As far as I have listened in on the testimony I have not heard of any of them admit that they were sharecroppers.

I do not own a farm. I have lived on a farm most of my life; that has been my livelihood.

So I do lease about 3,000 acres of land; about 1,400 acres of it is under cultivation, the balance is grass, so my operation is wheat, small grains, and cattle.

So I am interested in a long-term loan to young farmers to obtain farms of their own at a low interest rate, and the amount of money that is now available in our area and in other areas is not adequate to buy a farm that would substantiate enough income for a family. So I would like to see that revised in some way so that it would be geared to the different localities in the different areas all over the United States.

I would also like to see parity of income to the family farm unit regardless of what agricultural product they produce. Whenever they produce over and above what was termed a family-sized unit, they would put the produce on the market, let it reach its own level.

In that way it would benefit the labor, and I am sure that labor would be willing to take a small tax payment out of his pocket to see to it that farmers, family farmers, would have an income in proportion to other segments of the economy.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you describe for the committee, for the record, what you mean by a small family-type unit?

Mr. NAIBAUER. A family-type unit is an income that would give that family the standard of living the same as any other segment of the economy, as far as education, the necessities of life, and whatever goes with carrying on an operation.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, now, what size acreage would be required in your locality?

Mr. NAIBAUER. There would be no limit put on the size of the farm because the area that I live in, in Weld County, we have dry land, we have irrigated, and it is hard to determine how large the acreage could be because you might be raising vegetables, you might be raising cattle, or you might be raising sugar beets, beans, potatoes, or what have you.

The CHAIRMAN. How much would you fix as the amount necessary to do what you say ought to be done for a family farm?

Mr. NAIBAUER. The amount would vary, based on the cost of production, plus the cost that the farmer has for the things that he has to buy to produce whatever crop he produces, primarily in relation to the contract that labor has with industry at the present time in a lot of areas, based on the cost of living. Their wages are usually geared and based on the cost of living; isn't that true?

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I doubt that in many cases, because today the average laboring man can purchase a great deal more food with much less percentagewise of his present salary.

Mr. NAIBAUER. The cost of living is not food, as we all know.

The CHAIRMAN. I know that. It means automobiles; it means television sets.

Mr. NAIBAUER. Rents and clothing and education and all of that. The CHAIRMAN. Would you decide who should get television sets and who should get a Chrysler instead of a Ford, or another kind

of car? That is something that may be pretty difficult for us to determine.

In my own State a small operator is a farmer who may have 50 acres, and under present conditions he could not produce enough on those 50 acres to give him the kind of livelihood that you are now describing.

Mr. NAIBAUER. You mean that you do not think that he could? In other words, he does outside work to make

The CHAIRMAN. No.

Mr. NAIBAUER (continuing). To make a living?

The CHAIRMAN. No. I mean to say that he does not do anything else, and even with the support programs that we have had, he has not been able to make enough.

Mr. NAIBAUER. That is the reason, the support program we have had has not been right.

The CHAIRMAN. Even if you made it a hundred percent, he would not have had it.

Mr. NAIBAUER. I am not talking about a hundred percent; I am talking about parity of income.

The CHAIRMAN. That has been written in a long time.

Mr. NAIBAUER. It is very flexible; it can go up or down.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that has been a good slogan more than something we could put in the law. It has been in the first program we wrote; Senator Anderson, am I not right on that?

Senator ANDERSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If you find that program for us, if you can give it to us, why, we will try to make it fit. We have been looking for a program to attain that goal you have set for many years, but now, it has been pretty difficult.

up to

Mr. NAIBAUER. Well, it can be attained because I do not know of any group or any manufacturer or any businessman who is willing to take 90 percent of parity or even less than that, because whenever you say you are going to take a percent of parity, that only means that if he is going to take 10 percent less, he will take 20, and then 30, and the first thing you know, he is not there.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. NAIBAUER. So you have got to have parity of income.

The CHAIRMAN. You know that is what all the workers are looking for, too, and I can point out thousands of them who do not get what the automobile mechanic is getting now or the fellow who works for Ford or for Chrysler or for General Motors.

Mr. NAIBAUER. Well, they have different contracts.

The CHAIRMAN. They would like this parity of income, too, if it were possible to obtain it.

Mr. NAIBAUER. And you have different trained people who train in different fields of labor, education, and what have you. So naturally there is a difference there again. But if he has got the incentive to produce what they would term a family-size income as far as the size of his family, the amount of education and the cost of the products that he has to have, to produce his produce, why, that is parity of income.

Then I would also

64440-56-pt. 4-17

The CHAIRMAN. If we could get that I would be for it, but now you write me out a prescription for it, and try to work it out.

Mr. NAIBAUER. And I am sure that labor would go along with us. If we could get parity of income to the family-sized operator, and anything that was produced over and above that would go on the market, and then the consumer would get the benefit of the lower price. There you would not be discriminating against anybody, because every family, if they had the incentive to go out and produce enough to make a family-sized income or parity of income to a family unit, would do so.

Then, going back to the loans, I would like to see our Government continue the disaster emergency loans, where they are needed, and when they are needed, and at the present rate of interest.

I would also like to see them restore the farmers-elected committee system so that the local farmers could serve and take care of the busiwould also like to see the Senate pass the same bill that the House ness of their own, and to get a good start in the right direction, I would also like to see the Senate pass the same bill that the House passed in the last session of Congress. I think that would be a good start in the right direction, and we could improve that program as we go along, because we have the technicians in the Department of Agriculture who have compiled the information as far as the costs of every product that is produced in the United States, and all of those, that information, can be compiled and worked out by the technicians in the Department of Agriculture, and it can be solved.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. NAIBAUER. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. Coffman, will you come up.

Will you give your name in full and occupation.

STATEMENT OF MORTON E. COFFMAN, DOVE CREEK, COLO.

Mr. COFFMAN. Morton E. Coffman from Dove Creek, Colo., Dolores County.

I represent there a two-crop area alone because of the seasonable aptitude of our crops there.

The small grains and the pinto beans are the major crops there only, and you try to raise something else and you are hitting up against something there.

I know you said it discouraged that type of system, but nevertheless that is the type of situation in our locality, and you cannot get away from it.

It has been told here, and I will not try to repeat it, the system which I feel is workable, and I could elaborate on it because of some experience which I have had along that line, and that is the family-type farm, which you just got through discussing.

I feel that it is a workable program, and can be worked out.

But, first, too, I do make this a sound program, and to work it out in the future, which it is not going to take the time, because we have not worked this program out in the last 15 years and, therefore, we are not going to work this out today; therefore, to go ahead with the act which is before the House now, and go ahead with that as a basis of working out this one now.

We have not tried to work anything out now, either a flexible or 90 percent of parity. Maybe we have, but have we tried something sound and basic from the standpoint of the experienced man? Now, then

Senator ANDERSON. Could we stop and ask you what particular House bill you are referring to?

Mr. COFFMAN. Ninety percent of parity.

Senator ANDERSON. That is the bill that has passed the House and is over in the Senate now?

Mr. COFFMAN. That is right.

Senator ANDERSON. House bill 12.

Well, that ran into a little opposition.
Mr. COFFMAN. It always has.

Senator ANDERSON. Oh, no, many times they have passed 90 percent of parity round after round after round.

Mr. COFFMAN. Well, it ran into opposition.

Senator ANDERSON. Are you familiar with the fact that farm income has followed national income steadily throughout the years until 1948, and that in 1948 it started down, and national income went on up? Mr. COFFMAN. Not as much as you have, Mr. Anderson.

Senator ANDERSON. Farm income in 1947, net income, was about $16,800,000,000, and national income was about $199 billion. I say $16,900,000,000-and national income was about $199 billion.

Now, they have always moved together, not in dollars, but in ratios, 12 to 15 times as much national income as farm income.

Now, when you got to 1948 and a little bit thereafter, as surpluses began to accumulate, farm income started to fall and has dropped from 16% billion then to the present rate of 10,300 million, while national income has gone on up to 320 billion.

Don't you think it is strange that all of a sudden farm income should start downward leading away from the national income that it always followed? Don't you think that maybe the surpluses had something to do with it?

Mr. COFFMAN. Very definitely.

Senator ANDERSON. And weren't they all accumulated during 90 percent years?

Mr. COFFMAN. You keep repeating that accumulated during 90 percent years.

Senator ANDERSON. Because that is when they were accumulated. Mr. COFFMAN. Surely. But here is the thing I think of here, Senator. That the program starts at a certain point. When we reach a certain amount, well, maybe that amount is low enough in the beginning; therefore, it started at a period where we will not receive that surplus in the beginning, even if it it is 90 percent. What I am getting at now, why I am for that bill right now, Senator, is this: I do not say it is a workable plan, don't get me that way. I am not for it as far as that is concerned. But we have got to have a basis to start from.

How do you start out a business? You have got to have a basis to start it on, do you not?

All right, let us start it on this basis. We had it before, we know that, and it did not work. We tried something else. This other did relieve us back in 1934, this other has not.

Senator ANDERSON. But remember that the old support program was a flexible price support program from 52 to 75 percent of parity. Did you realize that?

Mr. COFFMAN. Yes, but it had something else to add to it.

Senator ANDERSON. For instance?

Mr. COFFMAN. Subsidies.

Senator ANDERSON. Subsidies?

Mr. COFFMAN. In the form of soil conservation and such as parity, and such as those payments back there.

I was sat on the issuing of checks one time on that where one farmer received better than $11,000 parity payment, and $13,000 in the same day from the subsidies. I sat right there and issued them to him.

Senator ANDERSON. I do not know what the parity payment was. I know what the soil conservation could have been.

Mr. COFFMAN. There were two of them back in 1934.

Senator ANDERSON. I thought that was a pretty good program, and I still do. I would like to see more of it.

Mr. COFFMAN. I do, too.

As I told several fellows-I have had several fellows come up to me and say, well, go to arguing this point-I say, take the old AAA program and just pin it right down to the very fact-what did it represent? What was its standard? I said, wasn't it the thing that it was pointing toward, wasn't it sound, and they said, "Yes," and I said so myself, but it was abused. It was taken advantage of in every way that it could possibly be.

I will get all I can while the getting is good.

Senator ANDERSON. And it ran into trouble, and if you try it again, even though you put it on another basis, it will probably run into trouble again.

Mr. COFFMAN. Surely.

As I say, this helps relieve the farmer though now with something. If we do not, we are going to go back into this depression time, and I am afraid of that time, and that is the only thing I can see is a sound basis to relieve it at the present time.

I do not say it is a sound workable program in the future, but maybe we are not a working-here is the thing

Senator ANDERSON. Do you know that in Senator Ellender's State they have been producing rice?

Mr. COFFMAN. Yes.

Senator ANDERSON. They produced-now, I may be way off in my figures, and he will probably correct me but they produced something like 17 million hundredweight up to maybe around 1925; and then in the early years of the war, we had to have lots of food, and it got up to about 25 million hundredweight and maybe 30 million hundredweight, and then after the war was over it built up to 58 million hundredweight, because 90 percent is a stimulus. It is an incentive. Mr. COFFMAN. Certainly.

Senator ANDERSON. We adopted the Steagall legislation as an incentive to greater production.

Do you think the rice producers of Louisiana are better off with these 58 million hundredweight of rice, with 20 million they could not sell last year, and maybe 30 million they could not sell this year, than before they got this stimulus to production?