Evening star., 1938-04-10
Why Not Cut the GOrdian Knot
And Exterminate Commoditv CamhIer

nHu LAtcTmindte COMMONLY GdmOIerSy
To the Editor of The Star:
Two Government officials. on succeeding
days, recently testified on different, though
related, subjects before the Senate Com
mittee on Finance. The general subject
under consideration was the revision of
the Revenue Act. On March 20, last, Sec
retary Wallace testified as to import and
export taxes on certain cash commodities.
On March 80, last, Mr.. j. M Mehl, assist
ant chief, Commodity Exchange Adminis-
tration, testified as to the tax on sales of
futures contracts. Both of these questions
are supposed to bear more or less directly
on the matter of agricultural prices.
wish to present few quotations and
then comment briefly. Secretary Wallace
said
What 1t gets around to fundamentally
is this, that in the case of wheat and cot
ton. which are on the export market there
Is no likelihood of the wheat and cotton
farmers getting their customary share of
the national income with the mechanisms
in the farm bill as they now exist
The wheat and cotton farmers If they are
to get their fair share per capita Of the
national income obviously need some other
help. do not know of any other way of
giving it to them except through some such
tariff -equalizing device as this"
Mr.. Mehl said:
Under the present system of marketing
and do not feel that I should become a
defender or condemner of the present
system. because the policy OF Congress has,
for the time being at least, been written
into the Commodity Exchange Act 1t
recognizes futures trading as a valid and
a proper kind Of insurance, and there is no
question that in the present system Of mar
keting-I am not saying that there cannot
be better system-the hedging facilities
provided enable handlers and distributors
to move grains and cotton from the farm
to the ultimate consumers at smaller cost
per unit than they otherwise could"
Evidently Mr.. Mehl knows that there Is
better system of marketing but he offered
no explanation on that point. He was not
asked to explain. On the other hand,
Secretary Wallace said he did not know Of
any other way of giving help to the farmers
than through such tariff -equalizing de-
vice"
shall not question how much Secretary
Wallace knows, or how much Mr.. Mehl
knows, about better marketing system or
about better way to help the farmers.
The obvious fact is that the new crop
control bill will not help the farmers so
far as agricultural prices are concerned
If these men know the answer to this
riddle, they have not told it to the public
The Congress labored long and pains
takingly under the guidance of Secretary
Wallace, to produce this new farm bill 1t
is generally admitted that it is going to be
a failure, so far as agricultural prices are
concerned Why?
1t should be reasonably clear to every one
that prices are made in the market place,
not on the farm. Yet. for five long years
Secretary Wallace has been struggling with
this problem without once considering the
present marketing system. He has ex-
plored in all directions except at the CEN
tral point-the market place.
The most reasonable explanation for
this strange situation is the fact that cer-
tain of the official publications of the De-
partment of Agriculture have been engaged
in propagandizing the business Of grain and
cotton gamblers. To cut the gordian knot
would exterminate the commodity gam
blers. So long as they are permitted to
continue, with their ticker-tape, to rule the
market for farm products, it will continue
to be impossible to write successful farm
bill. ERNEST D. MACDOUGALL.