AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
we are responsible, but if we follow your judgment and are wrong,
that is your responsibility.

Mr. Gray. That is a very gentlemanly and very exact way of
stating it, I believe. oo

Mr. ANDRESEN. When did your conferees have their meeting in
which it was decided that they would take a bill with the equalization
fee in it or nothing?"

Mr. Gray. I could not point to any particular date on which that
question, as you have definitely stated it, was decided upon; but the
entire history of these associated groups is such that no man can come
to any conclusion other than that the equalization plan is the one we
want, because in this long drawn out program of getting the farm
groups thoroughly acquainted with the various forms of farm relief—
and they have studied half a dozen—we have come to the idea that
the equalization plan is the one that is most applicable and most
workable.

When it comes to the question of saying in which conference did
they adopt the resolution saying “We will have the equalization plan
or nothing,” that would be a hard question to answer; but it has been
inferentially said in certain resolutions adopted. For instance, at
St. Louis last November, I think it was, the Corn Belt Federation—
and there are others who can speak with authority for them better
than I——

Mr. ANDRESEN (interposing). Has the American Farm Bureau
Federation ever adopted such a resolution?

Mr. Gray. No; the American Farm Bureau Federation has never
adopted a resolution which said “We will have the equalization fee
or nothing,” but there is no one in the American Farm Bureau Fed-
eration that has the vestige of an authority, since we have reaffirmed
our support of the equalization plan four different years, in consecu-
tive sessions, to say now that we will take some other plan. So that
the best judgment we have is that the equalization plan is what the
Congress should pass. If the Congress does not coincide with our
judgment, that is not our responsibility.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Your organizations favor H. R. 7940 with the
equalization fee in it?

Mr. Gray. Yes.

Mr. AnprESEN. If the bill is passed substantially as drafted, with
the amendment you have offered, leaving the equalization fee out of
it and providing for sufficient funds to put the bill into operation,
would you say that the purpose and principle of the farm organiza-
tions have been defeated? Would you not consider that a victory,
and that we had at least made a start in the right direction?

Mr. Gray. I would say that that action on the part of the com-
mittee and of the Congress would hardly be a beginning toward
consummating what we advocate in the American Farm Bureau
Federation. And let me read you our resolution on that subject.
Other gentlemen appearing will read resolutions for other organiza-
tions, I am sure.
We appreciate the action of the Sixty-ninth Congress——

Mr. PURNELL. When was that adopted? i

Mr. Gray. This was adopted December 7,1927, in the ninth annual
meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation held in Chicago, Ill.