AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

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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.