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we consume just about all the milk produced, while some States export as much as 80 percent of their product. The Nashville price at the present time is $4.92 per hundredweight, 4 percent milk. The CHAIRMAN. Did you say 4-percent milk?

Mr. McCLANAHAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that not the way above the average?

Mr. McCLANAHAN. Yes, sir, but most of the places in the country, especially in the northern part, it is 3.5.

The CHAIRMAN. Some is 3.7. Do you have to charge more for the milk at 4 percent?

Mr. MCCLANAHAN. No, that is what we have to sell it, that is what we get paid on.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it fixed in your order that the milk must grade 4 percent ?

Mr. McCLANAHAN. It is not fixed in the order, but that is the general practice.

The CHAIRMAN. A suggestion has been made that all milk sold should have at least 4 percent fat in order to prevent the surplus of butter we have. In other words, would you agree that it would be a good way to sell the milk and the butterfat whole instead of selling it to the Government; that if the farmer tried to do that he might help himself?

Mr. McCLANAHAN. Owning a Jersey herd, Senator, I would say I would like for it to be sold with 4 percent fat, but the boys that sell it want to sell a 3.5 milk.

The CHAIRMAN. By "the boys" you mean those who retail it?

Mr. MCCLANAHAN. That is correct; not the farmers. We have no farmers retailing milk on our market.

The CHAIRMAN. It strikes me something should be done to make the boys sell it at 4 percent.

Mr. McCLANAHAN. I heartily agree.

In Tennessee, and these are official figures, there are 15,236 less farm owners than there were 5 years ago. This is an 11.4-percent decrease. I may be wrong, but it is my opinion that farm ownership represents the greatest training school for the American way of life in this Nation today. Few, if any, of the evil isms too prevalent in this country today are found among farm owners.

There is another phase of agricultural ownership that has wide application to the stability of this country and that is that argiculture and agriculture alone can take care of its own workers in a serious depression.

I hate to see the farm problem becoming a political football. I wish that we could arrive at some fair plan, but after all the farm problems as we know it today is relatively new. So it is likely that many attempts and changes will be made before a final and reasonable solution is reached.

The trouble with farmers today is largely the result of wars and the unfair treatment accorded farmers by Government. Farmers were asked to produce more and more of the essential foods during the war years. This they did in the face of tremendous difficulties. Incidentally, there were no strikes among farmers during those years, either.

Now, you can't step up farm production over 10 years and then shut it down like an industrial plant. Industry was helped by the ad

ministration to work out of war surpluses. In fact, $30 billion of such surpluses were dumped and about $25 billion were lost in the dumping. But what happens to agricultural surpluses? They were not dumped, except in the case of some small amounts of dairy products in the past year. They were held and are still being held, with the net result of holding down farm prices.

As long as labor and industry are supported by minimum-wage rates, 40-hour week, et cetera, and industry is protected by tariffs, renegotiations, fair-trade laws, et cetera, farmers must have supports. Farm price supports must be realistic and fair. Parity computations must not be subject to regulations by the Department of Agriculture. After all, it is the actual price and not parity that farmers can spend. After all, what is so wrong with farm prices supported at 90 or even 100 percent of parity? Certainly there have been inequities under the 90-percent program, such as the wheat farmer being able to realize about $4 per hour of labor and the dairy farmer only about 60 cents per hour. But those inequities should be eliminated without having to discard the whole plan.

From the standpoint of the welfare of the entire population, has 90-percent supports been bad? I am thoroughly convinced that because of the 90-percent-parity program the American housewife has bought food at an overall cost that would be less than what she would have paid without such a program. Without the support program food prices would skyrocket in times of scarcities and then when big surpluses were produced the middleman would widen his margin.

How much has the Government lost in a support program that has somewhat enabled farmers to maintain a reasonable relationship with industry and labor? Well, acording to Commodity Credit Corporation, for the period October 1933 through August 1955, a period of almost 22 years, the total loss is $2,429,238,492. As a matter of fact, much greater losses have been taken by the Government in a matter of weeks and such losses do not rate big headlines. After all, the farm-support program has, in effect, been a food-insurance program for the American public. It has provided the citizens of this country with the assurance of the best diet in the world with an annual cost of about $3.50 per family of 5. Small insurance indeed to know that there was no chance of a food shortage.

So, let's be fair in our governmental treatment of all groups. If labor and industry are to have strong crutches don't expect agriculture to walk with a broomstick.

May I say and ask your indulgence a moment in asking that appropriations sufficient to help us on the Bang's disease be put into effect next year. In my State we have already used up the money and the $50 and $25 had to be cut to $20 and $10.

It is essential to the dairy farmers of my State to have help on its Bang's disease eradication program since we in the milk markets are being forced to clear our herd of Bang's, which we should do and we want to do, by the United States Public Health Service.

Thank you.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Maybe I did not understand you. You said something about the wheat farmer getting $4 an hour. I am not going to argue with you on that, but I have 10,000 of them in Kansas that would sure argue with me on it if I made that statement.

I want to say this: I was one who sat in the United States Senate on the Banking and Currency Committee before I moved into the Agriculture Committee. You remember when there was a certain group visiting Washington that wanted to roll back farmers' prices on beef? They even talked about butter and poultry. Do you remember those days?

Mr. MCCLANAHAN. I do.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. When we sat on that committee and fought them, several representing labor leaders were there. I have nothing against them, except I told one of them that he was dead wrong. I told him this farm economy had some hills and valleys and that he did not need to think, with the wage scale he was working for, that he had a right to criticize the cattleman, dairy people, and people on the farms because it so happened that because of a war for a little while they were reaping the benefits of increased prices because, I said to him as did other members on that committee at that time that "there will come a time, and it is down the line, when these prices will be depressed. Then what are you going to do?" He did not have an answer. Pretty good thing to get in the record to remember what happened.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. GORDON MCGEE. Give your name in full for the record and your occupation.

STATEMENT OF GORDON MCGEE, LINCOLNTON, GA.

Mr. MCGEE. I am Gordon H. McGee and I am county agent of Lincoln County, Ga., a small county in east Georgia. I didn't come over here to make a statement before you all, but some of the people were reluctant to use the word "subsidy." I don't think it is a bad word to use because, of course, I understand every time the farmer gets a subsidy he gets bad press; but I want to read a little excerpt from a magazine I cut out.

In Time magazine on February 28, 1938, I cut out a little slip I want to show you that other segments of the industry get direct subsidies as well as indirect subsidies. This is some work that the Congress did. I want to show that the publicity that business and industry got amounted to just five lines whereas I have noted a lot of timesI remember particularly under the Irish potato program-there was a lot of bad publicity.

So, then, I for one say we ought to give the farmer a subsidy and call it a subsidy and then give publicity to what the other people get. In Time magazine, February 28, 1938:

National affairs, work done, the Congress: House of Representatives passed a bill writing off as unrecoverable $2,500 million representing loans to railroads, banks, insurance companies, and special State funds from the books of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

There was a direct subsidy of $2.5 billion to big business, I call it. Yet when we give the farmer a few hundred thousand dollars' subsidy or if we want to subsidize the price on what they get, there is a great hue and cry that we are increasing the cost to the consumer. Yet here was this piece that rated that is the only time I saw it in the paper; in Time magazine-rated five lines when you all give away $2.5 billion to big business.

The CHAIRMAN. The entire loss on the entire farm program since October 17, 1933, through June 30, 1955, on all commodities has not been as much as you just stated. As a matter of fact, the total amount was only $2,328,675,427.

May I further point out that of that sum, the losses in 1954 which constitute this sum were $419,477,074 and for 1955, this year, $799,061,464. That is on all commodities, whether they are basics or nonbasics. The losses on basics that have been supported were only, in that same period, $392,648,091 with cotton showing a clear profit of $267,243,797.

Proceed.

Mr. MCGEE. While we have been reducing acreage allotments across the board I want to show you what has happened to the farmers in Lincoln County. I went there in 1940 when the allotment for cotton. was 10,000 acres. The allotment for 1956 has already been received and is being sent out; 2,500 acres. Reduced down to one-fourth. The number of farmers has been reduced to less than 700, I think it is 678.. I wouldn't be sure of the figure. We have lost population. So I wish there was a way to find a way where these farmers are being reduced and not forced out of the farming business, particularly the family-sized farm.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any suggestions to offer? We have heard a lot of testimony about the problem now. Have you any specific suggestions you would like to offer?

Mr. MCGEE. I would offer the suggestion that there be a point below which they don't go. What the gentleman who preceded me said. I would need to study it but it sounded good. Whether it is practical, whether it could be administered or not, I know personalities enter into this because I helped operate the first farm program; I talked farmers into plowing up cotton.

I believe that is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wright, please. Do you have any plans you can offer us to solve this problem?

STATEMENT OF CHARLES V. WRIGHT, WASHINGTON, GA.

Mr. WRIGHT. I want to tell you the plight of a small farmer. The CHAIRMAN. We have heard a lot of those. Give your name, please.

Mr. WRIGHT. Charles V. Wright.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a farmer?

Mr. WRIGHT. Farmed all my life except 3 years I spent in the Army from 1942. When I got back out of the Army in 1947 I bought a tractor. I gave $1,150 for it. I bought one of the same tractors this summer for $2,750, and today that same tractor goes up 1211⁄2 percent more. Allis-Chalmers goes up today 1212 percent.

I bought a bolt one day this week for my mower that cost 63 cents. That little bolt cost 63 cents. In 1951 my income off of cattle was $14,349.90. In 1954 from the same number of cattle my income is $4,234.12. I took a $10,000 loss there in about 4 to 5 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that your net income?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir; that is gross income. I don't have any net income.

64440-56-pt. 6- 8

The CHAIRMAN. You mean gross sales.

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, sir; gross sales. I have some records here. You don't have to believe what I said. It was sold to the stockyard in Washington, Ga. Here is a calf here that I sold the 10th or the 19th of October, $82.50. Four years ago I sold that same calf, 20 pounds lighter, brought one hundred and seventy-seven dollars and some

cents.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the price to the consumer? Did he pay the same as he did 4 years ago?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir, the consumer is paying more; and yet they blame the farmer for it and the farmer isn't doing it. We are not getting it.

I wanted to show the plight of a small farmer. I have the records here and would be glad to show you where I sold cattle in 1951 and sold them in 1954 and just show them. They don't have to believe what I say; the records speak for themselves. I would be glad to have you take them back.

The CHAIRMAN. We will take your word for it. We have a lot of evidence to show this discrepancy to which you refer. There has been a great difference in the price of cattle and hogs sold today as compared to a few years ago.

Take the case of hogs. Only a year and a half ago they were 25 cents a pound and now they are down to 122. But when I go back to Washington in January I will pay the same amount I paid last January for that ham I am going to have to buy in January. That is what I do not like. I think you have stated it there. The farmer would not mind it so much if the consumer got the benefit of the low prices, but they do not.

Mr. WRIGHT. They don't get it and blame us for getting all the money. I am just existing out there.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to find some way to give the farmer a little more of the consumer dollar. If you can tell us how to do that we will write it into law.

Mr. WRIGHT. Another thing I would like to bring up, sir, the other week this old Negro wanted me to cut a little land for him; didn't have a tractor. I sent $3,000 worth of equipment there. I got $2.75 an hour. That was more than he was able to pay. That tractor was drinking a dollar's worth of gas an hour.

I have a neighbor who works on a Government job, cost plus, at $3.25 an hour and got about $25 worth of tools and he makes time and a half, which would give him around $5 or $6 an hour when he makes time and a half.

TheCHAIRMAN. A carpenter?

Mr. WRIGHT. He is a carpenter. He comes back when that job is finished and lays over there for 6 to 9 months and draws social security or something, and doesn't hit a lick at a snake, and I work 16 hours a day to try to make a living. There is something radically wrong when the country gets like that.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir.
Mr. Bennett, please.

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