AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

51

Mr. Gray. So do I. Still, with that second condition in there, the
initiatory action resides with the cooperative organization, and if they
are unable or unwilling to-do the things which that second condition
permits them to do, referring back to section 5, the loaning section,
the provision falls flat; and, as I said yesterday, I believe that when
it comes to a real surplus question the cooperative organizations are
not big enough, either in numbers or finances, to grapple with it.
We will have under such conditions a bill that is not a surplus control
bill. We will just simply have a cooperative marketing bill, and we
have had that and do not need any more of that type of legislation.

I think, Congressman, that the loaning provisions, as in section 5,
and as in this second provision of Chairman MeNary’s bill which we
are speaking about, will be useful for current marketing overations.

Mr. Pur~xeLL. And micht stabilize the price?

Mr. Gray. But when it comes to surplus disposition they will be
ineffective if applied, and probably not applied on account of the
unwillingness of the cooperatives to run the risk of applying them.
So with that kind of a bill, with the equalization fee taken out, we
have another cooperative marketing bill, and the farin groups are not.
advocating another cooperative marketing bill.

Mr. PurNELL. Mr. Gray, let me say I live out among these farmers,
and I think I speak their language pretty well, and I know what they
think. Anybody that tells you that there is not a farm problem in
this country does not speak the truth. I am not laying it all on the
farmer's shoulders either, but I want to tell you that one of the things
that is wrong right now is the broken-down morale among the Amer-
ican farmers.

Mr. Gray. You are right in that.

Mr. Pur~ELL. You know there is a broken-down morale, and as a
member of the committee, when we had this other bill up, I said this
much to the President: I think if this bill does nothing more than to
strengthen the morale of the American farmer, you give him to under-
stand that down here in Washington there is a sympathetic Congress
that wants to help him, it will go a long way toward solving the
problem. Assuming that all your objections to the bill are well
founded, a mere passage of this bill will strengthen his morale and help
him to solve it himself.

[ do not think that will solve it by any means.

If that be true, and I think it is a thing that can not be contro-
verted, that he has a broken-down morale and he has reached the
point where he thinks Congress either can not or will not do anything
to help lift him up, would we not be serving a good purpose, knowing
that we can not get this bill with the equalization fee, if we look back
to him the groundwork, the board and the revolving fund, and the
conditions which are here set up, and tell him, as we would tell him
publicly and privately, “While it is not all we wanted and all we nope
to get, we have made this much of a start and we are going to add to
it just as fast as we can, we are going to help you just as fast as we
can,” would we not help his morale? Would not we be doing him
as much service, and should we not do as much service as we can and
as {ast as we can?

Mr. Gray. Answering your question from the point of view of
whether or not you would be strengthening the farmers’ morale by
so doine—and 1 consider that a part of vour question—I am em-