AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

Mr. Tager. I never talked to such a distinguished committee be-
fore. [Laughter.] oe ; ; ;

I am in a very fortunate position this morning. It is not neces-
sary for me to take the time of this committee and paint a picture
and hang it on the wall of the depression and the bad features of
agriculture. You know about it. Every speaker who has preceded
me has helped build part of the platform upon which I am standing
this morning. Every speaker who has preceded me, almost without
exception, during the seven years of your hearings has indicated
that we have built a legislative and commercial fabric that has
placed the American farmer at a disadvantage in comparison with
our commercial and industrial life.

We all agree to that, and it is unnecessary for me to spend any
time painting a dark picture. I am going to paint a picture that is
a little bit different. I want you to leave that in your memory if
you forget everything else I have said, that the grange does not
spread blue paint. We are not saying that agriculture is going to
the dogs; we are not saying that peasantry is around the corner for
American agriculture.

But we are in trouble and we are going to get out. , But there is
not any peasantry ahead for folks on the farms of America. We
have got troubles and we have got problems. But 1930 and 1940 and
1950 will find on the hills and the valleys and the homes and the
prairies of America red-blooded, real men and women on the farms,
not peasants—upstanding, clear-thinking, liberty-loving folks, fight-
ing for their own liberty and getting the things that are coming
to them just in proportion as we fight to defend them.

We are in bad shape. I could paint a very dark picture. I could
tell of seeing the other day a friend standing by the courthouse with
tears in his eyes as the old homestead was sold at sheriff's sale.
We could go on and paint those pictures—not from my State but
other States. But we have had too much gloom, we have had too
much pessimism, we have had too much whining about troubles and
not enough constructive thinking about the problems before us.
You can not talk this farm situation away. We have got to think
it away; we have got to fight it away; and I am old-fashioned
enough to believe we have got to do a little praying. We come
to-day and lay before you a bill that we think starts in the right
direction.

A century and a quarter ago, when the policy of this Government
was being established, there was conflict between the great ideals of
that day—one group had felt that we must remain agricultural ;
another group that we must try to become industrial. The Inspira-
tion for our program came in this early day and from Alexander
Hamilton, the father of American finance. He was not the friend
of the farmer—and I will speak perfectly frankly and say he was
the friend of industry—he was the friend of capital. But he was
air,

We have had a lot of men who have been friends of industry
and of capital that have not been fair. Alexander Hamilton realized
3 protective policy in America would build up American industry
and American transportation and American finance. But he realized
that if we did that at the expense of the basic producer the Nation
would suffer. So Alexander Hamilton proposed—not the National

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