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Mr. RAMEY. It doesn't embarrass me.

Mr. COOLEY. What law is there you would repeal?
Mr. RAMEY. You know cattle eat grain.

Mr. COOLEY. You want cheap grain for the cattle?

Mr. RAMEY. I grow most of my own grain under the present setup. This year for the first time in several years I could have bought grain cheaper than I can raise it myself.

Mr. COOLEY. What is corn selling for now?

Mr. RAMEY. About $6 a barrel at home now. That is $1.20 a bushel. Mr. COOLEY. You may buy it here for 90 cents a bushel. You do not want it any cheaper than that.

Mr. RAMEY. This year we can buy it cheaper than we can raise it. Mr. COOLEY. This is the year 1955 we are talking about.

Mr. RAMEY. But that has not been the case until this year and here we get into the fact, again, that our support price held the price up. I would grow less corn if I could buy it as cheaply as I can grow it. Mr. COOLEY. Surely you would.

You would buy more corn?

Mr. RAMEY. If I could buy it as cheap as I can grow it I would stop growing corn and buy it. Therefore, your level of price that you have your supported level-your artificial level is the word-artificial level has priced somebody's corn out of my market.

Mr. COOLEY. You want to buy it as cheaply as you can grow it? Mr. RAMEY. I am going to grow for my own cattle unless I can buy it cheaper.

The CHAIRMAN. You are a cattle feeder. I don't blame you for being against price supports for corn, but we are thinking about the man who grows this feed for you. Unless you protect him some way as against other things, he may be in trouble. You would not want to be enriched and let him go down would you?

Mr. RAMEY. I wouldn't want him to be enriched and me go down, either.

Mr. COOLEY. The corn producer is not getting rich today. The CHAIRMAN. Not at 90 cents. Thank you, Mr. Ramey. Is Mr. Pope here, please? Give your full name and your occupation, please.

STATEMENT OF M. C. POPE, WARSAW, N. C.

Mr. POPE. My name is M. C. Pope. My address is Warsaw, N. C.
The CHAIRMAN. What is your occupation?

Mr. POPE. I am a farmer. I raise corn, cotton, potatoes, tobacco, cattle, and hogs.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you a solution to the problem we are now talking about?

Mr. POPE. Yes; I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. Give it to us, please.

Mr. POPE. All I have heard here today seems to agree that the problem is that the farmer is not getting sufficient to live off of. And the only way I know for him to get any more is give it to him. It seems to be simple.

The CHAIRMAN. We want him to earn it if he can.

Mr. POPE. Give it to him as wages and let him earn it. I think he is already earning it and not getting it.

Mr. COOLEY. Amen.

Mr. POPE. I think our parity price is not figured on the right basis. It is figured without the farmer's labor being added in.

The CHAIRMAN. Hired labor is, but not the work of the farmer himself, or any member of the family. You are right.

Mr. POPE. I can't see when the farmer raises the crop he has nothing in it but his labor and his fertilizer and those expenses, and if his labor is not added in it, he has not got much equity in it.

The CHAIRMAN. We are talking about the parity formula. That is what I had in mind.

Mr. POPE. That is the idea. I can see no difference in the sliding scale of parity when the parity is fixed on nothing. I can see no difference in 70 or 75 when the parity is nothing; 200 percent of nothing, he has still got the same. That seems to be the idea in Washingtonstraighten this thing out by giving us so much percent of nothing. It is not paying for our labor.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been farming?

Mr. POPE. Since I can remember.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you not do pretty well during the war?
Mr. POPE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. There was a market for everything you sold.

Mr. POPE. We did pretty well. The thing I think is the trouble-I may be wrong, but our trouble started right then anyhow. It was declared in 1932 that the farmer could not add his labor into parity. Then to carry out that program they made another declaration that the farmer's produce could not rise in price until it reached the hands of the processor. Therefore today corn is 90 cents a bushel and meal is $4.20 a bushel. When the miller, the processor, gets hold of it, it can rise in price. can't rise as long as the farmer has it. It can go down, but not up. The only thing I see to do is give the farmer parity price.

It

The CHAIRMAN. How would you do that?

Mr. POPE. Figure it as it is; figure his labor in.

The CHAIRMAN. But we are dealing with millions of people. In a bill we have to draw a formula that would be applicable in North Carolina as well as in Kansas and in Louisiana and California.

Mr. POPE. Yes; they are the same way. Same thing applies.

The CHAIRMAN. They farm under different conditions to attain what you call, I am sure you have cost of production in mind, it would be a big problem, and I don't know that we could write anything into law to do it.

Mr. POPE. I have this here, I don't know if you can read my handwriting. This is a farmer's worksheet that will give you what a tenant farmer gets for raising 8 acres of tobacco.

The CHAIRMAN. You have all zeros here.

Mr. POPE. That is what it amounts to. That is an itemized statement of everything done. It comes out with a row of zeros.

90 percent of nothing.

Mr. COOLEY. I think that should be inserted in the record.
The CHAIRMAN. It will go in the record at this point.

We get

(Mr. Pope's prepared statement follows:)

Farmers worksheet for 8 acres of tobacco

Fixing plant beds, 15 days at 75 cents per hour_.
Breaking land, harrowing, running rows, sowing first_
Tending crop, spraying, and suckering-

Housing crop, 8 men, 6 days apiece, at $1 per hour-
Barn help, 18 hands, 6 days apiece, at 50 cents per hour.
Curing, 12 barns, 3 days to barn, 36 days at $1 per hour_
Mules for trucking and others--

Oil, tenant's half for curing_

Cars and gas for hauling hands to and from work_.
Work of tenant's tractor, gas to run same..

Grading, 8,000 pounds tobacco at 4 cents per pound.

2 cents per pound for hauling tenant's 2,000 pounds to market.

Total_.

Tenant's half of 8,000 pounds, 4,000 pounds at 50 cents.

Total..

Tenant labor, wife, and children___

$112. 50

175.00

150.00

480.00

540. 00 360.00 75.00 180.00

50.00

200.00

320.00

40.00

2, 682.00 2,000.00

682.00 682.00

0, 000. 000

Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the farmer cannot add his labor into parity prices. Now take the tenant labor and that of his wife and children out of the above whch amounts to $682, and he will find he has worked all the years for nothing. This is slavery pure and simple on a grand scale, contrary to the Constitution of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Raynor, please. Give your name and occupation.

STATEMENT OF J. E. RAYNOR, FORT BRAGG, N. C.

Mr. RAYNOR. J. E. Raynor, Cumberland County. I am a farmer. I cultivate around 250 acres of farmland this year and have 712 acres in tobacco, 47 in cotton. I operate a cotton gin, I sell fertilizer, have 110 customers.

This is Carver's Creek Township No. 1. I am speaking for them. We have discussed pro and con this tobacco situation. My people are satisfied with the farm program. My people are satisfied with the parity. They are satisfied with everything but all these little fellows in our neighborhood I am told by ACI office that the average is 2 acres per farm. They are very much dissatisfied.

The CHAIRMAN. You want to enlarge acreage?

Mr. RAYNOR. Yes; they don't want to be cut. If you cut these farmers 25 percent they will have to borrow acres from some other county.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that in tobacco?

Mr. RAYNOR. Yes, sir. We don't have any cotton to talk about. The CHAIRMAN. You know you have, the record shows you have a supply of tobacco for 32 years with the acres you are now planting. Where would you get the acres to increase that?

Mr. RAYNOR. I didn't say increase it. I wouldn't suggest any increase. It needs to be reduced. But I don't see how you are going to reduce it 25 percent. These little farmers, I predict that they will vote against this program before they will accept a 25-percent cut.

The CHAIRMAN. I am inclined to agree. As Mr. Cooley stated, it is possible to make a gradual reduction and instead of doing it over 1

year, make it cover 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years where if it is reduced it won't be much. You would be in favor of that?

Mr. RAYNOR. Yes. I have the problem figured out in my mind that I would like to discuss with you. I feel like that people who have 2 percent or less cultivated land in tobacco should not have it reduced. They are not able to stand it.

Mr. COOLEY. With 12-percent reduction which the Secretary has already ordered, I was just told today that the average allotment in North Carolina for tobacco growers would be slightly more than 4 acres a person,

4.15.

Mr. RAYNOR. When you drop it down

Mr. COOLEY. If you have a 2-acre minimum allotment you see what is going to happen to the program.

Mr. RAYNOR. That is true. They are going to kill it if they can't get nothing.

Mr. COOLEY. The tenant farmers would be out of luck almost entirely.

Mr. RAYNOR. These big farmers are going to be out of luck, too. Mr. COOLEY. We do not have any big tobacco farmers. A man cannot be a big tobacco farmer. No one man can operate a big tobacco farm.

Mr. RAYNOR. A 1-horse cropman in our county is tending 7 and

8 acres.

Mr. COOLEY. They have many tenants.

Mr. RAYNOR. Where will they go?

Mr. COOLEY. On the highway.

Mr. RAYNOR. I have tenants I can't give an acre of tobacco. I am not satisfied to see that man cut again when he doesn't have anything to start with.

Mr. COOLEY. If we do not cut the little man you will not have anything.

Mr. RAYNOR. I don't want it if I have to gouge it out of my fellow

man.

Mr. COOLEY. It is not a question of gouging. You have to let your tenants go.

Mr. RAYNOR. Where is he going? keep from. Nowhere for him to go. farm.

That is the problem we try to
We have to put more on the

Mr. COOLEY. If you have a minimum acreage you are going to wreck the program.

Mr. RAYNOR. I am in favor of doing something for the little man that can't help himself. They are not here today.

Mr. COOLEY. I am sitting here representing them, and so is Senator Scott.

The CHAIRMAN. Why isn't he here today?

Mr. RAYNOR. They are not able to come and they are not interested in the program enough because they don't get enough out of it to interest them. With these fellows from Greene County and Wayne County and Sampson County, every one has been here. This house was full of those people with big tobacco allotments.

Mr. COOLEY. They may have had big allotments but it is all cultivated with tenants.

Mr. RAYNOR. But giving 7 and 8 acres to the tenants. I can't give them 1. I want to see these little fellows taken care of. I believe if

you

let that little man pass, cut the big man down to where he can feel it, I say 30 percent of his cultivated land in tobacco.

Mr. COOLEY. What is your total acreage?

Mr. RAYNOR. Allotment?

Mr. COOLEY. What county?

7.8.

Mr. RAYNOR. Cumberland County. I am satisfied with what I have. But I am here in the interest of the man who can't help himself.

Mr. COOLEY. That is what Senator Ellender is here for.

The CHAIRMAN. That is why I came today.

Mr. RAYNOR. You have done a fine job. You want the solution to it. You are puzzled. I am, too, but I do believe if we will cut the other fellows down some, maybe 10 percent, you can let these little fellows alone. If you cut him 20 percent he won't have anything, he can't operate.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. STANLEY. Give your name and your occupation.

STATEMENT OF J. C. STANLEY, JR., CARTHAGE, N. C.

Mr. STANLEY. I am J. C. Stanley, Jr., Moore County, N. C. I am a farmer. I have also been assistant agriculture teacher on veteran farm training, and supervisor the past 8 years. You have had a lot of discussion here today on the small farmer. So I think I will skip this preliminary on small farmers first and speak on the soil bank. I am very much interested in it. We are trying to get out of the problem we are in of the surplus commodities that we have on hand. At the same time we want to maintain these small farmers throughout our State.

If by Government help we take these acres, converted acres or acres we need to take out of these commodity crops that are overproduction, I would say go into soil conservation, use their service to the extent of building a soil bank that we can rely on in the future years.

The CHAIRMAN. We have heard a lot of testimony on that. Would you want to compensate farmers for the land set aside? How would you reach a figure?

Mr. STANLEY. I would say a period of, set a goal, have goals to work to. I have learned that in this program with the veterans I have worked with. Set up a goal of 5 to 10 years, take these idle acres and pay them on a percentage basis or maybe 6-percent interest, as one man spoke of.

The CHAIRMAN. On the value of the land?

Mr. STANLEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Market value.

Mr. STANLEY. Or set up a price, value on an acre basis of that particular crop. What it would be in the case of tobacco; we all know that is the largest income of any commodity we grow.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you make it on the basis of value of that acre or what the acre produces?

Mr. STANLEY. On the net income, I should say.

The CHAIRMAN. We just heard a moment ago where it was zero. Mr. STANLEY. According to my figures in my particular county, I don't know what the flue-cured average is for this year, it will be up

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