TABLE 92.-National income from goods and services and agriculture's contribution Mr. DEWEY. What does that first line mean, "Net income from agriculture per farm"?1 Mr. BROOKHART. There are 62 million farms-something like that. They take the total income. Mr. DEWEY. What did you say was the value per acre in Iowa? Mr. BROOKHART. The value in Iowa was $227, according to Agricultural statistics. Mr. DEWEY. And they make $1.306 per farm? Mr. BROOKHART. Well, something like that-$227 an acre-and the average farm is about 159 acres. Mr. DEWEY. And the income in agriculture per farm in 1920 is shown only as $1,306. It seems to me that there is something wrong in there. I do not understand how Mr. BROOKHART. What table is it you are reading from? You Mr. BROOKHART. That is the farms of the United States. notice the time they had the high income in 1917, 1918, and 1919. Mr. KUNKEL. In other words, a farm might be 5 acres or a thousand acres? Mr. BROOKHART. Yes, sir. It is just the average of the whole thing. The high relative income was in those 3 years. 1 Table 91, p. 1787. What was it that made the farmers better off in 1917, 1918, and 1919 than in any other years? Those are the years when Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson fixed the prices of wheat at $2.20, then at $2.26, the prices of hogs at 1712 cents, and then under that situation cotton went to as high as 44 cents a pound. That is why those years, when the price fixing was on, are the 3 best years the farmers ever had. Now, again, in this bulletin those 3 years show that, although they were the best, the farmers were 30 percent of the people-farmers in those years and they got only 20.2 percent of the national income then. So even in those 3 best years of highest war prices they were still considerably below a fair parity income. Now, I think I have shown you the situation as to the farm business. What is the cause of it? The cause of it is largely the economic discrimination that has always gone against agriculture. How are farm prices fixed? How is the price of an International Harvester machine fixed? Well, a board of directors of that company get together in session and they figure up what the labor cost will be in producing those machines, and then they figure up what the material cost will be, and then they figure up depreciation for their plant and their equipment. Then they figure up their taxes. They figure up then what return they are going to charge the farmers on their capital for those machines. They add up all those items and they divide them by the number of units they are going to produce, and that is the fixed price they charge the farmers of the United States. And that is exactly what I want for the farmers of the United States, as nearly as it can be. We cannot take it by individual farmers, but we can take it by the average, and we can average it over a period of years, as Senator McAdoo did in his bill, and the resolution I am going to present is based on Senator McAdoo's move as a substitute against Wallace's bill, and it got 40 votes against 46 on that motion from the floor over in the Senate. Now, how are farm prices fixed? Is there anybody out figuring what the cost of the farmer is for a bale of cotton or a bushel of wheat? Is there anybody who has had anything to do with these prices who has said a word about that in fixing his prices? Not a word. All the farmer has is a bunch of gamblers, mainly down at Chicago. or New Orleans, or New York, betting on the price of his products. I have got the official report of that gambling business in the United States. For 10 years before 1937 it averaged $25,000,000,000 a year, and the total gross sales were less than $8,000,000,000 a year on those years. There was only twenty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent of that $25,000,000,000 that was ever delivered. The farmer did not know the day before what his cattle or his hogs were worth or what his cotton or anything else was worth. I have started loading cattle to Chicago, and it was down 50 cents a hundred before it got there, overnightand that gambling game fixed the price in the cash market. This report of the Agriculture Department shows that to be true. If it did not show it, it is true, anyhow. Here we have these two systems of price fixing, one by a bunch of gamblers for the farmers, and the other by cost of production, figuring for all the industries of the United States. Can you name to me any What was it that made the farmers better off in 1917, 1918, and 1919 than in any other years? Those are the years when Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson fixed the prices of wheat at $2.20, then at $2.26, the prices of hogs at 172 cents, and then under that situation cotton went to as high as 44 cents a pound. That is why those years, when the price fixing was on, are the 3 best years the farmers ever had. Now, again, in this bulletin those 3 years show that, although they were the best, the farmers were 30 percent of the people-farmers in those years and they got only 20.2 percent of the national income then. So even in those 3 best years of highest war prices they were still considerably below a fair parity income. Now, I think I have shown you the situation as to the farm business. What is the cause of it? The cause of it is largely the economic discrimination that has always gone against agriculture. How are farm prices fixed? How is the price of an International Harvester machine fixed? Well, a board of directors of that company get together in session and they figure up what the labor cost will be in producing those machines, and then they figure up what the material cost will be, and then they figure up depreciation for their plant and their equipment. Then they figure up their taxes. They figure up then what return they are going to charge the farmers on their capital for those machines. They add up all those items and they divide them by the number of units they are going to produce, and that is the fixed price they charge the farmers of the United States. And that is exactly what I want for the farmers of the United States, as nearly as it can be. We cannot take it by individual farmers, but we can take it by the average, and we can average it over a period of years, as Senator McAdoo did in his bill, and the resolution I am going to present is based on Senator McAdoo's move as a substitute against Wallace's bill, and it got 40 votes against 46 on that motion from the floor over in the Senate. Now, how are farm prices fixed? Is there anybody out figuring what the cost of the farmer is for a bale of cotton or a bushel of wheat? Is there anybody who has had anything to do with these prices who has said a word about that in fixing his prices? Not a word. All the farmer has is a bunch of gamblers, mainly down at Chicago, or New Orleans, or New York, betting on the price of his products. I have got the official report of that gambling business in the United States. For 10 years before 1937 it averaged $25,000,000,000 a year, and the total gross sales were less than $8,000,000,000 a year on those years. There was only twenty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent of that $25,000,000,000 that was ever delivered. The farmer did not know the day before what his cattle or his hogs were worth or what his cotton or anything else was worth. I have started loading cattle to Chicago, and it was down 50 cents a hundred before it got there, overnightand that gambling game fixed the price in the cash market. This report of the Agriculture Department shows that to be true. If it did not show it, it is true. anyhow. Here we have these two systems of price fixing, one by a bunch of gamblers for the farmers, and the other by cost of production, figuring for all the industries of the United States. Can you name to me any |