AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
227 
Mr. JoNEs. An incident. 
Mr. KincHELOE. Then a plurality of votes was an incident to his 
election; is that the idea? 
Mr. CrowpER. Incident to the conditions of election. 
Mr. Apkins. Let us get back to the point the gentleman from 
Missouri raised. This idea has been talked about not before Con- 
gress, but by farmers for a good many years. 
Mr. CRowDER. Yes, sir. 
Mr. Apkins. You were raised over in my district in Illinois, and 
you know how the farmers do there, and I presume they do not do 
any differently than in South Dakota. 
Mr. CrowpeR. They do not. 
Mr. Apkins. I happen to have visited a good many threshing 
machines and corn shellers, where the farmers came in to help one 
another. I would meet a crowd of fellows, and I did not talk with 
anybody but what this legislation had been talked about and knew; 
and at hours, when they were not busy, they talked about what it 
would do, and you must remember that the fellows back in the 
States over this long period of agitation have talked about it and 
he has become familiar with this legislation as proposed, and the 
farmer himself is pretty well posted on what the fundamentals of 
this bill provide for, as I found it among our farmers. 
Mr. CrowpERr. That is true, generally speaking. 
Mr. Apkins. It is talked about more than anything else. He is 
in bad condition. “What does this equalization fee do to us? What 
does this McNary-Haugen bill do?” And some fellow who thinks 
he knows about it as much as anybody else proceeds to talk, and they 
all talk about it. And I have seen a number of copies of the bill that 
came by request from fellows for the purpose of being able to meet 
those arguments. 
My experience this summer in traveling 10,000 or 12,000 miles 
over my district, in visiting those various places, is that I find it 
talked about and I believe they are pretty familiar over where you 
were raised, and I expect some up in your country. 
Mr. CrowpEer. That is quite true. 
Mr. KercaaM. Very early in your statement I caught this expres- 
sion, in talking about the equalization fee you said, if I heard you 
correctly, that you did not regard it as compulsory. 
Mr. CRowpER. I do not—as to organization. 
Mr. KercraM. But the whole point in all the arguments presented 
in the last two days—the two gentlemen preceding you based their 
argument upon the thought that the equalization fee ought to be paid 
by every one who is producing a particular crop. To that extent is 
it not compulsory? 
Mr. CrowbEeR. Itis. I would take that for granted, and I appre- 
ciate that—compulsory to people outside of the organization, 
except—— 
Mr. Kercaam. Everybody has to pay, but not everybody has to 
come into the cooperative association. 
Mr. CrowpER. That is the point exactly. 
Mr. Hern. In other words, compulsory pooling. 
Mr. CrowpeR. That is really the appreciation of the equalization 
fee, and without that we will find this MeceNary-Haugen bill would 
not be of the value to us that we would appreciate