Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-18
REVIEW OF THE WEEK
Farm, Segregation,
Transit Top Issues
Continued From Page AIS

Continued From Page AIS
pie of flexible price supports.
. Votes for a 100000 limit on
individual price support loans
and a $4,000 ceiling on soil
bank payments for any farm
in one State. (The limit on
size of support loans will apply
to only 10 farms).
o Increase in corn acreage
allotments.
. Approval Of optional 100
per cent parity for wheat used
domestically as human food.
. Pegging of cotton acreage
allotments at this years level
of TIA million acres for 1857.
o Approval Of the use of the
highest of two formulas for
computing parity prices on the
six basics-corn, wheat. cot
ton, rice, tobacco and peanuts.
On March 8, by a SAL vote,
the Senate refused to let in the
front door a plan for high,
rigid supports. But as the days
passed, it opened a crack in
the back door and began
bringing in the general prin-
ciple of higher supports, crop
by crop.
Cotton Is King
It began with cotton when
Secretary Benson, in a letter to
Senator George Aiken, Re-
publican of Vermont, offered
to keep support levels Of cot
ton at 81 per cent Of parity
If the Senators would strike
the bills provisions for rigids
on the basics.
Next came corn. Although
the flexible system was re-
tanned, supposedly as part Of
an effort to reduce SURPRISES,
the Senate decided to increase
corn acreage quotas from 43
million acres to 81 million.
Wheat had its day in court
on Tuesday, when approval was
given to a plan for full, or
100 per cent. of parity on
wheat used domestically for
human food. This would ap-
ply to about 500 million BUSH
els, or half of the total crop.
But the plan still faces three
hurdles. It must first be ap-
proved by House conferees.
Then it would have to be
passed on in a referendum of
wheat farmers. And finally,
its adoption would be left to
the discretion of the Secretary
of Agriculture.
Supporters of the wheat
plan, which has been proposed
in some form ever since the
McNary- Haugen bills of the
EOS. refer to it as a "two-price"
system. Actually, however, it
amounts to a four-price sys-
tenn: One price for wheat con-
sumed at the dinner tables of
Americans, another price for
wheat eaten by American farm
animals, still another price for
wheat sold comparatively on the
world market, and a fourth
price for "giveaway" wheat
exported at bargain basement
prices to needy countries and
paid for in foreign currency.
Support Prices liked
On Thursday, over admin
istration objections, the Sen
ate approved a plan that would
automatically raise support
prices for all the basic crops.
The action would permit the
use Of either of two methods
OF computing parity prices on
a crop, whichever is the high
est. Though the parity price
figures themselves would re-
main unchanged, the actual
support prices received by
farmers would be substantially
increased. For instance: Wheat
support prices had been sched-
uled to drop from $2.08 to
$1.8l a bushel, and corn from
$l,58 to $1.40 a bushel. But
wherever the higher base is
chosen for computing parity,
wheat will be supported at
$1.91, and corn at $1.47. Cot
ton, peanuts and rice will be
only fractionally affected by
the change, and tobacco farm
ers will find it profitable to
stand by the old formula.
Much Of the legislation be-
ing written on the floor is
unalterably opposed BY the
administration. and several
Senators have suggested that
what finally emerges from
Congress, after Senate House
agreement in conference, may
be so far from President Eisen-
hower's idea of what a farm