Evening star., 1937-04-11
QUALITIES OF sSERFDOM'
NOTED In TENANCY PLAN
Any New Proposal Unlikely to Bind
Purchaser to Farm 20 Years,
Observer Saws.

and II ne thereupon sells the farm
the Government has not increased
the number of farm owners at all.
Farms" said the committee, would
again fall into ownership by non
farmers and operation by tenants" :"
Besides" said the committee, "un-
economic subdivision OF holdings might
also result"
So, to prevent this, the committee
recommended that a man buying a
farm from the Government on in
stallment payments should not be
permitted to sell the farm until all
the payments are completed. II the
payments are to be over a period of
20 years, the buyer could not sell his
farm until the end OF the 20 years,
AT the end Of the nineteenth year he
might have completed nineteen
tWentieths of his debt to the Govern
ment, but still he would not be
allowed to sell. He might have been
able to complete all his payments
within a few years, but the Govern
ment would not take the money from
him, or at least would not allow him
to have deed with power to sell the
farm until the end of the 2O-year
contract period
The committee made yet other
recommendations not palatable to
prospective farm buyers. The COM
mlttee said that the Government
should require the purchaser :.
to carry on a type of farming that
Will maintain the fertility of the SOIL"
That looked like continued Govern
ment supervision of the owner.
The committee further recommended
that prospective purchasers be re-
quired to pass through a period of
probation, what the committees re-
port called "a trial lease period not
to exceed five years" "The trial
period" said the committee, should
be terminable as soon as the farmer
demonstrates his integrity, industry
and capacity as potential owner"
Congress Hesitates.
The recommendations of the Presi-
dents Committee on Farm Tenancy
were sent to Congress. They went
before the Agriculture Committee
OF the House. Fragments of news
reports from the committee said the
members were divided In the final
decision 13 members opposed action;
only II were in favor.
Some of the committee seem to
have been disturbed by the recon-
mendatlons from the Presidents COM
mlttee that ownership of land sold
by the Government to prospective
farm owners be surrounded by such
restrictions They did not like the
idea of forbidding the new owner to
sell, nor putting him through five
years probation, nor requiring him
to conduct his farm in ways pre-
scrlbed by the Government.
All this sort of thing some one
condensed into phrase-and phrase
sometimes has influence. 1t was said
that the Government would be try
ing to make an Indian" out of the
prospective owner. 1t was that phrase.
and what that phrase implied, that
defeated the proposal to make an
appropriation for remedying farm
tenancy. The committee did not like
the spirit of paternalism, making
farmers wards of the Great White
Father at Washington.
Some members of the committee
appear to have been disturbed by
the quantity of money required to
make any serious kind Of start toward
turning farm tenants into farm own
ers. The total number of farms
operated by tenants is nearly three
million. If the average value of these
farms is $4,000 (Which is a low esti-
mate), then the total cost, to the Gov
eminent, Of getting all these farms
into the hands Of owners, would be
1000 times 100000 That would be
100000, ,000-and 100000 900 is
staggering amount, even in these
days OF New Deal arithmetic. To be
sure, not all the amount would be
needed at once; to large degree the
would be done through a
revolving fund.
But it would take lot of money
even to arrest the tendency and stop
1arm tenancy where it now is. The
of farms passing into tenancy
each year is 10000. Forty thousand
farms at $4,000 per farm would be
$8o,000,0OO a year.
An alternative to the New Deal plan
which is acceptable to the House Com
mlttee on Agriculture provides for an
annual appropriation of $50 1000 900, to
be used in making loans at low in
terest rates to tenants who wish to
buy farms. In each case the appli-
cant for a loan would need to be
lndorsed by county agricultural
boards
tCopyright, 1887