The McDowell times. [volume] (Keystone, W. Va.) 1904-1941, 1941-02-07
WNU Service, 1895 National Press
Bldg, Washington. ID. G..


Bldg, Washington, ID. C..
WASHINGTON.-A new and revo-
lutionary farm program for Amer
lea is in the works. II it is carried
out according to the wishes of the
administration, it will mean the first
step in an effort TO change the whole
pattern Of farming in this country
as we have accepted ii for the last
century.
When this column is in print the
new bill may be made public. At
this writing even its outline has not
been announced. But a careful re-
view of discussions in highly influ-
entail government circles justifies
three predictions:
CD That the new bill will revolu-
tionize New Deal farm policy and
will have for its goal a
(2) Vastly greater curtailment of
production of surplus products,
and
(3) Complete change in type of
some of the crops now raised by
farmers.
What is behind the change in pol
icy is this: the last die-hards who
believed that any American farm
program should take for granted a
return to normal world trade,
have thrown up the sponge. There
is at long last a majority agree
ment in the department of agricul-
ture that American farming must
follow a new pattern-one that calls
for no subsidy for lost export mar
kets Of the past, no attempt to nurse
along surpluses on the assumption
that the same foreign markets on
which we once counted would be
again available.
Original Purpose.
Roughly, the original purpose of
the agricultural adjustment legisla-
ton was to secure reduction of GER
tain crops and with the payments
provide livelihood for thousands of
farmers who had lost their markets.
Later conservation was emphasized;
but the theory behind the subsidies
was also to permit the farmer who
formerly depended on the foreign
market to keep his plant going, to
keep him "tooled"--to keep, for ex-
ample, a wheat farmer a wheat
farmer against the day when the
foreign market was restored.
BY 1893 when the Triple A was
started foreign markets had pretty
well melted but the pattern of Amer
lean farming itself was the same,
generally speaking, as it had been
for hundred years. The Triple A
policy was planned to preserve that
pattern and fill the empty corners in
the mould by artificial means. When
say the pattern was preserved,
mean that all the Triple A wanted
to do was to cut down production to
the point where demand and supply
approximately balanced. THE pol
icy of the congress as stated in the
Agricultural Adjustment act was to
restore to American farm products,
as rapidly as practicable, the same
purchasing power in terms of things
farmers buy that those products had
IN the five-year period (l909-l9l4)
Immediately preceding the World
war"
So If you we're told to pillow under
your cotton this year, this did not
mean 60 out of the business Of rails
ing cotton for good. You were sup
posed to get payments 80 you could
stay alive until it paid to raise more
cotton again.
Now a New Pattern.
But now q new pattern has been
drawn. It is based on the belief
that the major foreign markets are
gone for good-or at least for so
long that they cannot be reckoned
on any longer Some farmers will
just have to face the fact that they
must make permanent shifts in their
crops.
Here is the key phrase Of the
new policy in a sentence taken from
the annual report Of the department
Of agriculture recently published:
Growing unneeded crops is sheer
waste Of labor, Of capital, Of soil,
even il temporarily the products can
go into storage under government
/ loans"
This change in agricultural ad-
/ justment policy was not heralded in
advance. But little by little hints
] have been dropped as TO what is
coming Secretary Wickard sounded
a muted warning that the definite
/ trend in foreign trade was down
ward in his recent speech at Pur-
due university. His Supplementary
| Cotton plan followed as a step in
the direction OF reducing the cotton
| surpluses. shifting acreage 70 food