AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
{1 
a farm bill carrying that provision was utterly impossible. That 
if the friends of farm relief stood for that program and for nothing 
else it meant no legislation at this session of the Congress, and that 
I proposed as a member of this committee to exert my efforts to 
have reported out of this committee the very best possible farm bill 
we could pass through Congress and get signed by the President. 
Later in the dav I received the following teleeram from Mr. Smith: 
Confirming conversation over telephone and speaking for our members 
throughout the State as well as those in your district we urge your continued 
active support of the essential principles of legislation contained in the Haugen 
bill. The equalization fee is the one outstanding essential of this legislation. 
It is our firm belief that no other proposal vet advanced offers genuine oppor- 
tunitv for the stabilization of agriculture. 
[ have very great respect for Mr. Earl C. Smith and the fine 
organization for which he speaks and I regret exceedingly that my 
sense of duty to the people of my district and to American agriculture 
will not permit me to follow his judgment in this matter. That 
would mean the defeat of all farm relief legislation for at least two 
years. I will not join in a program of that kind. In my opinion 
it would be a mistake amounting to a crime against agriculture for 
this Congress not to pass, and pass now, the best possible remedial 
farm legislation. If it is not altogether what we want, if it is not as 
good and far reaching as we may think some other form of legislation 
would be, we can certainly at a future date and in future Congresses 
amend, improve, and strengthen it. It would certainly not be a 
more difficult task to amend what actual experience might prove 
to be defects in an existing Statute, than it would be to write a new 
one. 
We can make a start in the right direction now, a most helpful 
start in my judgment, if we do not throw away the opportunity by 
stubbornly insisting on a program that every sensible man knows 
can not be attained at this time. 
[ make this statement so that no one may misunderstand my posi- 
tion as a member of the committee and also hoping it may be the 
means of saving some one here in Washington the useless expense of 
wiring messages from here to Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois for 
the purpose of bringing pressure to bear upon me to do a thing I do 
not intend to do. 
The CuarrMan. Without objection the committee will stand in 
recess at this time until 10 o'clock to-morrow morning. 
(At 11.55 o'clock a. m. the hearing was adjourned until 10 o’clock 
to-morrow.) 
House oF REPRESENTATIVES, 
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 
Thursday, January 19, 1928. 
The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o’clock a. m., 
in the committee hearing room, House Office Building, Hon. Gilbert 
N. Haugen presiding. 
Present: Messrs Haugen (chairman), Purnell, Williams (of Illinois), 
Thompson, Ketcham, Hall, Pratt, Fort, Menges, Andresen, Adkins, 
Clark, Aswell, Kincheloe, Jones. Swank, Fulmer Rubey, and Mec- 
Sweenev.