AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

451

higher production, and then this board should actually stabilize the
price downward in line with the suggestion a little awhile ago, do
you think that would suit the folks very well who had made a contri-
bution? In other words, they are interested in stabilization, that
they want stabilization up; they do not want any stabilization
downwards when they are going to be assessed for it.

Mr. KiLgore. I do not think it could be any worse than it has
been. Any stabilization would be better than the ruinous condi-
tions that have existed in the past, and this board would stabilize
the price so that it would be on the average better than it has been,
so we would get a fair and reasonable price. I think it could be
worked out.

Mr. Kercuam. The danger as I see it, Doctor Kilgore, is setting
up a Government instrumentality that is supposed to act for the
farmers in stabilizing the price upwards, whereas the popular view
would naturally be interested in something very much on the other
side of the proposition.

Mr. KiLcore. I can appreciate that.

Mr. KercHaM. There is no control over the appointment of the
board. Is it not pretty fair to presume that by and by the consumers
will awake to the possibilities and say ‘that is a thing that works
one way; let us get around and work it on the other side’ ?

Mr. KiLcore. But you remember that a representative of labor
has appeared before this committee and has expressed the attitude
of labor as in favor of giving the farmer a fair price.

Mr. Fort. That is before they have paid out.

I want to make in that connection the only personal statement
I have asked the privilege of making in this record for some time:
That I personally am entirely in sympathy with the aspirations of the
farmer for a higher price average on his commodities; that I have
believed, and do believe, that in many cases commodities are selling
below where they should sell; and that I have so stated to my con-
stituents, who are purely consumers, and have told them that I
expected to support in Congress—repeatedly told them—Ilegislation
that I believe will increase the cost of living. And I have yet to
have a protest from any consumer against the occurrence of an en-
hanced price of commodities if that price is necessary to produce
a fair living to the American farmer, and if that price be not made
greater by speculative or other manipulations that do not go to the
benefit of the American farmer.

My opposition to the McNary-Haugen type of legislation, which
I believe to be approved by my constituents, is that I do not believe
that the full benefits, or any substantial part of the benefit of any
price enhancement, will be translated into the pockets of the farmer
under that type of legislation; that I do not believe it to be consti-
tutional, and therefore I am certain that in the second year, which
is the one that Doctor Kilgore is worrying over, the whole machinery
will fall apart through the intervention of the courts, and leave
established an organization carrying a large part of the surplus, which
would have to be dumped to the wrecking of the market of the farmer
in the succeeding year. Therefore, since I can not see that the plan
will benefit the farmer, and that such increases as it produces will
only result in penalizing the consumer in the first year, with ultimate
Jlfmage to the farmer, I can not vote for any such type of legis-
ation.