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merits; also checking information about late spring freezes, kind of soil, (old, new, summer fallow), previous crops, fertilizers used, seeding dates, rainfall, soil tests, etc., then we all can learn how to grow better and better wheat that should satisfy everyone (except the jealous propagandists and profiteers who want to beat a lot of air, water, and dope with a very little flour to a bubble-gumfoaming dough, of very little food value. And here is where the Pure Food and Drug Department should get on the job and put a stop to bakers selling that fluffy, bubble-gum-like, deathly white, bleaching compound, poisoned, devitalized bakery products, and help educate the people to the facts about the health value of complete foods as our Creator intended they be used, so the people of this great Nation will be strong, healthy, and happy.

A few examples of 40 years' war between American free enterprise and wouldbe dictators.

At a Kansas State Fair booth was shown a large loaf of approved wheat bread beside a very small loaf of Clark's wheat bread. The exhibitor admitted that certain ingredients were left out of Clark's wheat bread.

A certain county cooperative wheat-test plots showed Clark's wheat yielded over 10 bushel per acre more than any of the college wheats, but when the report came out in the local paper, Clark's wheat showed a number only, with a statement that the college had some very promising wheats, not named, but numbered. I asked the paper for a correction, but was refused except by paid advertisement. I don't think the college paid for their erroneous advertisement? Was that Clark's wheat averaged up with the other county tests in that district? That's only one example of juggled figures. Think.

Several reportedly prosperous growers of Clark's wheat purchased adjoining farms from approved wheat growers who went broke.

A miller was fighting a Clark wheat bitterly until he purchased a car of it from a third party, thinking it was Turkey wheat, paid 10 cents per bushel premium for it and said "that Turkey wheat is the best wheat I have milled this year." A chemist gave a poor report, knowing he was testing a Clark wheat, then ran another test (for a second party) on an average sample from several fields, same variety (thinking it was approved wheat), and said, "That was wonderful, wonderful wheat."

A multitude of reporters say Clark's better wheat yields 40-50-60-70, even up to 160 and 208 bushels per acre, favorable conditions, and many times that of approved wheats unfavorable years: One example, Clark's better wheat yielded 40 bushel per acre, stood up, no mosaic. Approved wheat made 18 bushel, lodged, much mosaic. Another plowed up much of his approved wheat, the rest made 3 to 8 bushel: Clark's wheat made 14 bushel.

Several millers advertised they would pay top price for approved wheat but wouldn't buy Clark's wheat at all, but the next summer was a wet year and the approved what sprouted in the head, and was docked 75 cents per bushel, while Clark's wheat did not sprout in the head and brought top market price, even when harvested in August and September.

While traitors and enemies from within are fighting over varieties, our foreign neighbors are selling their wheat to the world. This from a letter from Canada: "Please get me a dozen of those Manhattan Do. Do. Do. Doodle Doo. circulars, which is the greatest selling help for Canadian wheat that has ever been published when put into the hands of English brokers to show English trade that Kansas wheat is no good. Think.

Better cancel that unconstituional 20-cents-per-bushel steal. Don's make liars out of the wheatgrowers and thieves of the buyers. Let right prevail and your conscience be your guide.

Most sincerely yours,

EARL G. CLARK.

For wheat:

1. Base allotments on bushels, not acres.

2. Let all farmers sow all the wheat they want to.

3. Allow wheat to be marketed only by marketing cards.

4. Limit marketing cards to 2,000 bushels for each farmer or/and landowner. 5. Encourage family-sized farms and discourage large and suitcase wheat gambler producers.

6. Make substantial payments for planting alfalfa, sweetclover, and all grasses.

7. Do away with flexible price supports. They work just the opposite from what we need.

8. The present allotment system has thrown the regular farmer clear out of balanced farming.

WALLACE MCILRATH,
Kingman, Kans.

Here is my idea of what the farmer needs in the way of Government aid : A two-price system on wheat with 100 percent of parity on the amount needed for human consumption in this country of desirable variety with acreage allotted to each farm as is now the case and then let them plant as much as they wish but the remainder would go for livestock feed or for export at whatever price it would command.

Aid for the drought-stricken farmer should be extra wheat acreage allotment in substantial amounts for a year or two so it would give him a chance to work out his own financial difficulties.

I suggest that the present surplus wheat be put on the world market in orderly fashion even at a loss to our Government. It would make more friends than it would enemies. Foreign trade always makes friends. People just don't bite the hand that feeds them even if they have to buy that food.

WALDO HARDER,
Whitewater, Kans.

These are my views on the farm program as requested for transcription to the congressional committee.

1. Farm commodities should be supported at 100 percent of parity.

2. Controls should be on tillable acres rather than past history and no one should be eligible to draw more than $25,000 in price supports in any year. 3. Conservation acreage-reserve program should be put in effect.

4. We need a Secretary of Agriculture who will act as a public-relations man, rather than pitting the farmer against the laboring man and the wheat farmer against the corn farmer, etc., as Secretary Benson has done.

I have been very disappointed in the present administration toward the farmer.
OREN K. CLARY,
South Haven, Kans.

As to subsidies, I am against the Government paying it, and as to our wheat allotment am against it as a man can't pay $206 taxes with 21 acres wheat and get one-third of that. I am tired of a few fellows telling us just what to plant, and kinds of wheat to sow or take a penalty. Who gets the penalty money? They think everybody a liar and a thief and all this surpluses-wheat, corn, and everything else—just get rid of it and stop paying on anything. Can't go on this way any way. Let supply and demand control the price. We can't feed at such high prices. I had a sum of 21 acres to wheat and one-third of that and $206 taxes. How can I pay it? Now, my neighbor, one of them, can put 50 acres wheat in, I 21. Why is he so much better than I am? Several 80 to 100 acres their reason for that don't feed the baby or pay taxes either. They are making the big man rich and squeezing the little fellow out at the Government's expense and build up more surpluses. Let us plant what we want and at least we can have something to feed.

The best I see is to let the people keep the Government and not the Government keep them. I am for junking the whole program. I have raised wheat for 35 cents a bushel better off then than now and plenty to feed. Now got nothing.

I thank you for reading this and hope for better times.

W. J. WALTON,
Newton, Kans.

I believe 90 percent of parity supports are a must to keep farmers from leading the country into a general depression. As you well know 90 percent supports are not rigid as they are advertised to be. They change as the price of production costs change, and that is as it should be.

I believe further that there should be a separate parity formula for each commodity that is supported because to a wheat farmer the price of machinery has

a lot more effect on his cost of production than does the cost of prepared feeds, for example.

I believe the conservation acreage reserve plan is a step in the right direction. There are very few farmers in our neighborhood under the age of 45 who don't have outside jobs to supplement their farm income and a great number of men over that age also have jobs. To me that is a sign of an unhealthy farm economy. Thank you for your time.

RICHARD KNOWLTON, Oxford, Kans.

I am writing you to let you know that I think President Eisenhower should get rid of Benson, if he expects to get the vote of the farmers, and change from rigid support to a more flexible. I think they should let the farmer raise all the wheat he wants to, but only market so much. Then do whatever he wants to with the rest, feed or sell at world market.

I had to lay out 78 acres of my land the last 2 years and I planted 57 acres to maize last year. I harvested 45 bushels on the 57 acres. This year I harvested 701⁄2 so you can see one can't pay taxes and keep up at that rate.

Ground right beside this maize made 20 bushels wheat and this year it made 7 bushels.

I over-rowed last fall 18 acres so I went up to the board and offered to put up a check to cover the penalty wheat. If it made the 13 bushels they would have the money and if not I would keep it. They wouldn't do that unless I gave them the check instead of putting it up with the bank so they wouldn't give me a marketing card, so I still have the wheat worth $2.02 per bushel and I could of sold it then for $2.19 and I have to pay the storage now.

So if the President or the Republican Party expects to get the farmers vote they had better change things pretty quick.

I have been a life-long Republican but can't support a bunch that works against me that way and there are a lot of my neighbors that feel the same way.

M. W. GEORGE, South Haven, Kans.

Thank you for the privilege of airing my views on the farm situation to you. Of course the trouble is, there's so much food around that farm prices haven't been bid up. How about taking a percentage of acres out of production from every farm in the Nation? Take it out of production, not to plant in grass, as some say but to plant nothing and exempt such acreage free of taxes while it is idle. This to continue until such time when more food is needed.

This tax situation I feel can also bear some consideration. A few years ago I bought a quarter section of land for $13,000. This year I am assessed $572.45 taxes on it. I will have paid for it a second time in not so many years.

I feel the farm wheat acreage allotment is unfair. My neighbor across the fence has on his 160 acres a quota of 95 acres. For nearly 30 years he has farmed that quarter with little but wheat. At this time he has 1 cow, 1 calf, and a flock of hens, besides the wheat. During these years I have practiced soil conservation and diversified farming and am now allowed to plant only 38 acres to wheat.

We did have hopes of better hog prices in the wake of the Government's announcement to buy pork and lard only to have them plummeted to the lowest level in nearly 13 years. Again with your meeting to help the farmers, our hopes are raised and may no new lower level be established.

Yours respectfully,

A. B. HYER, Wichita, Kans.

Sorry that I did not accept your invitation and write you sooner. For the past 60 years the small farmer has been gradually forced from the farm. I believe that for the security of our Nation this trend should be stopped

now.

Since labor is guaranteed a minimum wage I believe that a farmer should be. A deposit in a bank is guaranteed at 100 percent up to $10,000. I feel that a farmer should be guaranteed 100 percent parity not to exceed 6,000 on any 1 crop or a total of 10,000 on all crops.

I believe that our Secretary of Agriculture should be instructed by our Congress and by our President to buy pork and to buy beef in unlimited quantities until a fair price is restored. That this meat should be available for school lunches.

I think that the Farm Bureau, the Grange, and the Farmers Union should make a determined effort to see that the hungry folk of this Nation and of the world are fed.

RALPH MCGRATH, Kingman, Kans.

Here are some suggestions and opinions on the farm problem. First, there never need have been such large surpluses with costly storage, etc., if only the poor and undernourished of the United States had been given all they could use. This administration has offered food to countries abroad before they even asked for it, yet declines to assist the poor at home. There are constant reports of the poverty of the Indians in the Southwest and of other half-starved children in certain sections of the country.

If we still have large surpluses, we should limit bushels and pounds supported by the Government rather than cutting the acres by ratio, as it is the large producer who makes the surplus. If the Government would support products only to the amount raised on family-sized farms, and the rest be placed on the world market we would soon see surpluses disappear.

People breathlessly awaited some fine solution of the farm problem when Mr. Benson took office, but we now believe he had nothing more in mind than the "trial and error" system, and each thing he tried made the situation worse. Time has changed things, however. A year ago we were told the farmer must learn to produce more economically. Also that there was no place for the small farmer. Now, in the year of elections, he has again become a worthwhile person.

It was evident from the first that Mr. Benson was not working for the producer, but for the middlemen. There are many other complaints one could make against Mr. Benson's conduct of his office.

Any administration that completely disregards one segment of the people, while boasting of the wealth and profits of other groups, is not worthy to administer the government of the people by the people and for the people. Mr. and Mrs. ALFRED MUNROE,

Douglass, Kans.

I would like to hear an explanation of how the decision was reached on what counties in Kansas should have drought relief. I live in the southwest part of Butler County and have not raised a crop in 3 years.

Anyone will tell you this locality is one of the most drought-stricken areas in the State. I am in the dairy business and feel if the drought areas had been properly investigated we would surely have been one of the counties receiving drought relief.

MERLE DENNETT,
Douglass, Kans.

Would like to have a minimum of 100-percent parity for all farm products including livestock and eggs consumed in the United States. Also for a twoprice system on wheat and we believe the economic stiuation of the American farmer is critical at the present time and that we need immediate steps to raise farm income.

Yours truly,

Mr. and Mrs. BERT SKINNER,
Clearwater, Kans.

Being unable to attend the Hutchinson meeting, will take the opportunity to write you.

Regarding the present plight of the farmer. I operate a 1,700-acre ranch in southeast Butler County. No use explaining my plight. I am just like the rest of the unhappy producers of cattle for the market. Declining prices and higher prices for everything we buy, including taxes. I have read and listened now

for a year or two of the sure-coming relief for the farmer. But, instead, conditions are getting worse by the week.

Seems to be plenty for foreign aid and what-have-you but for us Ezra Benson promises.

1. What we need is financial aid to help us weather the storm for 2 or 3 years. I have delayed improvements of every kind on fences and buildings on my farm. Two, higher supports and some control on meat costs, between producer and consumer. All over there has sprung up wholesale meat shops; just an added expense between producer and consumer. Eighty-cent pork chops and 13-cent hogs don't make sense. Low-priced cattle, high-price feed, and machinery also don't help matters any. Thank you for your kind attention.

J. S. LUCAS,
Wichita, Kans.

In expressing our opinion on the flexible farm price plan we wish to say, how can the Government expect the farmer to survive under that plan when every other branch of our economy has price and wage guaranties, and the railroads are subsidized?

We think Benson and the Republican Party are for the men with the big money.

Remember, Mr. Republican, the big depression all started when the farmers and the so-called little men were asked to live on much less than was their share. Doctors, lawyers, and oil operators are buying our farms, running a few head of stock, and escaping income taxes on their farms by that way and the little men who need their acres to live on have acreage control and pay income tax. To heck with this deal.

In regard to the farm question I believe if there could be some way to get the doctors, bankers, oilmen, and so forth, out of the farming business, we farmers could take care of the situation. Maybe if they could have a country place without being compelled to raise livestock or grain in order to deduct the expense for income-tax purposes, that would help.

V. F. WHITE,
Augusta, Kans.

I am giving my opinion as I have been a farmer all my life and this is the worst price squeeze the farmers were ever in, other than wheat, and they have the acreage cut down on it. In 1937 wheat was $1.15; you could buy a 3-plow tractor for $1,100; a 3-plow tractor now cost between $3,500 and $4,000.

The cattle, poultry, and dairy business is ruined in the areas around here; they have folded up all around. I had a brother-in-law quit this year, said he had all he could take. It seems a crime the business boom and prosperity going on everywhere else and the farmer in a depression.

There will be some will say it is all right; but if you look into it, they are getting a check from somewhere else of some kind, a few of them down here have oil and they are all right, but the poor old body that has to dig it out of the ground is in a terrible fix. I am 48 years old; started out in the good old Hoover days. Yours truly,

FRANK SHARPSTEEN,
Geuda Springs, Kans.

I am in favor of 90 percent support of parity for basic farm commodities until some better plan is formulated. I also think any price adjustment or subsidy should be paid directly to the farmer not to the packers or processors. I am also strongly in favor of Benson's resignation or ouster.

DANA H. ROBINSON,
Kingman, Kans.

What we need is a market. Bushel control not acreage is the only way to control surplus. Acre control hurts the small farmer; and any farmer knows that all land does not produce the same number of bushels per acre.

Our great surplus comes from men like Thomas Campbell, Hardin, Mont., who leased Indian reservation land from the Government and put it in wheat.

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