Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-11-19
WNU Service, Union Trust Building,
Washington, D. C.


The administration is in the midst
of one of it's fiercest contests to "hold
the line" against sterilization. 1t is
the old question of subsidies for farm
products and it looks like fight to
the death. The house agriculture
committee, with Representative
Steagall and others swinging over to
the Republican side, is backing the
bill which would renew the appro-
priations for the Commodity Credit
corporation and cut out the subsidies
to professors, distributors and some
direct cash aid to farmers. The
present legislation expires in Janu-
airy. A presidential veto is taken for
granted for any bill banning the use
of subsidies. Administration sup
porters believe that such veto can
be sustained, but they see tough,
bitter fight ahead.
The key to the whole difficulty is
violent partisanship. Successful pol
itics is like successful Iving-in the
family, in the community, in the
world-it depends on the ability to
compromise. In this fight, there
seems to be no one able to work out
an acceptable compromise. Already
the feeling is bitter.
Cost of Living
Complaining the problem is, as
usual, labor's insistence that the cost
of living has gone up higher than
statistics show, that the Little Steel
formula is no longer fair yardstick
for wage increases since decisions
of the War Labor board, plus in
sistence of the director of stabiliza-
ton, hold down wages while the adj
ministration has not carried out its
promises to roll back the living
costs.
The farm organizations and the
professors and the distributors op-
pose the roll-back. They don't put it
that way. They say they oppose
subsidies for rolling back consumer
prices. They argue that subsidies
to increase. production and support
prices in free market are all right
and are horses of another color.
The President sees no difference.
Subsidies which permit the govern
ment to buy up commodities or
make loans at a minimum price
when the market price dips below
that figure are all right, say the farm
bloc, but, they claim, the new"
subsidies go further than that in that
they mean payments direct to the
professor and distributor and also
buying and selling by the govern
ment. This, they claim, is in itself
infationary because it means pay
ments out of the treasury. They say
they don't believe that the money
will get back to the farmer, that it
means grocery bills paid by the
government" with very little real
saving to the consumer, and finally,
which is the real rub, it means too
much government control.
Subsidies and Votes
Of course, there is the point that
the politician doesn't like to mention
nobody who depends on votes
wants to be in position later on of
having to remove those benefits. An
other point, not stressed, is that SUBJ
sides to professors mean that the
government has right to look into
the books of private industry.
But to the President, it is subsi-
dies or initiation. At recent press
and radio conference, the President
said that he got the head of the Farm
Bureau federation, Edward O'Neil,
to admit that letting prices 60 up in
a free market, which the govern
ment says would have to be the al
tentative of the subsidy if the farmer
was to get the incentive for in
creased production, would mean a
little imitation. The President then
told the story about the man who
took just "little" cocaine. He soon
became an addict.
1t was then that woman report
er, known for her spicy questions.
asked if the President didn't think
that if his measure was carried we
might become subsidy addicts. The
President didn't seem to think so.
He pointed out that agriculture has
been getting subsidies since 1888.
Whether or not there is danger in
any of this mild economic stimulant
which the administration feels is a
wartime necessity, everybody ad-
mits that runaway initiation must be
avoided if possible. The whole COM
plicated machinery of sterilization
was created to prevent it.
The proponents of the subsidy plan
say that the fight against them is