Mr. WILLIAMS. Didn't you say that your organization had opposed making the recommendations of the National Defense Mediation Board mandatory?

Mr. SARGENT. I said that we would be opposed to compulsory arbitration, in response to a question by Mr. Lynch, I believe. That is correct. We have opposed that in every form that I know of.

We have said that both employer and employee might temporarily be asked to withhold action for a limited duration of time. We would not consider that an abandonment of a right. But an abandonment of the right to strike, we think, would be unfair.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I just wanted to ask whether or not in the case of an emergency such as we have now your organization would still oppose that principle of making the findings of the Mediation Board mandatory.

Mr. SARGENT. So far we have opposed it. Whether the time will come when we may make some other suggestion, I don't know. But we have not yet, sir.

Mr. FORD. I would like to ask about the plan proposed by the C. I. O., which they call the industry council, which you rejected. You say you have studied it somewhat.

I am looking here at the objectives of the plan. It says that the objectives shall be the expediting of the defense program and the assuring of adequate production of defense or nonmilitary goods, subject to review by the National Defense Board.

Now, any goods that we took will be subject to that review. What is your proposal about ascertaining the domestic and armament requirements of the responsible industry? Do you think that that should be done?

Mr. SARGENT. I certainly want that done.

Mr. FORD. Yes. And they want that to be done.

The next objective is to coordinate the production program of each industry and of each requirement speedily and accurately. That is a very good objective, is it not?

Mr. SARGENT. That sounds good, but I am afraid there might be a question whether they would endeavor to go as far as the English situation, where they drove some employers out of business and concentrated the war work in the hands of a few.

Mr. FORD. And then they have this other objective: To extend the production facilities of every industry to fulfill these require

ments.

They propose even a further plan, and that is to go down into the small industries and find out what their facilities are and what they can contribute to the national effort, both the large and the small.

Now, it seems to me that the objectives of those councils, of that council plan, are almost ideal. I don't presume that they would work out that way, because human affairs don't work out that way. But I do believe that they have made a suggestion there as to its objectives, and a very simple method of carrying them out.

Of course, you say you would object to industry sitting-not sitting down, but permitting the men that do the work to have a voice in how it should be done. I am wondering what you heads of industry would do if the men who do the work should just quit and say, "We don't want to do anything." What good would the indus

trial plan be? What good would its capital be? What good would the raw materials be? What good would anything be?

Mr. SARGENT. I would not have you believe, or anyone believe, sir, and I am sure that you do not, that we are opposed to the endeavor to have industry and labor work together harmoniously in mutual agreement. But the question may come as to how best to promote that, and we have disagreed at times concerning that. But certainly there would not be any disagreement about the need for harmonious relations between management and labor if you are going to have goods produced at a price that will be fair to the consumer.

Mr. FORD. It seems to me that under those circumstances industry ought to welcome a suggestion of this kind from an organization as extensive as the C. I. O. is; and that if they come in here with clean hands and in good faith and sit around the table with industry executives, as they set forth in here is their primary purpose, it seems to me that industry could very well and with great benefit to itself and to the entire country take that thing seriously and at least give it a whirl in the way of a preliminary, at least preliminary, consul

tation.

Mr. WILLIAMS. The committee will recess now until 2:30. (Whereupon, at 12:20 p. m., a recess was taken until 2:30 p. m.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The committee reconvened at 2: 45 p. m., at the expiration of the recess, Hon. Henry B. Steagall, chairman, presiding.)

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. I believe it is understood that Senator Brookhart will be recognized. We are glad to have you with us. The committee will be glad to have you proceed. SMITH W. BROOKHART, REPRESENTING LITTLE BUSINESSMEN'S LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND OTHERS

Mr. BROOKHART. Mr. Chairman, I represent especially the Little Businessmen's League of America. It has 89,000 registered members in 32 States. I cannot claim them as dues-paying members, because most of them do not have enough income to pay any dues, but they have all paid their registration fee. As their legal representative here I am serving without pay. I have not anything to pay me. In addition to that I always claim before all these committees when discussing the farm problem that I represent the unorganized farmers of the United States and claim that my proposition is to their best interest and the best solution of their problem.

I am also a charter member of the Farm Bureau, although I do not speak for it, except for myself. I am a life member of the Farmers Union, and I do not speak for it, though it has generally gone with me on this proposition, and John Simpson, its president, at the time the 1909-14 basis was put into the law went with me before the Senate committee to oppose that, and we were the only two who did.

I am also a member of the Potomac Grange here in Washington, the oldest grange and the first one that was ever established, but I am speaking individually only, there. The Little Businessmen's League joins quite emphatically with labor and agriculture.

Now, so far as this farm problem is concerned, I want to state to you immediately that I challenge this 1909-14 basis. I say it is not parity and is not half of parity, and I propose to prove it to you out of the official bulletins of the Agriculture Department itself.

First I might discuss for a moment what I regard as a fair, square, honest parity for the farmers. At the present moment there are about 212 percent of the adult people of the United States on the farms. There are about 292 percent of the children on the farms. The farm families are a little larger. Adults and children together are about 25 percent of the total population. There is about 14 percent of all property value invested in agriculture, even at the present low value of farm lands everywhere.

Now, there are those basic percentages. When you talk about parity those are the factors that have the greatest weight in determining what parity should be. In addition to that, the farmers work longer hours than in any industry in the United States as a whole, and they work more days a week. If they have livestock it is a 7-day week job to care for livestock, and, of course, that is the greatest part of the industry in my country.

Since that is the situation, what would you think, what would you fix in your own mind, and I would like to ask the committee now, since those are the facts before you, what would you decide is the percentage of the national income that the farmers are entitled to, if they had to carry 25 percent of all property values and their average is 25 percent of population and had to work equally compared with everybody else? Why, anyone would say at once that they are entitled to a per capita share of the national income as parity.

Since the capital investment is below 25 percent-down to about 14 percent-perhaps that will cut that percentage down some. It would if it were a fair value of real estate. But when I show you what the relation of the farm income has been all these years, since 1850-we will go back that far-you will see at once that if the farmers had a per capita share of the income all those years, their properties would have been improved and their per capita value would have been 25 percent of the value, instead of 14 percent of the value of all property.

We had a land boom in the wartime. My State was perhaps the biggest boom State of all. Land reached, in the official figures here, an average of $227 an acre in the State of Iowa in 1920. That was the highest year. In 1935 the Iowa census-our 1940 census has not broken it down yet-shows it had dropped to $71.85 an acre; and I can say to you that an investigation will show that that $71.85 is hardly the cost of the improvements that have been put on the land in Iowa, and yet that practically is its present value. Maybe it is a little higher in 1940 than it was in 1935, but it won't be much, as the situation will show.

Now, under that situation it is my claim that an honest parity would be a per capita income of the farm people of the United States with the nonfarm people of the United States. If you are going to strike off something because they do not carry a full per capita investment in capital, I would say that you would not be

entitled under any conditions to strike off more than 5 percent for that, and that would leave 20 percent of the national income as a fair or just parity for the farmers of the United States.

In the last campaign Mr. Willkie, the Republican candidate for President, said the farmers got only 12 percent of the national income. Keep that in mind, because there is going to be a surprise when we argue this out, and Senator McNary said the same thing. He said although they are 25 percent of the population, they get only 12 percent of the national income. Now, I am going to show you what they did get.

I am handing to you now the national-income figures as computed by the Commerce Department. The only department in this Government that computes national income is the Commerce Department. That is the only place you get it. You will find national income in table 89. You will notice that there are 13 items down there in the national income. Agriculture is the first item, at the top of the page; mining comes next; electric light; manufacturing; communications; transportation; finance; and government,. which would be taxes; then the service; miscellaneous; and the Social Security. That item is taken out in 1940, but trade is divided into wholesale and retail trade, so it says at 13 items for the national income. (The table referred to is as follows:)

Government, excluding work-program wages.

Work-program wages.

Service

Miscellaneous.

Social security contributions of employers.

Bureau of Labor Statistics wholesale-price index.