730 AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

How can the farmer get a larger share of this tremendous spread between farm
and kitchen? Not by enormous Government appropriations; they would be a
constant drain on the Treasury. Not by so-called ‘equalization’ fees enforced
by Federal agents. The farmer will not submit to force and resents political control.
 State agencies and organizations can not do it, for -80 per cent of many
products move from one*State to another. Federal sanction and authority are
required, but not Federal dictation; farm organizations national in scope and
conducted along trade, not political lines.
The farmers themselves should control and direct their own marketing as other
industries do. There is one way, and only one way, in which this can be done,
and that is by—

COMMODITY MARKETING UNDER FEDERAL CHARTERS

Give the farmers authority to establish national boards of control to manage
and direct the distribution of their products and establish and maintain fair prices;
give them a nation-wide marketing system and they will work out their own
salvation.
Control of shipments is the most vital element in maintaining prices, next to
production. A national marketing board, with authority to direct shipments,
could regulate the flow so as to prevent an oversupply in one market and scarcity
in another, the conditions that favor the speculator and leave the farmer at his
mercy.
Give the farmers authority to organize commodity marketing associations,
controlling their products, and these associations on business lines can obtain all
the credit that is necessary to move crops and maintain prices. :
I am not contending for any national organization that would unite all the
farm population in one combine or raise the cry that they were constituting a
“food trust.” No danger of that.
The farming interests in various sections of the country are so diverse, their
“money crops’ so varied, that the most effective method would be to bring
together the producers of each important commodity in their own distinctive
organization.
A farm commodity act passed by Congress would authorize all organized
standard products to be operated under separate charters.
MARKETING WHEAT UNDER FEDERAL CHARTER

To illustrate the practicability of marketing under Federal charters, I will use
wheat. At present our surplus wheat which must be exported to find a market
is the farm commodity that is giving most anxiety to economists, political and
farm leaders.
The average wheat production for the five years 1921-1926 was 807,000,000
bushels, for which farmers received an average price of $1.10, allowing the same
for seed wheat. Approximately 23 bushels out of each 100 bushels of the farmers’
wheat is dumped into foreign markets and sold for less than production cost in
competition with wheat.exported from other countries. Wheat constitutes about
one-half of our export food products.
Estimates on cost of producing wheat vary from $1.45 to $1.75 per bushel.
The United States Tariff Commission, in its report to the President on March 4,
1924, estimated the cost of production and marketing at $1.59. Adding 10 per
cent profit (or say, 16 cents a bushel) would make a production and marketing
cost, including a fair profit, of $1.75 a bushel.
Eighty per cent of any raw or finished product under organized control can
and does control the market. Eighty per cent of our wheat is produced in 14
States, therefore could easily be placed under an organized Federal charter
marketing control.
WHEAT MARKETING AT HOME AND ABROAD

How can an American wheat-marketing plan be put into operation under a
Federal charter system?
The first step necessary would be for Congress to create authority to grant
Federal charters to market farm commodities when organized in compliance with
the provisions and conditions of such charters. :
The next step would be for wheat associations to apply for such a charter
and consolidate their marketing under an