Mr. MORSE. I believe, Senator, we have also been for the objectives all the time, sir. These other bills in the House that came in January, I believe they had similar objectives. In the dozen or more soil-bank plans, I believe they have all been directed toward these broad objecjectives. In our study we have tried to get the best ideas out of all of the proposals, and I can assure that your bill and the others were carefully considered.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you very much.

Secretary BENSON. May I say, Senator, the first time I ever heard about the soil bank was from a farmer in Illinois. I don't know what the genesis of it is, we are not particularly concerned about who should get the credit. We have drawn from a lot of sources in getting this program.

Senator HUMPHREY. I am just worried about its delayed birth, not its genesis.

Secretary BENSON. It is very timely at the present time.

Senator HUMPHREY. This program will be operated by the county committees and the State committees; is that correct?

Secretary BENSON. I assume they will play an important part. Senator HUMPHREY. I have here a photostatic copy of a press release from Missouri. I have been to Missouri, Mr. Secretary, and I am going to talk to you and visit with you about Missouri.

MURRAY COLBERT TO SPEAK HERE IN "SALUTE TO IKE"

Murray Colbert, head of the Missouri Agriculture Stabilization Committee, will be the main speaker at the January 20 "Salute to Ike" Republican fundraising banquet here, Henderson Tonnies and Leigh Wilson announced today.

The $10-per-plate campaign fund drive is being sponsored by the Nodaway Young Republicans Club of which Tonnies is presently chairman. Wilson is chairman of the Nodaway County Republican Central Committee. Reservations will be limited to 200 and may be made with either Tonnies or Wilson. *** Colbert and his State ASC committee were under fire here December 3 when Senator Stuart Symington spoke here at a district Democratic meeting. The "Salute to Ike" dinners will be held throughout the Nation January 20

I am somewhat of an old hand at being accused of playing politics in the ASC program, just because I once addressed a meeting of PMA committeemen, elected officials, after the meeting had been adjourned, and the men were prepared to go on their way.

Mr. Colbert is the State chairman of the ASC committee. Mr. Colbert continues to participate in formal political gatherings and informal political gatherings.

Do you have any rules or regulations which regulate your State chairmen of ASC committees with respect to being speakers at fundraising dinners for Democratic and Republican rallies? I put the Democratic in there to keep it bipartisan. I haven't heard of any such lately.

Secretary BENSON. I would be happy to put the record of our State committees of the last 3 years up against any previous 3 years, and let the people judge; however, I will ask Mr. Farrington if we have any regulations that specifically cover this. I assume we do. I don't know. The CHAIRMAN. Will you give your name in full?

STATEMENT OF R. L. FARRINGTON, GENERAL COUNSEL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. FARRINGTON. R. L. Farrington, General Counsel, Department of Agriculture.

I am sure, Senator Humphrey, that we do have regulations which relate to political activity on the part of the members of the State and county committees.

We will be happy to supply them for the record. Perhaps you already have them.

Senator HUMPHREY. I have them. Would you mind telling us what those regulations say? You know them.

Mr. FARRINGTON. The regulations generally, as I recall them, preclude one from engaging in political activity, particularly when they are on duty, on Government time. They generally also require them to avoid political activity in specific ways.

Senator HUMPHREY. I bring this point up

Secretary BENSON. We will be glad, Senator, to confer with you on this and with any of our State committees not complying with our regulations; we will take whatever steps are necessary.

Senator HUMPHREY. I respectfully commend to you the testimony gathered at a hearing where I think a good deal of this is going on. Furthermore, this man has just been reappointed. I have a series of press releases, dispatches, which I shall submit to your office. He has been engaged in outright political activity.

Are we to place the money for Missouri in his hands to pay for the soil-conservation program? Is that the program we will have, where a man speaks at a fund-raising dinner in January and then come May he gets a big bundle of money with which to pay these conservation payments?

Secretary BENSON. Our committees are made up of men of high caliber. We have never had stronger State committees than we have now. Most of them, you will find, are bitpartisan, and we have had fine cooperation from them.

If there is someone who has gone beyond the regulations, we don't condemn the whole program because of a mistake that has been made. We will be glad to look at the record as you have it, and we will be glad to look into this case.

Senator HUMPHREY. I have tried for 4 solid months to get you and your Department to look at this record and cooperate in this matter. I asked for a member of your Department to attend the hearings. I asked for you to review the record. I have asked for you to look over the testimony. I have had no cooperation, most frankly. Secretary BENSON. This has been a difficult spot down there, as you know. We found it very difficult when we came into office. It had been one of the very difficult political spots prior to that time. I assure you we will be glad to sit down with you on it.

The CHAIRMAN. Since you have agreed to do that, I wonder if we can proceed with other matters.

Senator HUMPHREY. Yes. I want to ask one other question. The Secretary indicated to Senator Anderson his concurrence, I believe, that his controls would be based on poundage, bales and bushels: am I correct on that?

Secretary BENSON. No, you are not correct. I indicated that the President suggested considerations be given to control on cotton on a bale basis.

Senator HUMPHREY. How do you stand on that?

Secretary BENSON. I support the President in his suggestion. I think it ought to be looked into very carefully. I think we have a better opportunity in the case of cotton probably to get real control through volume instead of acreage, than possibly on any other commodity, certainly on any of the four we have mentioned, because cotton moves through the cotton gin, to start with, and it gives us a rather definite control.

We didn't get control through acreage allotments on cotton last year. In fact, acreage control has not been effective overall, as you know. So we think this ought to be looked at very carefully by the committee.

Senator HUMPHREY. But you support the President's suggestion that it be looked into?

Secretary BENSON. That is correct.

Senator HUMPHREY. In your support of the corn program which has been outlined, you support looking into these alternatives, or do you have specifics?

Secretary BENSON. In most all of the message you will find the specific

Senator HUMPHREY. Except on commodities.

Secretary BENSON. There are some very specific recommendations on commodities, also. In the case of corn, we recommend that the soil bank be made to apply to corn if it is practicable and can be done. If not, we suggest an alternative as a possibility.

Senator HUMPHREY. Namely the discretionary price-support structure.

Secretary BENSON. That is right. To which all corn farmers would receive benefit and all would participate.

Senator HUMPHREY. That is from zero to 90 percent under the discretionary?

Secretary BENSON. Yes, I think there is an upper liimt, except in certain cases.

Senator HUMPHREY. Zero to 90 percent?

Secretary BENSON. That is correct.

Senator HUMPHREY. With no acreage control?

Secretary BENSON. At the present time the price is about 60 percent of parity, although we have support of 87, and only 30 percent of the farmers are participating and benefiting.

Senator HUMPHREY. Mr. Secretary, you mentioned there were extra funds for pork purchases and possibly for beef purchases. Just for the purposes of this record, would you identify the source of those funds, under what law?

Secretary BENSON. The bulk of it is from section 32 funds, and you are acquainted with that.

Senator HUMPHREY. That is right.

Secretary BENSON. That is 30 percent of the customs receipts, which are allocated to agriculture.

Senator HUMPHREY. And the $85 million?

Secretary BENSON. ICA also has some funds which probably could be used for that purpose.

Senator HUMPHREY. The money you are paying for the pork purchases, where was that obtained from, from what fund?

Secretary BENSON. I think practically all of it came from section 32. Senator HUMPHREY. And there is still more funds in section 32 by far than that.

Secretary BENSON. That is correct. And we plan to step up our program in the days immediately ahead.

Senator HUMPHREY. Do I understand that you will probably go beyond the $85 million worth of pork purchases?

Secretary BENSON. Entirely possible. Now we have developed some additional outlets we didn't have when we initiated the program, and there is some possibility of export also which gives us a broader outlet.

Senator HUMPHREY. Were you correctly reported in the press that you adopted this pork purchase program reluctantly and you didn't think it would do much good?

Secretary BENSON. I was not quoted correctly.

Senator HUMPHREY. I would like to get your clarification on that. Secretary BENSON. I was willing to go into it. I didn't feel it would do what some people claimed it would do, and I didn't want to overpromise. I feel it has been helpful and will be helpful, even more so in the days ahead.

Senator HUMPHREY. You are think of a beef-purchase program? Secretary BENSON. We are watching the beef-cattle situation very closely.

Senator HUMPHREY. You feel it would be well to step in before the market drops too low?

Secretary BENSON. We would want to step in at a time when we thought it was most appropriate, most opportune.

Secretary HUMPHREY. Aren't beef prices lower now than the last time you stepped in?

Secretary BENSON. I would have to check that. I believe not overall. The fat-cattle prices have been particularly soft, and in that field the Army has been cooperating with us in some very substantial purchases and that has tended to strengthen that phase of the beef-cattle market, as you probably know.

Senator HUMPHREY. My report indicated yesterday that the overall beef prices were lower now than they were in 1953 and therefore that your purchase program might very well be designed for some rather effective action soon and we were hoping that that might be given consideration.

Secretary BENSON. It is entirely possible. We can. Of course, you have a factor now that you didn't have in 1953, and that is this very excessive pork supply which competes directly with beef, of course, which we didn't have in 1953.

Senator HUMPHREY. Are you contemplating a food-stamp plan, Mr. Secretary, for the indigent and needy people for the disposal of our perishable surpluses, like you are using certificates for the disposal of our cereal grains?

Secretary BENSON. No, we have not recently considered the stamp plan.

Senator HUMPHREY. Would you be in general support of such a program, as a food-stamp plan for our people on old-age assistance, our indigent and needy people, to supplement their budgets?

Secretary BENSON. The program we are operating now, which reaches indigent people and needy people through church groups, et cetera, is quite effective and generally serves our needs very well. Senator HUMPHREY. Are you supplying dairy products to old-ageassistance cases?

Secretary BENSON. I would have to check as to the quantities, but we are distributing sizable quantities of dairy products and many other items including the most recent items which we added, processed wheat and corn. We are making sizable distributions to institutions.

Senator HUMPHREY. Yes, I know, to institutions.
Secretary BENSON. Relief organizations.

Senator HUMPHREY. These people are not all on relief. We have not had a good meeting of the minds on that, and this is the one chance we may have. I recognize what has been done in the good use of these products by institutions and charitable organizations. For all of this we are grateful. But there are still hundreds of thousands of people who are living on an income in this country of under $50 a month. These are old-age-assistance cases, most of whom are not relief clients helped out by charitable institutions. What I am getting at is, since you have now been able, at least, to come forward with the program on how you would use the corn and the wheat from the surplus bins for farmers that do not produce-you have broken through the barrier now, that principal barrier, of paying for nonproduction-maybe now we can break through this barrier of getting surplus perishable goods into the hands of people who are in dire need of it as human beings right here in the United States of America.

Secretary BENSON. This payment for nonproduction, Senator, has been brought on because of the buildup of supplies under the wartime incentives, and the high rigid supports, as you know.

Senator HUMPHREY. I don't agree with that.

Secretary BENSON. It is an accumulation of years. This is an emergency situation we face. We are using emergency measures, short time, we expect, temporary, to meet it. I would like to ask Mr. Wells the extent to which we are making a distribution of commodities to needy people, and others.

Senator HUMPHREY. As related to need.

Secretary BENSON. As related to need, that is correct.
Senator HUMPHREY. And supply.

Mr. WELLS. We will be glad to supply you with a detailed report on what you want. We distribute surplus foods in the United States on a donation basis to schools, institutions, and to needy people. The distribution to needy people is through agreements with State departments of welfare or similar departments as designated by the governor.

Each State selects and sets its own standards and we will distribute to anyone who is on public assistance in the State, with the right kind of operation, and to other people not on public assistance, whose income is within the public-assistance range.

I cannot say whether we distribute to every old-age case in the United States, but we are distributing to 22 to 3 million people, depending on whether you calculate the number elegible or the number who apply for the commodity.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you, Mr. Wells.

64440-56-pt. 8- -5