AGBICULTL BAL RELIEF
241
Mr. WELLER. I would like to make a few remarks to you on that,
Doctor. Just one farmer or a half-dozen farmers, a farming corpora-
tion might become a reality, as we fear it may. Then they will see
to it that they get a price, all right. They would then have that
thing largely in their own control. But our farmers are scattered
over eight or nine mid-west agricultural States that have a soil that
does not require the usual artificial fertilizer. Largely that is our
resource; it 1s our food that feeds this Nation. But we are scattered.
Mr. KiNcHELOE. Are you scattered any more than labor; are you?
Mr. WELLER. The very nature of labor working and going through
the same gate into a factory building helps them to get together and
have an understanding. We are scattered over miles and miles of
territory. 1 presume those mid-west States are larger than several
European nations put together.
Mr. KiNcHELOE. You admit that the organization of labor is the
thing that makes them have a good price more than the tariff?
Mr. WELLER. Absolutely; and we have no ficht with them.
Mr. KiNncHELOE. So you do not think the tariff does so much about
preserving American standards of living, so far as labor is concerned?
Mr. WELLER. So far as my personal investigation is concerned, I
would say that labor got a small part of the tariff from duties.
Mr. KincHELOE. How do you figure that? The highest-protected
industries under the Fordney-McCumber tariff are the manufac-
turers of woolen goods, cotton goods, and textiles, and yet the
poorest-paid laborers in America work in those enterprises. How
do vou figure that?
Mr. WELLER. That is the thing we can not understand.
Mr. KiNcHELOE. As a Vepublican, you are still saying, “We do
not want to touch thes tariff-protected ‘ndustries,” and I expect
you will be out thers - -n~ ¢hat ¢- the poor starved farmers that
have helped keep tn voo.d tor the MeNary-Haugen bill
the last time.
Mr. WELLER. I am mighty giad to hear you say that.
Mr. KINCcHELOE. You are all right on this so long as you talk
about the equalization fee. But when you go to touch the big
industries of this country who are fostered under this tariff pro-
mulgated by the Republican régime, then you are mighty tender-
footed. Your Representatives, as Mr. Jones said, when they had
an opportunity the first time they have had it in the seven years,
who hollered louder and longer as the leaders of the farm bloc and
for the agricultural country, and then when one of your own Senators
came and by the aid of the Republican Progressive votes in the
Senate passed a resolution that would give you some relief, what
did the leaders of the farm bloc in the House do? They followed
the leaders of the East; and my opinion is you are not going to get
much relief as long as you follow these fellows on the Atlantic sea-
oard.
Mr. WELLER. But I think they disappointed a good many men
in the West who undertook to study into that thing.
Mr. KiNcHELOE. You are not going to get anything for American
agriculture without you arise and assert yourselves. You are not
going to assert yourself by voting with those on the Atlantic seaboard.
R6160—28—SER E, PT 3——5
