Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-11-08
Hu||'s5,000-Word
Letter 10 Capper
Defends Trade Pacts
Claims Of Former Gains
In Embargo Toriffs
Termed Folly
:;*. The Place to SAVE! q
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Senatorial criticism of the recip-
rocal trade program has evoked from
Secretary of State Hull the retort
that it is folly compounded" for
agricultural spokesman to contend
farmers would gain by embargo
tariffs.
Secretary Hull made public last
night a 5000 word letter to Senator
Capper, Republican, of Kansas, up
holding the trade program which
the Kansan and other Senators
assailed last week.
The act providing for the agree
ments expires next June. and con-
gressional opponents have forecast
avigorous fight against its extension.
Mr.. Hull wrote:
"For well-meaning persons assuIn-
ing to speak for agriculture still to
cling, despite all that happened after
1880 (the year of the Hawley -Smoot
tariff to the delusion that the
farmer has something to gain from
embargo tariffs-or from resisting 2
program for adjusting such tariffs
below the embargo level while still
providing thoroughly adequate safe
guards-iS folly compounded
Injury to Farmers Denied.
The Secretary declared statistics
"prove concluSively that the state
ments to the effect that ou1 farmers
are being injured by the trade agree
ments can only be based either
upon ignorance of the facts, for
which there is little excuse, since
all of the data given above are
regularly published and are easily
available; or else upon q deliberate
attempt to mislead the farmers and
the public in general"
Mr.. Hull concluded that the al
tentative to the trade agreements
program lis a growth of national
economic isolation, with all its dis
astrous results for the peace and
prosperity of nations. That altern-
alive means, within nations, increas-
ing RECOMMENDATION in all phases OF
economic life, beginning with the
surplus producing industries and
steadily extending to all other
branches of production and distri-
button. 1t means the dole in an
expanding and more and more ag-
gravated form. and decline in the
general standard of national we'll
being"
At another point in his letter, the
secretary wrote:
Most of those who are today at
tempting to destroy our trade pro-
gram by making insupportable
charges that it is injuring agricul-
ture are the same false prophets who
solemnly assured the farmers that
the Hawley-Smoot embargo would
guarantee to them full and per-
manent prosperity; whereas, in &C
tual fact, within two years from
the enactment of the 1880 tariff,
millions of farmers found them
selves in, or on the verge Of, bank
ruptcy."
Statistics Cited.
The letter was in response to one
from Senator Capper, which was not
made public Commenting last
week on the Senate attacks, Secre-
tary Hull said his program would
survive the political lives of its as
sailants.
He cited statistics to prove to
Senator Capper that the trade
agreements program had helped the
American farmer. Agricultural ex-
ports rose from 1862, 900 900 in 1882
to 1923, 100000 in 1888, he said, and
added:
THE farmers home market has
expanded in consequence of in
creased domestic employment and
purchasing power for farm products,
partly brought about by trade
agreement concessions obtained for
American exports Of both agricul-
tural and non-agricultural COM
modities."
Tariff adjustments on agricultural
imports, Mr.. Hull said, apply to only
about 8 per cent Of the total, where
as adjustments on non-agricultural
imports apply to more than 20 per
cent.