162

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. CaveErno. What did the 99 per cent—say 90 per cent—I do
not know how many security holders there are—that are outside of
the railroad ownership—what did they do? What would I do?
Would I vote to put the railroads into bankruptcy? No. They
have been given by this Government a chance to keep out of bank-
ruptecy. I do not want to tear that thing to pieces.

I do not believe that you can avoid concentration and centraliza-
tion. There has been a growth in the world from the simple to the
complex. I do not believe you can help it.

But the point of it is that practically everybody has their organiza-
tion, and we are left out, and when you see people in an organized
world losing thirty billions of value in five or six years, and people
who are working on the most basic production that there 1s, the
greatest value—so great that if we could have fair trading and some
one man could be appointed selling agent for all the farmers of the
world, in one year he would come back with the whole world. Why
is it that the people who raise practically all the food are actually
hungry and the people who raise the raw material for clothing have
not enough clothing on their backs? Is there not something wrong
with an adjustment, that they can not save enough out of it to feed
and clothe themselves?

Mr. FuLMER. Is it not a fact that the folks who seem to worry
about the 70 per cent of the people outside of the farmer group do
not seem to worry very much about the 90 per cent of the people
that are outside of the railroad group?

Mr. Caverno. I think you are right.

Mr. KercEam. That remark is unfair, but 1 do not think Mr.
Fulmer intended it so. This is the point that I had in mind. 1 am
putting these questions squarely to you from the standpoint of the
farmer himself. If this great controlling agency is put up, which
practically takes over the farmer's business with 71 per cent of the
people in the United States on the other side, can you not see that the
very thing that has been set up for their help might turn around and
run the other way? That was my idea. You are twisting my re-
marks wholly unfairly. »

Mr. Funmer. In all the hearings before this committee, I find that
a lot of the members of this committee and principally of the opposi-
tion, are worrying about the consumer and the other part of the 70
per cent not in the farmer group. Congress has passed legislation in
the interest of every other group, outside of the fellow that is feeding
and clothing the world.

Mr. Kercuam. My remark was not directed to that. My remark
was directed to the welfare of the farmers themselves, provided that
70 per cent of the people find out how this thing works and turn it
around the other way. )

Mr. Caverno. Mr. Ketcham, I would rather take my chances
with the farm board with human hearts and some brains in their
heads, appointed by Calvin Coolidge, than 1 would with the present
anarchy.

Mr. Fort. You have used the railroads as an illustration. The
first intervention with the railroad and the first board, following out
Mr. Ketcham’s thought, was appointed in the early nineties?

CAVERN. Mr. Fort, I have got only 30 minutes yet.

r. Fort. I was just going to ask you a question. The first board
was aopointed for the railroads in the early nineties. The Esch-