You tell us to use horse traders. I think that if we will just turn loose and get rid of some of this, it can be done.

That is why I say to you that I think we ought to permit the Secretary of Agriculture to dispose of it where and when he wants to and at whatever price he thinks sensible. If he makes a mistake, you can always get another Cabinet officer. I recognize that and if my cotton experiment had worked wrong in Japan, I would have been retired to private life probably by a large and enthusiastic majority the first time I ran. You face that.

Now Senator Ellender has made a trip. He has been interested in the question of how we are using our money around the world. I just wish that all of the Members of the Senate could get the same interest in that that he has developed. Then maybe we could get the horse traders in quick order.

Mr. PORTER. We need them. I am glad that I brought that on. The CHAIRMAN. We had a Democratic administration when Senator Anderson was Secretary of Agriculture. It may be that had something to do with it.

Mr. PORTER. I had some other things to say, but they have been well covered.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. You are very kind. Thank you.

Mr. Usel?

Give your name in full, please, for the record.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY USEL, BASALT, COLO.

Mr. USEL. Mr. Chairman and members, I am Stanley Usel, from Basalt, western Colorado.

I own and operate 100 acres of irrigated potatoes, range cattle, and hay set up in partnership.

From our experience in the last 3 or 4 years I am convinced that we need a farm program designed to bring parity of income to the family-type farm or ranch and that all crops and livestock be included. under the program.

There should be an upper limit placed on the amount received in any crop year under this program by any one farmer or operator, so that absentee owners or vast acreages and large production potentials could not receive such large sums as happened under the potato program of a few years ago.

We should accept the controls necessary to implement such a program. These controls should be on pounds or bushels marketed, rather than on acreage.

I believe production payments, rather than Government buying, is probably preferred.

Any such programs should be administered by committees elected by farmers from their own ranks for best adaptation to local conditions.

I think it is important that we do everything possible to preserve the family-type system of agriculture in these United States.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Youngren?

Give us your full name and occupation.

STATEMENT OF ROY A. YOUNGREN, BEULAH, COLO.

Mr. YOUNGREN. Mr. Chairman and Senator Anderson, my name is Roy A. Youngren. I live on a farm 21 miles west of Pueblo, Colo., and operate a farm and run cattle and feed some cattle.

I have been thinking here today with all of these suggestions that have been going on that I have learned much. This last man who talked about getting rid of this food, that sounded to me like a wonderful plan.

It seems to me like just a year's supply of food for the United States, and that is not anything to be especially worried about.

I believe if we would get the actual figures of the amount that has been invested in food supplies in comparison with the rest of the expense that we have in the Government, that they would all feel a little bit better about it, that is, the people.

I think under the present prices of our produce, such as hogs and beef, that when we take 13 cents for hogs, I do not believe there is any part of that hog that should cost $1.65 in the store.

It seems to me there should be some investigation there. And the same applies to beef.

When OPA was on I sold some fat cattle and we got 32 cents for it, and at that time the highest-priced meat in the store was 86 cents. The next year our cattle went to 19 cents, and meat went to $1.20.

I believe if that was adjusted to a certain extent, there would be not too much surplus meat.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, could you give us an idea of how you would adjust that? Senator Anderson would agree with me, I am sure, that as chairman of this committee this year and also 2 years ago, we had a couple of people from our own committee to make studies of that. We made fine reports back to the Senate, and we showed at one time that the farmer was getting 53 percent, on the average, of the consumer's dollar. Today it is down to 42 percent.

Assuming that is true, how would you go about correcting that? Could you make any suggestions, I mean, without disturbing our present way of life? In other words, we have let everybody do almost what they pleased, expanding industry, and expanding everything. Certainly I would not want to disturb that, if possible.

Mr. YOUNGREN. It seems to me there is an awful lot of money made between the producer and the consumer.

The CHAIRMAN. Exactly. To my way of thinking, too much. The spread is too great.

Mr. YOUNGREN. Sure.

The CHAIRMAN. I have been wrestling with the problem myself, as to how to reduce that spread. That would not come before our committee, because we deal with agriculture, unless, of course, we would fix prices. You certainly would not want that. You would not want us to fix the price of beef or of butter or chickens or anything else, would you?

Mr. YOUNGREN. No, maybe not.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, you would not. If you cannot do it that way, how would you do it? It may be that if the housewives would get together and kind of work together, and have a little strike now and then, as labor does, we might be able to get somewhere. How about that?

Mr. YOUNGREN. Then we would pile up more surplus of beef. They would quit buying.

The CHAIRMAN. You would make the prices go down and more might be eaten.

Mr. YOUNGREN. Whenever they go down in the store, then they are going to go down to us again.

The CHAIRMAN. Wait That is not according to the arguments. They could not go much lower to the farmer.

Some people argue that the stores charge what they can get, and if housewives just refuse to buy then the distributor will lower his prices to his customers to get the trade back with lower prices. The farmer now gets only 42 cents of the consumer's dollar, and that is certainly low enough.

There is a matter that, in my judgment, needs a little going over, and many of us have been trying to look into it and trying to do something about it, without disturbing our present way of life.

Mr. YOUNGREN. The milk situation is a whole lot the same way. They have an investigation in Colorado right now into the fact that about 57 percent of the children are not getting enough milk.

The CHAIRMAN. I was just handed a little note by one of the staff, who is with the committee, that for the third quarter of 1955, the farmer got 40 cents out of the consuming dollar.

Mr. YOUNGREN. That is way above what I have on my books, that figure is.

The CHAIRMAN. This is the average.

In this connection, let me tell you this: I do not believe the farmer would be one-half as mad as he is now if the consumer could get the benefit of these low prices. Am I right in that?

Mr. YOUNGREN. You are absolutely right.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, I wish we could find some way to do it without disturbing or bypassing our present way of life. You could regiment things. You could do what they do in Russia, maybe just have fixed prices.

Mr. YOUNGREN. We are changing our way of life quite a bit when we control. I think our farms should be on a national business basis. That is the only way to do it.

The CHAIRMAN. These controls are usually imposed by the farmer through voting, do you not know?

Mr. YOUNGREN. 87 percent voted for the wheat program, did they

not?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir; that is right. That is what I say, it is done that way.

What I am trying to point out to you though, is that the farmers, through their own voting, asked for the program. That is the way I would like to see it continue.

I would like to get this marketing settled that way, and not by forced legislation which may amount to regimentation in price fixing and related matters.

Mr. YOUNGREN. I understand that. I believe that is all I have, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been in farming?

Mr. YOUNGREN. All of my life.

We have had this ranch since 1931 and have got a little bit of the rough edge taken off right then. That is why I appreciated what

happened after these laws were passed. I think the same thing should still be.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Harbour?

STATEMENT OF THURMAN HARBOUR, DEL NORTE, COLO.

Mr. HARBOUR. I am Thurman Harbour from San Luis Valley, Colo. I own 160 acres of farmland and grow potatoes.

I am in favor of the 90 percent support.

I do not think that flexible supports work at all.

Senator ANDERSON. How did the potato situation go under 90 percent?

Mr. HARBOUR. A whole lot better than it is now.

Senator ANDERSON. It did? That might have been fine from your standpoint.

How do you suppose I felt with carloads of potatoes all over the country which by law I could not sell, and which nobody wanted to buy, and during which the Maine potato people lost their markets, the Idaho potato people lost their markets? The Ohio and Pennsylvania people took their markets away from them.

An in an area in California, one man that Mr. Trigg and I know very well, went out and opened up a whole new tract and produced an average of 1,000 bushels of potatoes to the acre, on which he got his full support price. It created a national scandal, and almost destroyed the whole farm program.

Mr. HARBOUR. I know it did.

I would like to say that I am back of this program that Mr. Still presented here today.

Senator ANDERSON. He presented a program whereby a national system of marketing controls would be invoked, and you would be able to produce 90 percent or more in the market place, because you would have quality products. We had quite a different situation when we had 90 percent supports on potatoes. The quality products, namely, the big Idaho potatoes and the fine Maine potatoes went off the market, and we had to spray them with dye and burn them up in great piles, because potatoes from areas that never had been regarded as potato-producing areas, took over all of the market.

Mr. HARBOUR. I know that happened.

Senator ANDERSON. You do not like that either?
Mr. HARBOUR. That was unfortunate.

No; I did not like it. Senator ANDERSON. There is something in the suggestion made earlier today to try to work it out through some sort of a national agreement.

I think it's difficult, so long as you let the regions operate. You might be able to work it out.

Mr. HARBOUR. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Schraeder? Give us your name in full, please.

STATEMENT OF JAMES SCHRAEDER, DEL NORTE, COLO.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. I am Jim Schraeder, from San Luis Valley, Rio Grande County in Colorado.

I want to carry on this spread from the consumer to the producer a little further, since everything else has been pretty well covered. I believe that the public-utility system is protecting the consumer. Why would it not work to protect the consumer and the farmer as to the spread? That is a suggestion. I do not know whether it would work or whether it would not.

The CHAIRMAN. It may work, if you did not have so many producers. You would have to go to every commodity.

In the production of electricity and things of common use, it is not so difficult.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. I understand that.

The CHAIRMAN. You get that?

Mr. SCHRAEDER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. What would you do in California, where you have 100-and-some-odd-hundreds of canners? You have them all over the United States. If you had to regulate all of those, and issue regulations for that number, that would apply to them, you can see the problem.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. I understand that.

But certainly it would be a formula to work out from a base to the

consumer.

The CHAIRMAN. There may be something to what you say there, if we could establish a commission, but still it would be out of the category of what we know as a public utility.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. Yes; I understand that.

We do not want to straitjacket any agricultural industry.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I am saying. It might result in that. Mr. SCHRAEDER. That is right.

Senator ANDERSON. Are you familiar with the fact that in the New York milkshed, when the price of milk dropped a couple of years ago, they had a strike among the drivers, and they got greatly increased wages, and the price of milk went up to consumers and the price of milk to the producer went down-the price of wheat went down and the price of bread went up.

Is that the sort of thing you are interested in.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. That is right.

Senator ANDERSON. We are, too.

Mr. SCHRAEDER. I believe that is all I have to say at this time.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Culberson?

All right, Mr. Coffman; be ready, sir. You may remain where you

STATEMENT OF DAVID NAIBAUER, CORNISH, COLO.

Mr. NAIBAUER. My name is David Naibauer from Colorado, and I live in Weld County.

Senator Ellender and the committee, I have heard quite a bit of testimony today from the farmers and ranchers.