AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
Mr. Tager. I never talked to such a distinguished committee be- 
fore. [Laughter.] oe ; ; ; 
I am in a very fortunate position this morning. It is not neces- 
sary for me to take the time of this committee and paint a picture 
and hang it on the wall of the depression and the bad features of 
agriculture. You know about it. Every speaker who has preceded 
me has helped build part of the platform upon which I am standing 
this morning. Every speaker who has preceded me, almost without 
exception, during the seven years of your hearings has indicated 
that we have built a legislative and commercial fabric that has 
placed the American farmer at a disadvantage in comparison with 
our commercial and industrial life. 
We all agree to that, and it is unnecessary for me to spend any 
time painting a dark picture. I am going to paint a picture that is 
a little bit different. I want you to leave that in your memory if 
you forget everything else I have said, that the grange does not 
spread blue paint. We are not saying that agriculture is going to 
the dogs; we are not saying that peasantry is around the corner for 
American agriculture. 
But we are in trouble and we are going to get out. , But there is 
not any peasantry ahead for folks on the farms of America. We 
have got troubles and we have got problems. But 1930 and 1940 and 
1950 will find on the hills and the valleys and the homes and the 
prairies of America red-blooded, real men and women on the farms, 
not peasants—upstanding, clear-thinking, liberty-loving folks, fight- 
ing for their own liberty and getting the things that are coming 
to them just in proportion as we fight to defend them. 
We are in bad shape. I could paint a very dark picture. I could 
tell of seeing the other day a friend standing by the courthouse with 
tears in his eyes as the old homestead was sold at sheriff's sale. 
We could go on and paint those pictures—not from my State but 
other States. But we have had too much gloom, we have had too 
much pessimism, we have had too much whining about troubles and 
not enough constructive thinking about the problems before us. 
You can not talk this farm situation away. We have got to think 
it away; we have got to fight it away; and I am old-fashioned 
enough to believe we have got to do a little praying. We come 
to-day and lay before you a bill that we think starts in the right 
direction. 
A century and a quarter ago, when the policy of this Government 
was being established, there was conflict between the great ideals of 
that day—one group had felt that we must remain agricultural ; 
another group that we must try to become industrial. The Inspira- 
tion for our program came in this early day and from Alexander 
Hamilton, the father of American finance. He was not the friend 
of the farmer—and I will speak perfectly frankly and say he was 
the friend of industry—he was the friend of capital. But he was 
air, 
We have had a lot of men who have been friends of industry 
and of capital that have not been fair. Alexander Hamilton realized 
3 protective policy in America would build up American industry 
and American transportation and American finance. But he realized 
that if we did that at the expense of the basic producer the Nation 
would suffer. So Alexander Hamilton proposed—not the National 
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