to me that this wheat that we are raising today is any different than it was 10 years ago.

If a farmer or miller can get a hundred loaves of bread out of a bushel of wheat, why do we want to raise a bushel of wheat where he can get 200 loaves of bread out of it?

That is one thing. Now on this 1,030 million bushel surplus, if we were organized we would know and I will bet a thousand dollars if you will appoint 5 or 10 farmers in every county in the United States start in tomorrow and check every bushel of wheat there won't be 1,030 million of wheat in storage, whether hog feed or not. There won't be that many bushels.

We are whipped because we are not organized. In the dairy, the farmer has to do it himself. No Senator or President will do it. They have to do it themselves. Come the 1956 election both sides will promise a lot of things. You farmers should know it. We have been promised. With all due respect to you, you are doing the best you can for someone who won't help themselves.

Now, then, 1956 election comes along. We are going to be promised something. We won't know who to vote for because they will all promise us so many things. It won't do us any good.

Senator THYE. Will you tell us what we might do in the dairy field? The CHAIRMAN. First tell us about wheat.

Mr. CALDWELL. I am going to tell you that is too long.

The CHAIRMAN. Give us your answer.

Mr. CALDWELL. That is too long. I sat here all day. I will write to you. I bet $10,000 I can put it out and it will work, 600 million bushels, and it is a conservative figure because I want to bet $10,000 on it.

As to the dairy situation, I will show you what is the matter. The biggest part is our own fault. How many farmers eat oleo? If we were organized and followed it through like, for instance, the Buick automobile people or Lipton Tea Co., or Revlon Lipstick, $64,000 question, we would follow it through. We are a manufacturer now. We have to follow it through and can't bring our wheat to town and find out what the elevator man will pay us. And you people can help us do that because you can't get 10 farmers to stick together.

You are doing all you can. There is no way in the world you can solve this situation or any other President or Senators.

On the dairy we go out here and not organized we sell our cream, we eat oleo, our own fault. If we was organized like other industries we would follow it through and buy ice cream. What do we get? Custard. If we were organized there would be so much cream in that pint of ice cream.

Senator THYE. What about your State law?

Mr. CALDWELL. What else? You want to know about your eggs? The CHAIRMAN. With all due respect, you haven't said anything. You first wanted to bet $10,000.

Mr. CALDWELL. I will submit it to you.
Senator THYE. Submit it for the record.
Mr. CALDWELL. I will submit it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

(The statement filed by Mr. Caldwell is as follows:)

As my plan will take care of the overproduction of beef, pork, chickens, eggs, dairy products, grain and above all wheat, I made the statement at Hutchinson hearing I could dispose of 600 million bushels more wheat the next 12 months than

was disposed of the last 12 months.

dumped in the ocean.

When I say disposed of, I don't mean

This plan or program will bring the farmer as good an income as he has ever had, even in good times, this will mean a big buying power for the farmer, that means jobs for the laborer. This added up is a large buying power for both labor and farmer equals prosperity in the United States.

All this I know will sound crazy as hell to you, but stop and think, we are in one hell of a crazy mess now in this farming problem, due to the fact you are dealing with the farmer, a group of people who are doing what dad did 100 years ago, this in 1955, they raise their products bring them to market take what they get for it, and set on their rump and howl waiting for the President to pull a rabbit out of his hat and give them prosperity, it is terribly hard to help some one who won't help themselves, therefore the Government will have to do it for them, but in my program they will pay for it, the same as labor pays his dues to the union for making his working conditions better, and the farmer will be happy to do so, with his income as it will be.

Now then as my program consists of all I have mentioned and more toomarketing, advertising, also the farmer and labor will be working together in harmony, which they should be, as you know now they are pretty much at one another's throat due to misunderstanding the other's situation. It is impossible for me to get down in writing and get it across to you my program, I can talk and explain it to you, let you ask questions, attack it from any angle you like, and I can prove to you it will work. If you and I live long enough to see this problem whipped, if and when it is ever done, by Republicians or Democrats, you will see it done along the line of my plan, I can have it in full swing in 30 days, at the end of 1 year the farmer wouldn't want it any other way. If you are interested in what I have to say would be glad to meet with you or any one else, any place any time.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Arthur Hook.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR HOOK, POMONA, KANS.

Mr. Hook. My name is Arthur Hook. I live at Pomona, Kans., in Franklin County, or I did until a week or two ago. I had a sale October 3 and disposed of my personal property. I had lived on the farm 20 years. I bought it through the tenant-purchase program and the reason I decided to sell out was a statement that our Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Benson, made about 2 years ago in his address. He stated in his address that one-third of the little farmers has to go. He didn't say they ought to go, he said they had to go. Get off the farms and go to the factories.

Now in my estimation that was a greater threat made by a public official of that high standing, a greater threat to our democracy and our way of life than an attack on Pearl Harbor, and he didn't even draw headlines in the newspapers.

I heard one newspaper commentator take him up on it. Maybe there were more. I heard one. He repeated what Mr. Benson said and he made this remark: He said in Russia do you know what they call that? They call that collective farming, but in the United States this administration is calling that a great crusade.

Now in all due respect to you gentlemen, I believe Mr. Thye asked a question a while ago, I forget who was testifying. It was in regard to when that vast acreage in Colorado was broken out. You wondered why that was broken out at that time. I can answer that question. It was because of your present program. Now, here is a farm program that I have written to several editors and they have all printed it. This particular one I wrote to the Weekly Star Farmer. I started out with a few facts of our present farm program.

The CHAIRMAN. Give us a solution, please, and let the story go.

Mr. HOOK. Representative Clifford Hope of Kansas was an instrumental figure in drawing up our present farm program and the Republican 80th Congress put it into law. It has worked against the conservation of our previous soil fertility and is aiding and encouraging the large grain operator and soil robber at the expense of the small diversified farmer and private enterprise.

It has enacted into law dictatorial controls upon millions of bona fide farmers who weren't even allowed to vote to defend themeselves and a lot of those farmers

Senator THYE. What publication are you reading from?

Mr. Hook. I am reading from my own.

Senator THYE. You mean that is your statement?

Mr. Hook. That is my statement.

Senator THYE. You could never be any more wrong in what you have just said. I want to make that statement. I was in Congress when the basic act was written and I was in Congress when all amendments thereto were written and what you say about Clifford Hope is absolutely wrong and you must know that if you know anything.

Mr. Hook. I don't think so. Anyhow to go on down to what I think, that is a political angle. I most certainly in my heart thought that statement was true. I swear to God on a stack of Bibles a mile high.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. With Mr. Hope's long record in the House of Representatives—you are, I am going to say very candidly with my friend Senator Thye, you are absolutely wrong. Some one has misled you.

Mr. Hook. I am sorry if I am wrong.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. I know you don't want to do an injustice to a man of Clifford Hope's standing who has worked for these farmers many years.

Mr. Hook. Who is responsible for our present farm program? Who did draw it up?

Senator THYE. It was the composite thinking of a great number of people. When the flexible provisions were written into the Act it was during the postwar era when we had an embargo on the exportation of any fats and oils. The fact that we had the embargo was to prevent exportation to foreign countries, jeopardizing our own domestic supply and causing inflation in this Nation. In the effort to provide for a diversion from the production of a commodity in surplus to other commodities in short supply such as flaxseed for linseed oil and soybeans for oil, we wrote flexible provisions into the 1948 act. The act was amended in 1949 to provide further incentives for a diversion to a commodity in short supply. Clifford Hope in the House and Senator Young, Senator Ellender, and I, and others from the House and the Senate sat in conference into the wee hours of the morning to try to resolve this particular question. I will say to you, and I want the record to show it, that the State of Kansas and the Nation has never had a better friend of the farmer, one who has worked harder and more intelligently for the farmer, than Clifford Hope. He has been the author of more constructive legislation in his service in the House of Representatives than any man whom I could name right here at this moment.

It is not to the service of agriculture to have you read such a statement as you did into the record, sir. I must be frank. The reason

we are here today is to try to find truth and facts that might be constructive in building a farm program. We are here for constructive suggestions on the farm problem, not for criticism and condemnation of any individual.

The CHAIRMAN. Now will you confine yourself, please, to the point. Mr. Hook. I would like to find out my mistake. Here is what I believe we should have for a farm program:

I believe we should have a farm program that will encourage the maintaining and increasing of our soil fertility and one which will restore to the farmer his freedom from dictatorial controls and channel our farm business back to free enterprise. I believe this could be brought about by a program whereby each farm would be allotted a production schedule based upon proper land use for that farm, the proper land use to be worked out through the cooperation of the farmer and his soil conservation district.

Each farmer who wished to join the program would be guaranteed 100 percent of parity on the percentage of the products he produced that it takes to meet the Nation's needs each year. If the market value at the time of sale was below the parity figure the Government would make up the difference through a subsidy payment providing the farmer had fulfilled his share of the agreement to the best of his ability and to the satisfaction of the soil conservation service.

No farmer should be eligible to more than $5,000 in subsidy payments. That is what I believe we should have for a farm program. Here is my explanation

The CHAIRMAN. Will you file that for the record please? It is now a quarter of 7 and we have to leave. It will be filed and be in the record as though you read it.

(Mr. Hook's prepared statement follows :)

I believe the three most important words in the world are proper land use. Without proper land use we cannot maintain civilization at a decent standard of living for any great length of time. This has been quite thoroughly demonstrated in China.

Proper land use should be the first step in flood control because without proper land use on the watersheds above the dams the reservoirs will soon fill with sediment and all would be lost.

Through our utter disregard to proper land use, which has been encouraged and supported by our present farm program, we have built up burdensome surpluses of many farm products much of which have already been destroyed through deterioration and poor management and no one knows how much more will be destroyed.

All of these surplus products (which at the present time we do not need and are creating a great problem and burden upon our economy) represent precious soil fertility and in the not too far distant future we will need these products but will not have the soil fertility with which to produce them.

We have enacted laws to protect society from wanton vandalism but we have never so much as lifted a finger to protect our soil fertility against the wanton soil robbers who are the greatest threat to the future well-being of society there is.

This farm program would automatically eliminate the soil robbers and place agriculture in the hands of the farmers who are willing to take care of our soil fertility.

Our present farm program protects a few farm products, most of them soildepleting crops, through Government buying and storing at a much higher figure than the price would be if those products would have gone into their normal trade channels. Thus the consuming public and the feeder of the products is penalized due to the fact that these products will cost them much more than they would have had it not been for this practice. Thus since this practice is costing the Government great financial losses it costs all of us again.

Under the farm program which I am promoting the Government would support all farm products as I feel it is a great injustice to agriculture as a whole to support only part of its products especially products which the feeder has to buy and feed back to nonsupported livestock; that is pitting one segment of agriculture against another and that is quite basically and economically unsound.

Under this program the products would be supported through subsidies as I believe this is the only type of support which is fair to both the producer and consumer and further it is the way that every other type of industry has been aided in the past.

It benefits the consumer due to the fact these products seek their own market level in their normal trade channels. And I feel that subsidy payments made by the Government direct to the producer is to be much preferred over the document system as proposed by Cliff Hope in his proposed new farm program for 1956. His plan calls for the issuance of documents by the Government to represent that part of the supported product to which the farmer is entitled the farmer to present these documents to the miller and receive cash for them from the miller at time of sale of his products. This type of support would simply be passed right back to the producer or farmer through the further reduction in the price of his products than otherwise would have been had it not been for the documents.

I think it is very important that a farm program should have a limit as to how much any one farmer can receive in the form of any kind of aid from the Government, as the large operator can pyramid his holdings simply through the aid he receives from the Government-as many of them have already done through the aid of our past farm programs.

Once this program was put into operation I think it would grow and get better of its own volition. Our burdensome surpluses would disappear because we would be growing and storing more soil fertility for our future needs. And as those surpluses disappeared our products would automatically bring a fair price, thereby eliminating any great financial burden upon the Government to carry out this program.

Since the producer and consumer and all of us are the Government, we all benefit alike under this program because when the Government has to pay the producer subsidies the consumer likewise benefits through the cheaper prices he will have to pay for these products. Also the Dust Bowl would automatically disappear under this program.

STATEMENT OF MRS. HOMER ROBERTS, WICHITA, KANS.

Mrs. ROBERTS. I am Mrs. Homer Roberts. I represent one of the farmers that went broke and had to go to the city and get a job.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any solution that will get him back on the farm?

Mrs. ROBERTS. I think I have. This is the thing that inspired me to do something about this. I read in the Farm Journal last year that California's 5 largest loans for cotton averaged $649,335 to individuals and in Mississippi the 5 largest loans averaged $479,535. The 5 largest loans in Montana, the 5 largest wheat loans, were $176,714. The five largest wheat loans in Washington State averaged $219,968. These are just the reasons I am concerned about this. The average over the three States is over $2,000.

Suppose the Government should issue a marketing card to each and every farmer and say "We will guarantee 100 percent of parity up to the amount of the average income over the country, or the average farm income." A recent survey at Manhattan showed that the average family should have around $6,000 to break even, so that could be a fair figure to start with.

The farmer could raise and sell whatever is best suited to his farm and be assured a fair price up until he reached what we might call a speculative status. Profits above the normal need for decent living standard. That could be a fair figure. Is this too tedious?