get it.?
In answering the fret ouesction
we must face the fact that the court
is unit against compulsory nroduc-
ton control. This was disclosed in the
MA case In the AAA case the court
was to against inducement. not
compu!s!on, as q method of control
and the administration forced the re-
peal of the cotton, tobacco. peanut
and Iotato compulsory control acte
after the invalidation of the AAA
Since the court is unit 70 to o. a.
gainSt compuIeion, it is a matter of
simple arithmetic TO determine that
it would take 10 additional Judges to
overcome the nine now against com
pulsion, which the President does not
propose to add, his limit being six
Furthermore, these additional judges
would have to re sounded out and
Pledged before there could be any as
surance that the Roosevelt1revised
court would uphold compulsory pro
duction control legislation. So the
chances are about ten-thou and to one
that the farmer will have to rock
along with the present soil-building
program under the soil-erosion sta
tute, which many farm advisors say
is really better than the old AAA.
About all that I can see that is lack
ing is the specific contract with the
government for acreage reduction,
while under the present program soil
building crops are to be substituted
for the soil-dcpleting ca~h crops,
which is thoroughly understood to be
the condition upon which the cash
1Nvr ho RI
be made. This is practically all that
the farmer ever had under the AAA
without the supplementary compul-
sorry control acts aforementioned.
AS to the second question l wish
to ask the question in all seriousness,
has the farmer ever thought through
the proposition of real production con-
troll? What we had before was not
production control r. was a sorry sub
stitute only, and il may be accepted
that no such mistake will again be
made in the name Of production con-
troll. The lest that could be claimed
for the old law was that it was
commodity production control that
would have provoked a revolution had
it not been abandoned In fact, it did
provoke a revolution on the eastern
shore of Virginia. The potato war of
the summer and fall of 1885 was the
result of the stepping-up potato pro-
duction by the tobacco cotton and
peanut growers who had taken por-
ton of these commoditice out of pro
duction and substituted potatoes
therefor. Senator Bailey drove the po-
tato hill through the Senate upon the
candid and frank argument that 1t
was an unconstitutional measure 10
save tho victims of three other I'M
constitutional measures that had been
enacted into law. The Baltimore Sun
sent one of its crack reporters INTO
eastern Virginia with instructions 10