12 
AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
The CaamrMaN. Gentlemen, the committee will be in order. 
Mr. ANxprEsEN. Mr. Chairman, at the conclusion of the hearing 
yesterday Mr. Gray was on the stand, and he made some statements 
concerning which I wanted to ask him a few questions, but the time 
had run out. 
I would like to have him take the stand for a few minutes now. 
Mr. TrHomMPsoN. Mr. Chairman, I have been sitting on this com- 
mittee for the last six years listening to the testimony of these farm 
bureaus and farm organizations, and I have concluded that the 
administration is not going to sign a bill with an equalization fee in it. 
[ want to be put on record here as favoring that kind of bill, but I 
want a bill that we can pass. I want a bill that the administration 
will approve. The farmers have got to have something, and we have 
got to have action. I wish to indorse the statement of Mr. Williams. 
I indorse his statement in full. I have read it, but I was not here to 
hear it yesterday. 
FURTHER STATEMENT OF CHESTER H. GRAY, WASHINGTON 
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FED- 
ERATION 
Mr. ANnprEsEN. Mr. Gray, yesterday my colleague, Mr. Adkins, 
made a statement, and in answer to his question as to whether or not 
you favored no legislation during the present session of Congress if 
we could not pass a bill with the equalization fee in it, you stated that 
you would rather not have any legislation in this session of Congress, 
unless you could get a* bill with the equalization fee in it. Is that 
correct? 
Mr. Gray. No; not in that way, I think, Mr. Congressman 
Andresen. 
Mr. ANDRESEN. Is not that the sum and substance of it? 
Mr. Grav. I will explain that further a little later, if it is per- 
missible, 
Mr. PvryerL. Why not explain it now, while we are on the subject. 
I am very mucn interested in that myself. I would like to have it 
clarified. 
Mr. Gray. AsT understood Congressman Adkins’s question, which 
was rather a long one, he wanted to know what the best judgment 
was of the farm organizations affiliated in this endeavor to pass an 
equalization fee bill relative to what Congress should do this winter, 
and I answered the question, as I remember it to be, that our best 
judgment is that the Congress should pass an equalization fee bill. 
The reason I answer that way is this, Congressman Andresen and 
members of the committee: You can not expect a farm organization, 
whether it is in favor of the equalization plan or in favor of some otiier 
plan, hurriedly to change its position. There is none of us that has 
authority to change a position of a farm organization which has been 
arrived at slowly, painfully, throughout years. Take the American 
Farm Bureau Federation, which specifically I represent. It took 
as fully two years, as a national group, to come to a concensus of 
opinion that the equalization fee plan is that which we desire, and it 
was not until the last resolution adopted in December of last year 
was passed that.we specifically named the MeN ary-Haugen bill. 
We have been four or five years oetting to that point.