Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

SIXTY-NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

S. 973, S. 2289, S. 2541, S. 2917, S. 2918,
S. 3446, S. 3509, and H. R. 7893

BILLS RELATIVE TO AGRICULTURE RELIEF

APRIL 13, 1926

PART 3

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

.A 5
192067

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1926

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., in room 326, Senate Office Building, Senator George W. Norris presiding.

Present: Senators Norris (chairman), McNary, Capper, Keyes, Gooding, Norbeck, Harreld, Sackett, Smith, Ransdell, Kendrick, Heflin, Ferris, and Mayfield.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

Senator Shipstead desires to make a statement to the committee on this proposed legislation.

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRIK SHIPSTEAD, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Senator SHIPSTEAD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I desire to present to you in as short a statement as possible my reasons for asking your consideration of the bill S. 973 that I have introduced in the Senate and that is now before your committee. I may say in the beginning that in my opinion the essential agricultural problem before the country is the question of a fair price for farm products. Agriculture can not thrive unless the farmer gets a fair price for his products, and this fair price must be obtained not only at certain indefinite periods, but in order to remove the risk of farming that fair price must be stabilized so that at any time when a farmer has any product ready for the market he can always receive a fair price for that product. It seems to me that legislation that is to help the farmer must have that aim in view. We must get as close to that ideal as we can. If agriculture is to be made safe we must take it out of the hands of the forces that have such a powerful influence in the wide range of fluctuation in farm products.

I will not now go into any great detail in enumerating these forces. It is sufficient to say they are many in number and among them I can name the influence of speculation, for instance, in grain; the question of monopoly control of the packing industry and its products; influence of the inflation and deflation of credit and currency; transportation rates; and the question of a national surplus in its determining effect upon the domestic market and the factor of the world market upon that surplus. All these forces at work have produced a chaotic condition in the marketing of agricultural products.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »