bringing these hearings near enough so that it is possible for an individual farmer to present his views surely will be appreciated by the many farmers who have felt they have but little voice in influencing farm policies.

Since I am a small farm operator, under the present state of affairs my views are those of a small farmer, and I am particularly concerned with our formulating a solution to the small-farm problem. The recent study by the Northern Trust Co. of Chicago shows that "per capita farm income was 315 percent higher in 1954 than in the 1935-1939 average and far exceeded the 209 percent rise per capita income of the nonfarm population over the same period." This indicates that poor distribution of farm income is the number one problem. While several factors contribute to this poor distribution of farm income, I believe that our present farm program of acreage allotments is the most important factor in making big farming operations grow at the expense of small operators. My own small community has shown how this works. For example, large operators bid up the price on poor land beyond its real earning power in order to secure the allotment of support-crop acreage.

This allotment when transferred to good layout land permits the large operator to have all of his good land in supported crops and at the same time defeat the purpose of allotments since there is no reduction in total yield despite the cut in acreage. Since there has been no reduction in the stored stock of that commodity further reductions will be made in acreage allotted and other small operators are nearer bankruptcy. Under the present system, this vicious circle can be repeated year after year until all of the allotted acreage is in a few hands and agricultural communities dry up throughout the land. The present agricultural policities also encourage business and professional people to buy up farmland, and if news stories are to be trusted, even city racketeers have invested part of their loot in farmlands. Through buying farmlands they are insured a minimum return on their investment while hiring their land worked, allowing layout land lie fallow until they need a place to put outside income to avoid income tax laws. In some instances actual financial gain may be less of a factor than a desire to show prowess at our increasingly popular game of defeating exhorbitant income taxes. At any rate, our price support system has encouraged the financially strong to gobble up larger and larger amounts of the funds voted to support the price of farm products and drive out of farming the ones most in need of a farm subsidy.

I believe that the perfectly natural tendency of the financially strong to gobble up more and more of the Government subsidy to agriculture makes the present price-support system immoral, impractical and uneconomic.

Surely there can be no moral justification for taxing people whose income has risen little in the past 20 years in the interest of financing a subsidy to people whose income has risen more than 315 percent in the same period. It is impractical politically to expect the nonfarm population to support such a waste of Government money. We saw how metropolitan papers would use such a program when they singled out the few wealthy cattle owners to prove that the price of beef was too high. No doubt the Northern Trust Co. survey will gain much publicity in the nonfarm areas in trying to defeat any type of a farm subsidy. Surely there is no economic justification to be found for the Government to knowingly aid in making the strong stronger at the expense of the weak.

As to the level at which farm commodity prices should be supported, I do not profess to know. I do know that any support price which does not permit me to compete with industrial substitutes and foreign producers is driving my products out of the market and will in the end put me out of farming and destroy my life savings in my land. I feel the shrinking of markets for my products in acreage allotments and need go no farther than my local stores to see industrial products are being substituted for my cotton. Most of the small farmers can read and learn that we are losing out to foreign producers and often these foreign producers are financed with American capital yes, even Federal capital. Yes, I voted for acreage allotments for wheat this year but gentlemen it was a vote of desperation. I still had faint hopes that I might survive in farming until a more rational farm program is instituted.

As it is, there are a few quarter-section farmers to be eliminated before halfsection farmers such as myself get ours. I know that our price-support program was devised as a stopgap only and I still have hopes that the many dollars which have been spent supposedly on brains to solve the farm problem will finally function and come up with a defensible farm program, a farm program which gives a minimum of consideration to the problems of the small farmer.

A great many of us small farmers are or near to the class often referred to as marginal farmers, a class which is expendable according to many of our writers on farm affairs. Isn't it surprising that such learned men should forget that but a few short years ago there was a shortage of practically all farm commodities. They also seem to forget that during the stress of depression and any slight disturbance in our highly artificial industrial economy, people have to flock back to the land. While that farmer's friend, the Chase Manhattan Bank of New York, reports that at least a half million farmers could probably find more productive jobs in industry, they fail to show what would happen to industrial employment if such an exodus from the land should occur. I believe that the Government itself is moving my land nearer and nearer the marginal line by works of the Army engineers. Just what justification is there for spending 2 or 3 times the earning power of wasteland to make it productive and at the same time destroy the life saving of persons who own land which is made marginal. I question the integrity of the striped panted boys of the State Department who burden agriculture with an undue burden by denying us markets for our products purportedly because it might offend some potential allies. I question the policy of sending people trained at our expense all over the world to teach our competitors how best to compete with us.

Surely the backward nations of the world are in greater need for our industrial skills so why not send engineers until we lick our own farm problem? And please include in the first consignment the full Corps of Army Engineers and get them off our back for awhile. Yes, and how about restricting the use of our public lands to nonagricultural uses until such a time as we have solved the farm problem? I have often wondered just how the Republican Party justifies its inability to find no one better fitted as Secretary of Agriculture than a man whose chief claim to an agricultural background was his gaining access for his sheep to public grazing land. In other words, I resent our Government's shell games in spending tax money all over the world to make my land marginal. A great many of the people formally trained in agriculture are convinced that agriculture cannot gainfully support the number of persons now engaged in farming. Reports prepared in the United States Department of Agriculture indicate that many of our hired servants are of that opinion. In all fairness they should be honest and follow the example of that Commissioner of Patents who resigned years ago because he was certain human ingenuity could not design any more worthwhile inventions. Fortunately, there are some with hopes for an expanding economy; for example, a Mr. Calloway who has made a suc cess in the highly competitive milling business is carrying on experiments as to, how vertical integration can be promoted in agriculture. Surely there could be. further developments of recreation on farms for persons tired of city life. The dude ranch is but a short step in that direction.

STATEMENT FILED BY A. M. WEBER, WELLINGTON, KANS.

The first thing the Government should do is to dispose of most of our surplus farm products. Then they should have the law changed so that our export wheat could not have 14 percent foreign matter in it, while Canada allows only 3 percent. I think the Agriculture Department should figure the parity price on all farm products. Then remove all acreage controls, and let the farmer sell all products on the open and competitive markets. Then let him take all sales tickets to one of the Government agricultural agencies in his respective county and be paid the difference in the price he received and the parity price, but have a maximum amount of somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000 that any one individual or company or corporation could receive in 1 year.

This plan would take the Government out of the loan and storage business. This would really protect the small farmer and keep him on the land, instead of going to the cities to get a job on the already overcrowded labor market. It makes me mad to read about eliminating the small, inefficient farmer. I will admit the very large farms can produce a little cheaper, but they hire men for about 3 or 4 months out of the year and then lay them off, and then they are on relief the rest of the year or are driving over the country looking for another job.

Their children do not receive a decent education and these families do not buy any of the durable goods such as refrigerators, washing machines, sewing machines and dozens of other articles.

And the records prove that juvenile delinqueny is almost nonexistent among farm-reared children, except in the case of the migratory worker.

I am what would be considered a farmer of a medium-sized farm. I think the plan of the Government leasing farm land would also be a good plan.

I am in favor of the present program with at least 30 percent of parity until we can get a better program.

I would like to add one more statement about the first plan. This would provide cheap food for all.

STATEMENT FILED BY WATSON WENIGER, CLEVELAND, KANS.

I am a farmer in Kingman County, Kans. I feel that the flexible price support should be continued under the present farm program. I have always felt that under this program an area would tend more to raise the crop best adapted to that particular area. Wheat in particular; it would tend to discourage its planting in the high-cost and high-risk areas and this would tend to leave the raising of wheat to areas where it is most adapted and where no other crop can be satisfactorily substituted.

The prolonged drought has hurt Kingman County farmers very much. Some have not had a normal yield for 4 years, most of the others for 3 years. This is the primary reason why some feel they need more aid.

I personally would not like any more controls than we have now; however, under our present surplus and world surpluses we must have some.

I feel that high, rigid supports have not only supported the prices in the United States but over the world and encouraged world production of farm commodities beyond what it would have been otherwise and in doing this we have priced ourselves out of the world market.

I think that more of an effort should be made to encourage trade with countries that have insufficient food supplies by accepting more of their currency in trade as well as other commodities that are not strategic materials and also by letting them carry all the agricultural products that they want to carry in their own ships and by not requiring that a certain percent be shipped in United States ships.

I would not be in favor of direct price supports for livestock. This would just tend to perpetuate livestock surpluses and add more controls which will take away more of the farmer's freedom and initiative. I feel that the Secretary of Agriculture could step up purchases of any meat that is in surplus for the armed services and the school-lunch program.

I believe that some form of soil-fertility bank should be put into effect to take care of diverted acres. Diverted acres from the basic crops are now causing oversupply of other commodities and this tends to reduce the price of all farm commodities.

Since soil fertility will be to the advantage of all the people of the United States in that it would insure increased production in an emergency, I do not feel that it would be asking too much of the American taxpayer to help compensate the farmer for this reserve that he would be storing in the land that he is taking out of production. I do not think that the payments should be so high that land speculators could make money on land taken out of production but it should be enough to the farmer that it wouldn't be a financial burden to own the land.

Sorry I can't give you a bright idea that could solve the problem overnight but I thank you for an opportunity to express my views.

STATEMENT FILED BY EDGAR L. WILLIAMS, JENNINGS, KANS.

High rigid price supports which have created $7 billion surplus crop stockpile, which hangs over us like a dark black cloud cannot solve the farmers' declining net income. Flexible supports may not be the answer but they could be a step in the right direction if "implemented" by a vigorous export policy. Pricing commodities too high has helped keep us out of foreign markets. This has also brought marginal land into production thus increasing the burdensome surpluses.

If, as some think, farm prices are at last leveling off they are doing so at approximately 25 percent below the 1951 peak, while other segments of our economy are booming. Even within this year the Council of Economic Advisers report that agricultural income for the third quarter has dropped $1 billion below the rate at the start of the year.

The laboring man's hour will buy more beef today than at any time in the history of our Nation. This is common knowledge. Every time they are granted an increase in minimum wages our purchases of all needed commodities are higher. It is truly a price squeeze on the farmer.

Industry has approximately $10,000 invested per worker, while in our section of Kansas the investment per worker is nearer $25,000, so we are an industrialist, and an investor as well as a laborer.

I will now quote my own case of price drop in the third quarter of 1955 over the rate in the first quarter. Two hundred fat steers marketed in this quarter at $2.25 per hundredweight below the predicted price for such steers at this time. That is $5,000. That is where the Council of Economic Advisers get their $1 billion. However, we in the livestock business do not want Government controls on our segment of the industry. We have a new farm organization clamoring for a floor of $20 under hogs and $30 under cattle. How disastrous that would be. We must work out our problems on a more sane and less drastic

manner.

No one farm program can be written that will fit all the country. We farmers hate subsidies but since so many segments of the whole economy are subsidized, that may be the solution, but we do not think so for livestock we favor, rather, a free economy with no controls or price guaranties might eventually work to our benefit, thus upholding the American way and standard of living and bringing an American or United States price for that portion of domestically consumed goods.

STATEMENT FILED BY HOWARD H. HADSALL, ANTHONY, KANS,

"Take care of the little things and the big ones will take care of themselves." It is an old saying but certainly the destiny of most Kansas farmers depends on whether or not our future farm program adheres to its meaning.

I think we are all agreed that farmers are in a price-cost squeeze.

We all agree that there is a surplus of nearly all farm products.

We agree that most of Kansas has suffered heavily from drought the past few years.

Now, it's a fact that the present farm program has not caused it to rain, and has not reduced surpluses. It has, however, redistributed the places of production from one part of the Nation to another at a terrific cost to the taxpayer and placed an undue burden upon the little farmer.

For the most part, the small farmer in this area has farmed on a sound, diversified basis for many years. He had a few cows, hogs, sheep, and poultry: about one-half of his cultivated acres to wheat and the other half to sorghums and legume crops, wheat being the only dependable cash crop. The balance of his income was from livestock and poultry operations. Then the farm program came along-to reduce surpluses. It cut the little farmer's wheat acres the same percentage from his average as the farmer who had been planting all his acres to wheat. The result is that even with favorable weather conditions the present farm program has pushed the small farmer into an unsound farming operation from the standpoint of being able to produce a cash crop with any chance of showing a profit.

For example: Small farmer-owner-and-operator, or tenant, 160-acre farm, 100 acres cultivated, 60 grass.

This farmer has, from years of experience, found that about 50 to 60 acres of wheat will support his cash outlay for implements and cost of production on his small farm. That he needs about 60 acres of wheat and about 40 acres for other crops to support his livestock. Now he can plant approximately 35 acres of wheat-the only crop he can classify as dependable and his only cash crop. During the drought of the thirties he had wheat and wheat straw to feed his livestock when other crops failed. Under our present program when feed erops fail, there is no wheat left to feed as it must be sold to meet cash expenses. All the little farmer has left is straw-and darn little straw.

It appears to me that if we are to maintain a sound agriculture in this section of the country, any farm program that comes out must be one that will not further the driveoff of the small farmer and should not continue to encourage the building of farming empires. We hear a lot of talk about trend-the trends to larger and larger farming units. The proper farm program can stop this trend. I am sure it can because I am satisfied that the present type of farm program started the trend to larger units.

The very grassroots of this Nation grew out of small, family-operated farms. (All you need do to satisfy your doubts on this statement is a glance at your history.) May God give you gentlemen the vision, the guidance, and the courage to present to Congress a farm program that will "take care of the little things."

STATEMENT FILED BY LOUIS W. FRAME, SAWYER, KANS.

On land taken out of production, will the subsidy payment offset the price of the crop the farmer might have raised on the land? If not it looks like the farmer would have less income, instead of more or better.

I would like to see a program that would not penalize the small farmer. On present program, have been penalized for trying to build up a soil-fertility bank and terracing land. Because when a person has already cut his wheat acreage for this purpose the Government comes along and cuts him again, just the same as a straight wheat farmer.

Would also like to see a change in payment for various conservation payment. A large farmer can get enough assistance to build a pond or put down a well while a small farmer can get only a fraction of its cost.

A farmer should be able to raise grain of any variety so long as he does not market it.

STATEMENT FILED BY FRANK GARRETT, OVERBROOK, KANS.

As a farmer and stockman living on and personally operating my own farm plus some rented grassland, near Overbrook, Kans., Osage County, may I submit to you my views and suggestions relative to an agricultural program and related subjects.

Shortly after Ezra Taft Benson was appointed Secretary of Agriculture, he made the statement that eventually he hoped that agriculture would be able to stand on its own two feet.

This statement expresses sound thinking with respect to the proper relationship of one major industry with another as well as the relationship of one individual with another in a society such as ours, a principle or relationship which I heartily endorse.

However, in applying this principle to our economic system that has been developed and actually practiced since the early period of our history, the statement is revolutionary in scope.

In view of this statement of policy by the Secretary, I now move toward the revolutionary aspects of the statement with relation to a farm program and related segments of our total economy.

I think that nearly all of our people engaged in the business of farming and ranching would very much prefer to stand on their own two feet, but because of having to operate under an economy that is artificial by reason of direct or indirect guaranties (subsidies) from Government to capital, labor, and industry it is most difficult for people engaged in agriculture to do so and receive a just margin of profit at the market place.

Any farm program considered by the President, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Congress should and must take into account the factors mentioned above.

For all to stand on their own two feet in this business of providing shelter, food, clothing, and the necessary tools with which to do so, then in all fairness all guaranties or subsidies both direct and indirect by Government should be done away with.

I doubt very much if this will ever be done, but I am sure the American farmer and rancher would be willing to take his chances with those engaged in other segments of our economy.

Much study has been made by the President's National Agricultural Advisory Commission which includes among others some people who are engaged in the operation of farms and ranches.

Members of the Agricultural Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress have made an extensive study and survey of the agricultural situation.

We hear and read much about flexible price supports for agricultural commodities, but hear and read almost nothing about policies that would also