Evening star., 1950-04-13
Mr.. Bronnon's Hired Audience

Senator Aiken, backed by Senator Ferguson,
seems to have a sound factual basis for his
charge that the Department of Agriculture has
spent money illegally a cheap form OF
politickng.
The charge relates to a two-day meeting
held early this month in st. Paul by the 269
county committeeman of the Production and
Marketing Administration for Minnesota In
itself, the meeting was altogether useful and
proper as a get-together designed to discuss
conservation problems. Apparently, however, its
closing session went far beyond that According
to Mr. Aiken, it was broadened into kind OF
Democratic political rally, with the Department
of Agriculture undertaking to make an unau-
thorized expenditure in order to recruit a big
attendance.
To support his point, Mr. Aiken has produced
a letter which one of the departments PIMA
officials sent to all of Minnesota's 5000 COM
munity committeeman (as distinct from county
committeeman urging them to go to st. Paul
to hear a speech by Secretary Brannan. To
make the trip particularly attractive the letter
declared that anybody attending would be reim-
bursed for travel expenses and receive per diem
pay. Since large percentage of the people
invited showed up at the meeting, the cost to
the Department of Agriculture, according to MIR.
Aiken's estimate, must have been somewhere
between $4,000 and 100000. Conceivably, if
the gathering had been wholly non-political in
character, such an expenditure would have been
justified but the evidence strongly indicates that
the only thing that took place was show in
which MIR. Brannan and Senator Humphrey
ridiculed the Republicans and whooped it up
for Democratic farm policies, particularly the
proposed Brannan Plan.
In other words, the departments outlay of
money seems to have served no other function
than to insure the presence Of a large hired
audience before which the Secretary and Mr.
Humphrey played politics of a sort calculated
to send the committeeman back home as mis-
sionaries likely to be helpful to the Democrats
in the congressional elections. If there we're
no Federal cash or pressure involved, this sort
of thing probably would be tolerable, but the
truth of the matter is as Mr.. Aiken has said
that there appears to be no authority Certainly
there should be none) which permits "the ex-
pendture of PIMA funds for the purpose of
which they were used at st. Paul. If the prac-
tice which was applied in Minnesota of spending
public money to pay the expenses and per diem
of farmers to listen to political speeches is
followed in the other States the expense can
be many millions of dollars, all of which must
come out of appropriations which Congress
made for legitimate farm programs"
On the point of legality, Mr.. Ferguson has
expressed himself even more emphatcally than
his Vermont colleague. He has declared flatly
that the expenditure on the st. Paul meeting
should be acted upon by the Attorney General
as clear violation of Federal statute (Section
POI of Title 10 of the United States Code) for
bidding the use of appropriated money to
influence legislation. His view is that the
Secretary of Agriculture in effect hired" an
audience to listen to political speeches aimed at
building up pressure to make Congress enact the