AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

163

Cummins law was passed in 1922 and 1923. There ‘was a. period,
was there not, where following Mr. Ketcham’s thought, the consumers
of the railroads’ services did force the railroads into bankruptcy, so
that after 30 years’ operation under the first commission jt. was
necessary to reverse the attitude and change the law and create a
new law that gave the railroads a chance to live.

Mr. Caverno. That is what I have said. I said these boards were
appointed for regulation and driven to assistance; and, men, I can
not help but believe that that has got to happen to every great indus-
try of our country. There is either going to be an autocracy outside
of the Government or a certain amount of autocracy in it, and it
ought to be reduced to the lowest terms and limited to direction as
much as possible.

Let me state one thing here in regard to what Mr. Ketcham has
referred to. He has a different picture from what I have in regard
to how this is going to work, and I hope that I can get around to talk
about the practical workings of this bill. But I want to say, as I
see this, every bushel of grain and every bale of cotton might go
under the McNary-Haugen bill into the very same freight cars, the
very same elevators, through the very same hand, without any
cooperative associations, and make the bill effective.

Some will say I have been turning down the cooperative associa-
tions. I have not. I think they have been a necessary good; and,
anyway, I did not propose to solve this through the cooperative
associations; I proposed to solve this through the national industrial
conference board. I went to men like Herbert Hoover in an en-
deavor to have this thing solved without getting into the House.

Mr. Apkins. You do not think the farmers are uneasy, do you,
or believe they have got to operate at a loss right along to keep the
other 70 per cent of the people off their backs.

Mr. Caver~o. I wish you members of the committee could take
time to read the little letters here of men who have been putting
in 25 cents and up in Mr. Hirth’s organization. I have nothing to
do with it. He asked me to receive contributions and turn them
over to our little office up here # the Investment Building, where
we are trying to meet the chamber of commerce, and the United
milling interests represented by Mr. Anderson here.

Mr. AswerLr. What do you do with that money?

Mr. CaverNo. Doctor, I knew you would ask that.

Mr. AsweLL. It is a good question, if you knew I would ask it.

Mr. Caverno. We try to have study made by experts. Ifyou
know Chester Davis—I call myself proud to know him. Mr. Davis
is employed and these 25-cent subscriptions go to help that little
office, which is the most expert economic service the farmers of the
United States ever had.

To prove my contention that this is an economic problem, I want
you to compare those little letters with what appears in this book
[laying printed volume of committee hearings on the table], and that
is the report of the Reed Investigating Committee on senatorial
campaign expenditures, to prove that economics is at the bottom
of politics. See what was collected in the Pennsylvania campaign.
Was it worth it for political office? It was not. It was because of
the economic factors. One of the Mellons, I think, who said in an
interview, it was worth $5,000,000 to control the Republican organi-
zation in the State of Tinois