The CHAIRMAN. The entire loss on the entire farm program since October 17, 1933, through June 30, 1955, on all commodities has not been as much as you just stated. As a matter of fact, the total amount was only $2,328,675,427.

May I further point out that of that sum, the losses in 1954 which constitute this sum were $419,477,074 and for 1955, this year, $799,061,464. That is on all commodities, whether they are basics or nonbasics. The losses on basics that have been supported were only, in that same period, $392,648,091 with cotton showing a clear profit of $267,243,797.

Proceed.

Mr. MCGEE. While we have been reducing acreage allotments across the board I want to show you what has happened to the farmers in Lincoln County. I went there in 1940 when the allotment for cotton was 10,000 acres. The allotment for 1956 has already been received and is being sent out; 2,500 acres. Reduced down to one-fourth. The number of farmers has been reduced to less than 700, I think it is 678. I wouldn't be sure of the figure. We have lost population. So I wish there was a way to find a way where these farmers are being reduced and not forced out of the farming business, particularly the family-sized farm.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any suggestions to offer? We have heard a lot of testimony about the problem now. Have you any specific suggestions you would like to offer?

Mr. MCGEE. I would offer the suggestion that there be a point below which they don't go. What the gentleman who preceded me said. I would need to study it but it sounded good. Whether it is practical, whether it could be administered or not, I know personalities enter into this because I helped operate the first farm program; I talked farmers into plowing up cotton.

I believe that is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wright, please. Do you have any plans you can offer us to solve this problem?

STATEMENT OF CHARLES V. WRIGHT, WASHINGTON, GA.

Mr. WRIGHT. I want to tell you the plight of a small farmer. The CHAIRMAN. We have heard a lot of those. Give your name, please.

Mr. WRIGHT. Charles V. Wright.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a farmer?

Mr. WRIGHT. Farmed all my life except 3 years I spent in the Army from 1942. When I got back out of the Army in 1947 I bought a tractor. I gave $1,150 for it. I bought one of the same tractors this summer for $2,750, and today that same tractor goes up 1211⁄2 percent more. Allis-Chalmers goes up today 1212 percent.

I bought a bolt one day this week for my mower that cost 63 cents. That little bolt cost 63 cents. In 1951 my income off of cattle was $14,349.90. In 1954 from the same number of cattle my income is $4,234.12. I took a $10,000 loss there in about 4 to 5 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that your net income?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir; that is gross income. I don't have any net income.

64440-56-pt. 6- -8

The CHAIRMAN. You mean gross sales.

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, sir; gross sales. I have some records here. You don't have to believe what I said. It was sold to the stockyard in Washington, Ga. Here is a calf here that I sold the 10th or the 19th of October, $82.50. Four years ago I sold that same calf, 20 pounds lighter, brought one hundred and seventy-seven dollars and some

cents.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the price to the consumer? Did he pay the same as he did 4 years ago?

Mr. WRIGHT. No, sir, the consumer is paying more; and yet they blame the farmer for it and the farmer isn't doing it. We are not getting it.

I wanted to show the plight of a small farmer. I have the records here and would be glad to show you where I sold cattle in 1951 and sold them in 1954 and just show them. They don't have to believe what I say; the records speak for themselves. I would be glad to have you take them back.

The CHAIRMAN. We will take your word for it. We have a lot of evidence to show this discrepancy to which you refer. There has been a great difference in the price of cattle and hogs sold today as compared to a few years ago.

Take the case of hogs. Only a year and a half ago they were 25 cents a pound and now they are down to 122. But when I go back to Washington in January I will pay the same amount I paid last January for that ham I am going to have to buy in January. That is what I do not like. I think you have stated it there. The farmer would not mind it so much if the consumer got the benefit of the low prices, but they do not.

Mr. WRIGHT. They don't get it and blame us for getting all the money. I am just existing out there.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to find some way to give the farmer a little more of the consumer dollar. If you can tell us how to do that we will write it into law.

Mr. WRIGHT. Another thing I would like to bring up, sir, the other week this old Negro wanted me to cut a little land for him; didn't have a tractor. I sent $3,000 worth of equipment there. I got $2.75 an hour. That was more than he was able to pay. That tractor was drinking a dollar's worth of gas an hour.

I have a neighbor who works on a Government job, cost plus, at $3.25 an hour and got about $25 worth of tools and he makes time and a half, which would give him around $5 or $6 an hour when he makes time and a half.

TheCHAIRMAN. A carpenter?

Mr. WRIGHT. He is a carpenter. He comes back when that job is finished and lays over there for 6 to 9 months and draws social security or something, and doesn't hit a lick at a snake, and I work 16 hours a day to try to make a living. There is something radically wrong when the country gets like that.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir.
Mr. Bennett, please.

STATEMENT OF ASA M. BENNETT, WASHINGTON, GA.

Mr. BENNETT. I am Asa M. Bennett, Washington, Ga. I am a livestock farmer and you raised the question of what to do with these diverted acres on cattle. This would affect some and in periods of surplus I suggest public domain be withdrawn from production of cattle. As you well know, the public lands of the West produce a good deal of beef, and in periods of surplus, if a policy was set up to withdraw this public domain from production, it would affect the amount of cattle produced.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean do not let anybody rent it?

Mr. BENNETT. That is correct. Withdraw it from use. I know you would run into opposition in the West.

The CHAIRMAN. The great trouble is that in one State-I think it is Arizona, the Government owns almost 90 percent of the land. What would you do with the farmers there? Not let them use that land at all?

Mr. BENNETT. I realize you would run into a problem there but still you might have to do it gradually, but you could draw out; and when a lease ran out you could not renew or let someone else have it. That is during periods of overproduction or when we don't need it. When we need it but as a cattle producer on my own private lands I don't think it is fair competition for that land to be used for the reason that it is used at a very cheap rate of what it is actually worth. The Senator here from Kansas brought up the only reason that I think we, as farmers, have a right to come to Congress and ask for relief, and that is the fact that we were placed ceilings during the period when we could have reaped big benefits and when the Congress and people of the country received those benefits. We need some assistance in this adjustment period.

You say you need a solution to the problem. The only solution you are going to get is to subsidize agriculture during this period here just like you subsidized industry in their transition period. It will cost money. It also cost money to keep the gold up at Fort Knox. We guard it and we spend money to guard it. It will cost money to store it there; it will also cost money to store cotton, but I submit that cotton in a warehouse is just as much an asset as gold in Kentucky. And it is doing the economy of this country just as much good as that gold buried up there that we are protecting. The only use for it will be in the future; we are not using it now.

Although Stephen Pace suggested 5 million set-aside bales, in the case of cotton only, I don't see why you couldn't double it. If past history proves true it would be a good investment because that cotton will go up in price in future years and it would bring the Government a profit.

The Senator from Kansas knows more about wheat than I do. He says you can't keep wheat. I had the idea you could because I read where they found some wheat in the Pyramids that was still good. Two thousand years is long enough to keep it for me.

The CHAIRMAN. Somebody suggested we take our excess wheat and bury it up in the Article Circle in the ice. That might be a good idea, but I would hate to have to pay the freight there and back and dig the hole.

Mr. BENNETT. If we got hungry we would be glad to pay it. But cotton can be kept. Corn couldn't be kept long. We could keep these surpluses over a period and gradually work them back in. We can smooth out these ups and downs. We have proven that. Your support under cotton, today's paper shows cotton went up in the face of this last estimate and I don't think anybody would argue if you didn't have a fixed support cotton would be going up in increased production. Fixed supports do work and they do maintain a floor that a farmer can live under.

The reason we ask for 90 percent is because we are reasonable and that gives a 10 percent leeway to pay for the storage of this stuff, and there is no reason for the Government to take the loss on this stuff. I realize we are going to have to subsidize some movement into export but cotton can be kept until the time when it will be needed and a time when it will be profitable to sell. So the Government doesn't have to take a loss on that cotton. They will have to store it and you will have expense storing it, but you have got expense in keeping that gold there, too.

On perishable crops which you produce, livestock, my main commodity, you cannot store that. The only practical way to move that stuff is to move it into production with some kind of subsidy program. Your present subsidy under hogs is the right approach. It just isn't adequate to do the job. We should subsidize the movement of a temporary surplus like that into consumption and get rid of it like we did with butter and it will work to dispose of perishables in that manner. It will cost some money, but the farmers are entitled to it if we want a stable agriculture.

I submit it will cost more in the long run not to do it because you can no more maintain the economy of this country on the level we are and pull down agriculture. We cannot sell anything in quantity. There are a few items we can manufacture and sell in world commerce, but I agree with the Senator that we cannot grow stuff and sell it at world prices with our high standard of labor and living in this country. So when we go to trade in foreign affairs we must step down to be able ot sell it. Therefore, if we have tariffs to raise the level in this country we have to have some way of stepping it down to move it out; and a surplus-disposal program is the only way to solve this problem. There is one other thing and that is the control of money in this country. As you know, the Federal Reserve controls quantity and credit of the country. When you run the price of money up you run the price of goods down. We have a policy going on right immediately now of running the price of money up. Interest rates have doubled in the last 12 months.

The CHAIRMAN. Doubled?

Mr. BENNETT. Prime interest rates have doubled in the last 12 months. The Government is paying the highest rate on 90-day bills they ever paid.

The CHAIRMAN. What the Government borrows?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, and prime interest rates to business, also. It is the policy of the present Federal Reserve Board, which controls that. Now the supply of money and supply of goods must balance. If you decrease supply of money and increase the supply of goods you necessarily lower prices. Therefore, as we increase production in this

country we need a money policy that will increase as that production increases. Otherwise you are bound to run into disaster periods like we have.

I have a statement: It is a poor government that can't print money faster than a farmer can raise cows. You can increase money faster than you can increase goods. That is what war does, increases money supply in relation to the goods. We do need a money policy that will increase money supply in line with goods; otherwise I don't care what you do, you will reduce your acres completely out of reason to get it down to where it can be sold.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

I wish the witnesses hereafter would confine their testimony to something new, not just stating the problem. We are looking for a prescription. The doctor knows the trouble. You write a prescription.

Mr. Tillman.

TESTIMONY OF H. YOUNG TILLMAN, VALDOSTA, GA.

Mr. TILLMAN. I am H. Young Tillman. I am a farmer, a general farmer of some 36 years.

Since the national position of agriculture has been so capably presented at this hearing I will not attempt to dwell upon that or any other phase of agriculture that has been covered here except to endorse some of the things that have been said. I would like to present at this time the problem of a small farmer. I would also like to define, if I may, what in my opinion is a small farmer.

I am inclined to believe that since agriculture has developed into a mechanization that large farmers are those farmers that acquire sufficient capital to operate on a large-scale mechanized unit and acquire their capital usually outside of agricultural endeavors. A small farmer, in my opinion, is a farmer that derives all of his source of income from the land alone, regardless of the size of his operation: That is true in Georgia; that might not be true in Kansas. But in the State of Georgia and in my county, the farmers that have been large farmers in that county have become small farmers in recent

years.

I have this much evidence to prove what I am saying. My base for the production of tobacco was 85 acres at the beginning of the program, the first and second program we have been through you might

say.

The CHAIRMAN. When was that? In 1937?

Mr. TILLMAN. That is when the program began.

The CHAIRMAN. 1937.

Mr. TILLMAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You had 85 acres?

Mr. TILLMAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How much did you produce per acre then?

Mr. TILLMAN. If you don't mind I would just like to complete my statement to this extent

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.