50

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
fundamental features in thei ransportation act would have been
passed at all.

Mr. PurneLL. You must assume, Mr. Gray, that the members of
this committee do not regard their duties so lightly as to pass any
bill that contains only an enacting clause. If this bill will not do any
good without the equalization fee and I make up my mind that it
will not, I will fight it just as hard as I have been fighting for it.

Mr. Gray. I am sure you will.

Mr. PurnerLL. I would not advocate the passage of any bill out
of this committee that will serve as a mere gesture, that will serve
merely to pass the buck and put the responsibility on other
shoulders. Now that Congress has passed the responsibility over to
us, the other members of the House not on this committee can sit over
there and wait until we bring something in, and whether they want
the equalization fee or not, they can go back and tell their people that
“This is all we had a chance to vote for.” You are talking to a group
of fellows here that have to bear the responsibility before the farmers
of this country. We are the fellows who have to say in the first
instance whether we are going home empty handed or with some-
thing. That is what I want to impress upon you.

I do not know a man here, although some of them do not represent
farmer constituents at all, who does not recognize the needs of
American agriculture, or who does not know that if we are going to
put American industry and American labor and American agriculture
on an equality, it has got to come through this committee

Mr. Gray. I think you are right in that.

Mr. PurNELL. And we are not going to psss out of this committee
and we are not going to support anything with merely an enactin
clause in it. Most of these fellows are old stagers here, and os
are not afraid, and, moreover, we recognize our dut when we s TE
and we are going to try to do the best thing we can do, and we want
you to help us work that out. We are not going to report something
out of this committee just to pass the buck over to the Hous

wi Gray. The expression about passing a bill on ol relief
containing jas an cpacting clause, was used with the qualifying
by this Conran ok, ic [Jouns that there might be bills passed
that this Ho 7040 wou Do really grapple with the question
farm relief bills ‘now on tho onlonda oolk oh ere ig ps So-ca led
them) that do not take the first. ston art ay he nine
question. oo

N vr] 7 ‘ .

Commas TELL We Dad 5 BTERg farm bills introduced in the last
of thors mittee; in round numbers, a thousand

Mr. Gray. Our ’ .
the members of he Teonaey of an roel, ask owe Sihsnd, mg os
s dishosine 'W, 1s on one main point, and that
i pt of 2 mapluy, The bill that we are considering here, if
the boos on oh ° Sraahaation fee should be taken out of it, after
adequately grapplos with oh of : Operation, will not be a bill that
although you might take Soy Srplus ques lon, for the reason that
out 1t in Chairman Haucen’s bill civary's second condition and

Mr. Pur~xELL. I hope we Jo