St. Paul recorder., 1963-05-30

Tennessee - have long experience
with high, rigid price supports for
peanuts and other produce peculiar
to that area. The propaganda
against the wheat referendum
therefore could not have as much
impact.
Considering the steady decline in
family farms during many years
of farm price supports, one can
see that the family farm Is not
the beneficiary. The trend seems
to be to have the remainder of
the country be on the tenant farm
basis as the Southeastern states
now are. It must be pointed out
that the tenant farmers get no
benefits from these subsidies. The
owners get the benefits while the
tenants live in poverty.
Earlier referenduns did not in
clude those wheat farmers who
raised less than Is acres of wheat.
This year there were proposed re-
strictions on these farmers also
making them eligible to vote.
These farmers include $4,000 Of
the 1,292,000 farmers eligible to
vote. These farmers see little bene-
fit to themselves from the farm
program.
Many Of them plant wheat only
for their own use. 1t may be that
these farmers were added to the
program to force the small farm
ers off the farms earlier and have
these farms also be taken over by
the large estates.
That Congressional Democrats
recognize that estate farms are in
tended to be the primary benefic-
iaries of the governmental pro-
gram is evidenced by the vote on
an amendment to the farm bill in
the Senate in 1855 which would
have limited benefits to any farmer
to $50, 900. In defeating the propos-
al, the Democrats opposed the pro-
posal by a margin Of 26 to 7. These
seven votes for the proposal may
have been recorded merely to salts
fly local urban voters. This was
the tactic Of Sen. Ted Kennedy
this year. He voted against the
farm bill only after he saw that it
was safely passed to satisfy the
urban state of Massachusetts.
Also in 1856, Harper's had an
article condemning the payment of
up to 81 million to some farmers
in subsidies. The then Secretary
Of Agriculture Ezra Benson later
praised the article. Sen. Hubert
Humphrey among others bitterly
attacked Benson and demanded
that he be fired.
Large estate farms - especially
those Of Southeastern us. - are
the primary beneficiaries Of fed
eral aid. This Is the bribe Northern
Democrats pay to these Southern
racists for the Southern vote for a
Democratic President every four
years.
The rural dominated Southern
Democrats also control most Con-
gressional Committee chairman
ships and therefore have the power
to grant public works projects to
friendly Northern Democrats.
Clearly the Democrats expect the
entire country to be on the tenant
farm basis some years from now.
They must also hope to have the
support Of this potentially power
full political bloc at that time.
At that time a food shortage
may be the method used to give
the farmer a fair income for his
labors. This is the logical conclu-
sion to the present arguments
against farm surpluses. Because
this Is not a desirable alternative,
some method must be discovered
to preserve the family farmer who
does have the incentive to use his
land to maximum potential.
The only alternative Is the Ma
tional Farmers Organization, which
desires to organize all farmers on
the basis Of collective bargaining
to guarantee them a fair return.