AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

Mr. Stone. Would I be for it?

Mr. AsweLL. Yes.

Mr. Stone. That depends on what you mean by being for ‘+

Mr. AsweLL. Would you advise us to go ahead and wet it out. .
we think we could pass it, when we know we couldnt
with the equalization fee in it.

Mr. StoNE. I don’t know whether I would be or not, Doctor
would have to think that over a while.

Mr. AsweLL. I notice Governor Lowden, in a long statement,
seemed to be excited over the fear that Congress would pass a farm
bill, and he would not have any issue in the next campaign. We are
not interested in him, are we?

Mr. StoNE. Yes, I am, too. I am interested in any man who is as
good a friend of the farmers as Frank Lowden. [Applause.] And,
furthermore, I will say as good an American citizen as he is. He made
one of the greatest war governors we had in the United States. 1
know him personally, and I believe he is one of the greatest cotton
farmers we have to-day.

Mr. Aswern. I know all that, but I am not interested in him.

Mr. StoNE. Well, you are not politically interested in him.

Mr. AsweLL. Now, answer my question, if you will, and I will not
bother you but a minute. Would you advise this committee, in the
face of what we know that we can not get an equalization fee enacted
into law, to pass a bill with the equalization fee in it, or nothing; do
you mean to say you are for the bill with the fee or nothing?

Mr. FuLMER. You are not advised——

Mr. AswerLL. I am asking a question of the gentleman here, the
witness, and I would ask that the gentleman from South Carolina
wait until his time comes.

Mr. StoNE. I am going to answer according to my notion, and not
in accordance with any suggestion of the gentleman from South
Carolina or anybody else. My idea about that is this——

Mr. AsweLL. I am asking you the honest, practical thing.

Mr. Stone. There is no such thing as a categorical reply to a ques-
tion of that kind, yes or no.

Mr. AsweLL. Why isn’t there? That is what we have to face here.

Mr. Stone. Oh, no, you haven’t. There are a lot of qualifications
in there. In the first place, I believe you could get by, you could get
an equalization fee, so handled and so framed and so adjusted that
you could put it in there. I don’t accept your premise.

Mr. AsweLL. You think the President would sign it then?

Mr. StoxEe. I think if you would pass the bill with an equalization
fee, or some fee which would impose on the commodity to be benefited
the burden of paying for the cost of the benefit—

Mr. AswerLL. That is what the fee does.

Mr. StoxE. An equalization fee or anything else, you can do that,
or at least I believe you can do that, if the committee makes up its
mind that is what it want to do. In other words, why can’t vou——

Mr. AsweLL. Well, the committee——

Mr. Stone. Let me ask you a question, since this matter has gotten
to the stage of a colloquy. Why can’t you pass a bill with the equal-
ization fee and fix the equalization fee at the maximum amount pro-
vided it only becomes operative under certain conditions?

R6160—28—S8ER E, PT 2——8

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