and a horse who got a dollar a day to haul his stuff in, but the city has grown away from it and when you take a man with a $5,000 truck at $2.50 an hour that has to wait on one of those cobblestone streets on South Water Street and haul it all the way back again 15 miles, gentlemen, it raises hell with the price of a bunch of carrots.

That is the thing I think should be studied because while you ask a farmer to save cents we are losing dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that not a local problem?

Mr. BLACKETT. You could make a survey because it is not confined to one State. It is spread.

The CHAIRMAN. Í understand that, but is that not a State problem? Should that not be handled by the local State government?

Mr. BLACKETT. I think the Federal Government has led the way in many things later handled by the States, and are in a position to make that survey and point out those costs. I recommend that, in passing, out of years of experience in this field.

European cities are away ahead of us in that regard. One of the costliest things to distribute is vegetables; average about 16 percent on the dollar. Those cities have established rings of vegetable and fruit markets in the newer areas as Senator George will know. I have seen them in France and North Africa and other places, and even in Mexico; rings around the city with plenty of space, with proper warehousing for cold storage, plenty of room for trucks on broad streets where they can move easily. They have reduced their cost.

It isn't anything that is diabolical on the part of these people. It is Just that they can't help the costs with all the labor going up.

I wanted to talk specifically about what I have seen in the matter of acreage controls. I happen to be in a line of farming where I have never received any price support of any kind. I just happen to be in that line of farming: receive no price support. So at the present time my ox isin't being gored. My ox was gored plenty 3 or 4 years ago when the bottom fell out of the cattle market. I have been interested in finding out what happened to my neighbors.

I have become thoroughly convinced that if we continue this acrossthe-board flat acreage reduction, if we persist in that, in a very short time the small farmer won't have enough left for a burial plot. It is becoming so small.

Now I like to go back to what the intent of the original farm support program was. During the 1930's when we were passing a great deal of social legislation, I had a sort of hobby; I collected the preambles to this legislation. I read them. At the time when most of them were being written by some of the apt pupils of the dean of the law school at Harvard some were quite fanciful but well written, but over a period of years I found that the reading and study of those preambles is a very important thing because you can go back to see what the original intent was and you can see what the results have been.

As some of the older gentlemen like Senator George knows, sometimes when you read the intent, and original intent, and see the results of that law, some of the variations are rather astounding. I recall the statement of that old, famous philosopher, Montesquieu, when he reviewed some of the most important laws that were passed in the history of the world. The thing he pointed out was that in many cases when these important laws were passed the most important

consequences were never discussed, probably never even thought of, because they never were discussed.

Who would have thought when you go back to the original intent of the Farm Act that it would induce American citizens to go to another country and put up the capital with cheap labor to undersell our own citizens at home? Who ever thought that the Farm Act, which was supposed to fundamentally help the little farmer, has succeeded in putting the little farmer out of business at a terrific rate?

If anybody doubts it, just take the figures from 1950 to 1954, the Department of Agriculture figures. In those 4 years the number of farms in Tennessee dropped 24,480. During the same year 38,620 farms have disappeared in Texas; 37,000 in Arkansas; 23,000 in Oklahoma; 11,200 in Kansas; 6,337 in Nebraska; 10,000 in Iowa; 13,800 in Minnesota; 15,000 in Wisconsin; 5,000 in Oregon, and in the State of Mississippi 35,465. In no case reported so far has there been a single State where the farm population hasn't dropped. Why has it dropped? In my opinion because-I will give you an example.

Last spring the newspapers throughout Georgia ran appeals to farmers saying "If you aren't going to use your cotton acreage will you please be good enough to turn it in so someone else can have it because if you don't we will lose our farm allotment for the State." The reason for it: Too small to be practical.

These flat acreage controls, in my opinion, are obsolete under present farming conditions. We have got to look at this thing from a new viewpoint, a new approach, because what was a good acreage 10 years ago is impossible today.

The other thing we have to realize that wasn't thought of at the time this legislation was passed is that certain items in the farm field have become mass production items. Just as truly mass production as the production of steel or the production of automobiles. And the fellow with the big acreage has an enormous advantage, an actual advantage. I will give one illustration.

One of the simplest operations on the farm is making hay. This year I put up 800 tons of hay. Now the minimum requirement of modern machinery for putting up hay costs about $8,000. That is without standby equipment. If you don't use that machinery your labor costs will eat you out of house and home. My cost on 800 tons was $10 an acre for my farm equipment.

The man near me who only needs 80 tons of hay, if he gets the same equipment his equipment capital outlay is $100 a ton, whereas mine is $10 a ton. That gives you some of the variations that are occurring.

The CHAIRMAN. You are stating the problem. Will you tell us what ought to be done?

Mr. BLACKETT. I want to state the problem because I want to emphasize how important it is. For instance, another friend of mine, a personal friend of mine, the last statistics I saw he got a corn support loan of $169,000. Now he raised corn in Illinois. The last 5 years that I was in Illinois I raised an average of 250 acres of corn a year and my average—an average over 5 years my average was 81 bushels per acre; and my cost with the auditor's help-I want to explain I threw in everything but the kitchen stove-my cost was 31 cents a bushel to raise that corn.

The CHAIRMAN. When was that?

Mr. BLACKETT. From 1944 to 1948.

Now I will admit that the costs have gone up, but if that man didn't raise that corn for a maximum of 69 cents I will masticate my fedora. That meant the taxpayers of the United States were paying that man $100,000 profit.

Now I think there is another approach to this thing. I will open it up because you gentlemen have appeared to be sympathetic to new ideas. This is not new, I would say originally, with me. It has been discussed. But I have a background on this that goes back for a good many years. I had the very great privilege one evening of spending the entire evening with President Franklin Roosevelt. I spent 412 hours with him that evening. Jim Farley said later that was more than he had spent in 2 years.

He told me when he initated the beginnings of a farm program what his intentions were. This is my recollection of what the man said. We have had farm depressions before. We had them in-this was about 1940-we had them in the twenties, in 1932, 1934, and 1935. If the law of averages holds good we will have farm depressions again. Now what kind of a formula can we work out for this? As he put it, how can we work out a formula that will lighten the burden on those who are least able to bear it? How can we adjust the load to those who are best able to carry it through, because our present problem is not just to reduce production; our problem is to do it in such a way that it will hurt the least possible number of people.

He said at that time: "I would like to see some formula put into effect that would embody the fundamental moral principles of the graduated income tax. I would like to see some formula that would embody the ethical principles of some of our labor legislation which would give special attention to the needs of the little fellow."

So from that I say if we accept the moral principle of a graduated income tax, why not look into the question of a graduated farm price support, higher prices for the output of smaller farms, with subsidy rates that go down as farm size and output go up? And a graduated acreage reduction to give special emphasis to the minimum practical requirements of a family-sized farm?

Now, by that I mean in spelling it out we will say: Today we have all heard the story about the Pennsylvania farmer with his 9 acres of wheat. Down in my county we have things that will make that look silly. Some of our farmers have been cut to 3 and 5 acres of cotton; 1 farmer cut to 1.8 acres of cotton.

It isn't just reduction in acreage. It is new methods of agriculture. How can a man with that acreage possibly even produce his 1.8 on the basis of the big man? He can't turn his machinery around. How can our fellows that have been reduced to 6 and 7 acres of peanuts possibly compete on a cost basis with the fellow that has 50- or 60- or 100-acre allotment? I think it would be possible, according to the plan that I have in mind, to set a minimum practical operating acreage for the cotton farmer, for the peanut farmer, for the wheat farmer, corn farmer. I wouldn't say as to rice and tobacco, I don't know enough about them, but set a practical minimum acreage below which he cannot be cut.

We will say this. We will say that in Iowa on a 160-acre family farm it is good practice to grow 40 acres of corn a year. All right.

The average production of Iowa is, say, in the neighborhood of 50 bushels per acre, 2,000 bushels of corn. We set up a parity of production as well as parity supports and we say we give him top support on the first 2,000 bushels, then if he has a larger corn acreage he gets a reduced support on the next thousand, and a reduced support on the next thousand, and the next, until finally the Government support price is down below the world price; and then the man who has that excess production can sell it at the world price.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think he can produce it and compete with peon labor in Mexico, let us say, and Brazil and other countries of the world?

Mr. BLACKETT. Yes; I think we can produce to compete with anybody.

The CHAIRMAN. You had better look into that. I do not think he

can.

Mr. BLACKETT. If we don't, Mr. Chairman, what right has a man got to get at the taxpayers' expense a full parity on 800 acres or a thousand acres? Are the taxpayers required to maintain for that man a Cadillac standard of living, the man who doesn't need it, who will never be hurt if they don't have it? If we paid more attention, in my opinion, to the smaller man, we would have the money to handle some of these things.

The CHAIRMAN. I have been for that ever since I have been in the Senate; to try to work out a plan to help the small farmer, and so far we have not been able to get to it.

You talk about Franklin D. Roosevelt. Let me tell you a bit of history. When I first came to the Senate in 1937, the law that was enacted by the previous Congress had been declared unconstitutional, I think, in the spring of 1937. Well, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who sent for the members of the Committee on Agriculture, and I was privileged to be a member at that time. This was in the fall of 1937. It was because of the conversation between the committee and the President that a subcommittee of seven, of which I was a member, proceeded all over the country to try to get an answer to the problem. The President suggested we go around and see what we could do, and as a result of his suggestion we held hearings all over the country.

When we returned in November of 1937 with these hearings, the President called a session of Congress, as I remember it, on November 15 of 1937, and from the hearings that were held the present act known as the 1938 act was born. He passed on that; he agreed to it, and

Mr. BLACKETT. You probably know more about it than I do. All I know is what he told me.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not want to disturb you or say anything about your talk with Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. BLACKETT. I am stating what he told me.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Roosevelt sent for the committee and suggested that we go around the country and hold hearings in the hope that from the hearings we would get a bill from the grassroots. So we did come back with a bill. He signed it and that became the law.

It was all intended to do some of the things you mentioned here, but somehow the war came on and simply did not permit the act to work probably as it should. World War II had the effect of dis

turbing the program, not making it work as intended, and during the war we amended it in order to produce more food. Our Government asked us to produce more food and farmers responded to it. That may be the reason why the farmers find themselves today in the plight they are. They were asked by our Government to produce more food. They did produce that food.

I believe that since our Government bountifully aided industry in getting from war to peace that it would be right, probably, to ask the Government to put the farmer back and let him start on an even keel again and get out of this plight he is in.

Mr. BLACKETT. Couldn't we give a start by figuring out what is a livable, practical acreage in these crops and set that

The CHAIRMAN. You know these hearings have demonstrated that even in States, also counties, you have a difference in the size of the farms; some you have irrigated, others dry lands.

If we had only Georgia to deal with, or maybe we might chip in South Carolina, the problem could be solved overnight. But when you try to draft a bill affecting 48 States, that is where the difficulty

comes in.

Mr. BLACKETT. It is not child's play, but other industries have had depressions besides the farm industry; steel industry, automobile industry. Taxpayers were not called upon to support United States Steel or Ford Motor or General Motors.

I am going on the assumption that as a taxpayer I am perfectly willing to be taxed to help the small man that actually needs it.

The CHAIRMAN. This great plan you now speak of that is causing distress to the farmers was a result of the war; will you agree to that? Mr. BLACKETT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. We spent $55 billion to help industry to go back to peace. Why should we not spend a few million dollars to get the farmer back?

Mr. BLACKETT. I am in favor of it. I am in favor of paying higher parity on production of the small, family-sized farm but I am not in favor of supporting people that don't need it. That is one of the unexpected trends that came out of this legislation.

As I say, many times you pass a piece of legislation with the best intentions in the world, but a lot of surprising things happen in time. The CHAIRMAN. The law we enacted, sir, at first I do not believe had a fair chance because, as I said, of World War II. It put a lot of people in the farming business who should not have gone into it. As these hearings will show, we found that many doctors went into the business, many dentists, many people with money who should not have gone into it, and that may be the cause of some of our trouble. But how would you stop that?

Mr. BLACKETT. I think one of the first approaches I would suggest is that we give the farmer the same freedom of marketing that we have given some of the other industries of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. He has it. Nothing to stop him.

Mr. BLACKETT. Except the State Department.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be true, but

Mr. BLACKETT. I meant freedom of marketing throughout the world.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand.