AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
general relief of the farmers that I believe will be of very great in- 
terest to everybody. I am sure it is different from anything that has 
ever been considered. I have been studying it for about four years, 
and I have never found anybody that did not approve it, and I 
would like to tell it to you, if you will allow me, and then if you 
haven't sufficient time now, I can come back any other time for 
examination. 
The CuairMAN. The committee has made a special order. The 
question is what we want to do. Shall we make special orders and 
consistently follow them, or shall we have no respect for what we 
plan to do? 
Mr. Wyant. I understand that vou have a plan for handling 
agricultural products locally in the District of Columbia. What is 
the pleasure of the committee? I understood you, Mr. Booth, to 
make a request to be permitted to file a statement with the com- 
mittee. 
(Thereupon informal discussion took place.) 
STATEMENT OF EDWARD H. BOOTH, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
Mr. Boots. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I have come here to 
present a plan to you that I believe will be of real nelp to the farmer. 
I believe it will not only be of help to the farmer, but it will be of 
help to every householder in a given community, and, thirdly, I believe 
that it will not cost the Government either of a State or the United 
States 1 cent to carry it on, after its first initiation and putting it in 
operation. 
My plan is this: I assume, first, that the farming industry is 
beyond the control of any one country, even, much less within the 
control of any one State. It is a world-wide proposition, and it is 
something that I think must be dealt with from that standpoint. 
Mr. AsweLL. Are you a farmer? 
Mr. Boots. I am. I have been a farmer for 40 years. I take it 
that before I get through you will want to know my stand on the 
McNary-Haugen bill. I think I can possibly answer anything that 
you could ask me in this way: That I take it that anything that is 
wrong in principle can never be right in practice. 
Now, I believe that all the farming legislation—and I have been 
watching 1t for 40 years— I have never found any of it that amounted 
to anything to me. personally. I have never been able to get one 
cent out of it that I could see. It is possible that I may have had 
some advantages I did not know of. 
But the principle of the thing, I think, is wrong. The whole 
trouble with the farming interests to-day all over the world, not the 
United States alone, is that it is up against the question of supply 
and demand; and that is a king and queen that every farmer must 
bow to. He sails the seas in that line without either rudder or pro- 
pellor, and is subject to every whim of supply and demand that 
chooses to blow against him. 
I think that is the situation, undoubtedly. You have all expressed 
yourselves practically that way. I think the principle of supply and 
demand, while it is inevitable to a certain extent on any commodity, is 
something or other that must be dealt with from the powers that are