munity. Soon, the stockholders of large land companies located in remote areas will be drawing this benefit; soon the tenants and hired laborers of the land companies, the only residents on the land, will be like the employees in mines and factories, not sharing in the profits derived from the Government bounty to the degree that the absentee companies do. It is well to recall at this time the view of Liberty Hyde Bailey, chairman of Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission, dean of the college of agriculture of Cornell University, and outstanding authority on farm problems who said: "The ultimate good in the use of land is the development of the people; it may be better that more persons have contact with it than that it shall be executively more effectively administered. The morals of land management is more important than the economics of land management." Or the profound advice Theodore Roosevelt offered the country on this same line: "The welfare of the farmer is of vital consequence to the welfare of the whole community." Our civilization, he held, "rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country. Upon the development of country life rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to feed, clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the Nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace." No nation, he said, “had ever achieved permanent greatness unless this greatness was based on the well-being of the great farmer class, the men who live on the soil; for it is upon their welfare, material, and moral, that the welfare of the rest of the Nation ultimately rests." The Government reclamation policy has been amazingly successful and its benefits have been widely and democratically shared. To open those benefits now to the great land companies and large individual owners will almost assuredly mean that their large holdings will be operated as factory farms, largely with migrant and perhaps immigrant labor. When Federal reclamation policy is thus changed to provide water for the huge holdings of the land companies which refuse to divide up their land into small farms, when it produces profits to stockholders but only wages to local resident laborers, when it contributes further to huge surpluses that bedevil our economy, all without providing the social and indeed economic advantages that Americans have long associated with family farm ownership, then it be comes time to reconsider that policy. If our historic reclamation policy is to be abandoned with its goal of providing farms, livelihoods for many people, and in its place is to be substituted a policy of providing water for vast farm factories owned by monolithic land companies with headquarters in Los Angeles or San Francisco, and stockholders in financial centers in the East surely there will be much question about the wisdom and justice of using Federal funds for reclamation projects. The At a time when every possible effort is being made to provide assistance to the small-business man so that he may survive in competition with big corporations, the Government should not turn its back on the small homesteader in the newly developed irrigation areas of the West. Students of business history have stressed the value of small business to our economy, contending that small businesses are often fully as efficient as unwieldly corporations and that from the ranks of small business have come the men with new ideas. advantages to a democratic society of a large class of independent family farm owners are more intangible but they have been recognized since the foundation of the Republic. Furthermore we have gradually developed extensive and varied forms of social machinery to insure that small farmers shall also be efficient farmers. I refer to the agricultural research agencies, the agricultural educational institutions and the extension programs provided by the Federal Government and by the States, to the farm financing and farmers insurance services originated with Federal aid, and to various cooperative and mutual aid associations created by the farmers themselves. Our historic policy has been to assist the small farmer and we have developed valuable social machinery through which we can do it. Legislation which would open the way for the creation of great corporate farms, as the proposed changes in the Reclamation Act would do, may be regarded as tending to create trusts and monopolies in agriculture by a Government supposedly opposed to them in business. Questions of land policy are among the most important any Government has to decide. Recently the United States played host to a conference on problems of land tenure. Representatives from many different nations came to discuss with us and to learn from us. Democratic nations, England, the Scandinavian countries, postwar Germany, France, Italy, some of the near eastern countries, all related how their agricultural reforms had been designed to break up large estates and/or to consolidate fragmentary holdings to create farms that would support a family. Tenants were being assisted and encouraged to become owners (except in England where tenancy was closely regulated by the state). We may well ask ourselves if the United States, the leader of the free world, would do well to adopt policies more akin to those of Soviet gigantism in agriculture than to policies adopted by other democratic nations anxious to broaden and strengthen the economic bases of their political democracies. We do not yet have the pressure of population on land that exists in the Old World but our population is growing and at an unexpectedly rapid rate. Nothing, it seems to me should be done to facilitate the creation of or to maintain the existence of large landed properties by individuals or corporations. Let us learn from the history of older societies. We would only be storing up trouble for the future if we were to do so. My plea is that we do not turn our back on the wisdom of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, who believed that Government policy should be directed to assure the creation and prosperity of single-family farms, that we not abandon the policy of aiding farmers of small means to acquire homesteads in the areas in which Federal water is making the desert into highly productive land. I join heartily in support of the efforts of Senators Paul Douglas, Wayne Morse, and Richard Neuberger to preserve the traditional reclamation policy and particularly to retain the limitation on the acreage of farms for which water is provided from Federal projects. Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, 208 KING STREET, Appalachia, Va., April 28, 1958. Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Interior Committee, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: As a citizen of our great Nation and a rural worker in Holston Valley, under the town and country department, I wish to express an approval of the Federal reclamation law. We favor the Federal reclamation law, unadulterated by Barrett formulas or otherwise. We support the excess-land provisions against land speculation, and water monopoly, and we are in accord with the American principles of widespread ownership of land and family farm operation. DEAR SENATOR: It has long been my opinion that our Government should help stabilize farming. One way of doing that is by supporting family-sized farms. Therefore I strongly support the 160-acre irrigation limitation which I understand is now being challenged. Yours truly, 26144-58———17 CARL LAURSEN. Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, MINISTRY AND HOME MISSION COMMISSION, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Interior Committee, Washington, D. C. HONORABLE SENATOR: I want to take this opportunity to express to you my interest and concern in the hearings regarding the 160-acre water limitation on the Reclamation Act. As one who is responsible for rural life in the Church of the Brethren which is a communion of some 200,000 members, with a strong and continuing rural background in America during these last 225 years, I feel that our people would be deeply concerned that the 160-acre limitation be retained. We have been people who have been farm-owning, farm-operating persons. Our church across these last 225 years has been rooted in rural America. It is only in recent years that we have begun to minister in any significant way to the urban life; therefore, I think the attitude of our constituency on rural concerns is a little different even from that of other church groups. It is my conviction that the farms of our Nation ought to be kept family farms, and that the tendency toward becoming large corporation farms is certainly a detriment to the future of our Nation and to the well-being of our family life. Let me urge you, therefore, that you do all within your power to keep the values of the family farm in the forefront of your thinking as you follow through the hearings and the recommendations as a result of them. Sincerely yours, CHARLES E. ZUNKEL, Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, NATIONAL COLLEGE FOR CHRISTIAN WORKERS, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: As a professor of rural sociology and supervisor of fieldwork for prospective rural church-community workers, I am interested in the hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation: the bills S. 1425, S. 2541, and S. 3448. I strongly favor a Federal reclamation law containing the excess land provision against land speculation and water monopoly. Such legislation is necessary to curb the growth of corporation farming and the concentration of economic power. It will help preserve the family-size farm which creates more local business, more opportunity for more people in business, farming and the professions, more stable, more democratic and healthier communities. The distance from Washington to the area which would be most affected by the proposed legislation makes it impossible for most individuals or representatives of local organizations supporting the reclamation law to appear before the committee. Therefore, I would request the committee to hold hearings throughout the west before any action is taken on whether to weaken or destroy this law. Respectfully yours, PAUL TAYLOR Miss VERA FALLS. AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE, INC., Care of Hon. Clinton P. Anderson, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR PAUL TAYLOR: At the request of Walter Packard, Bard McAllister has supplied the AFSC information relative to the future of the 160-acre limitation in Tulare County. I have called this information to the attention of Raymond Wilson, executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. If in his judgment it is appropriate, I have asked him to bring this information to the attention of Senators Paul Douglas and Clinton Anderson. Raymond Wilson has also been prepared to receive a call from you if any aid from the FSNL is desired, telephone LIncoln 7-4343. The Friends Service Committee as a religious and charitable agency is precluded from taking action on legislation. Sincerely yours, STEPHEN THIERMANN. Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: The Friends Committee on National Legislation would appreciate an opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee Irrigation and Reclamation on the 160-acre limitation bill on April 30. us. We anticipate that C. Edward Behre, a member of our committee, will represent Sincerely yours, EDWARD F. SNYDER. CENTRAL BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Senator CLINTON ANDERSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: Again it has come to my attention that renewed effort is being made to destroy or greatly modify the law that forbids 1 individual owning more than 160 acres of irrigated, reclaimed land. It seems to me that for the best welfare of the country the law should remain as it is. Sincerely yours, C. R. MCBRIDE, AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETIES, Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Interior Committee, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: It is my understanding that hearings by your committee will be held on April 30 with regard to the principle of the 160-acre water limitation of the Reclamation Act, and specifically on bills S. 1425, S. 2541, and S. 3448. In this connection I should like to request that the following resolution adopted by the American Baptist Convention in 1952, and still regarded as the basic policy of our denomination in this matter, be included in the record of the hearings before your committee. "Resolved, That the members of our churches work for the preservation and multiplication of the family-owned, family-managed, family-lived, and familyworked farm; ***" We would therefore regard any weakening of the family farm principle on federally irrigated land as contrary to the best interests of the American people. Very truly yours, CLAYTON A. PEPPER, Field Director. WOMAN'S DIVISION OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE OF THE Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: We are happy to know that hearings have been arranged on the 160-acre water limitation of the Reclamation Act. The Woman's Division of Christian Service of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church has always maintained its intereset in the family farm. We feel that there are values inherent in the family farm that would be difficult to duplicate elsewhere, and whose loss would be a great loss to American life as a whole. We have urged that a vigorous program to restore the prosperity of the American farmer should be developed with all possible speed, and that this program "should take into consideration the need to continue the American family farm." We are grateful for your efforts on behalf of these values in American farm life. Sincerely yours, MRS. C. A. BENDER. WOMAN'S DIVISION OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE OF THE Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Interior DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: I am interested in the hearing to start this week on the proposed modification of the Reclamation Act to raise the 160-acre limitation on Federally irrigated land. Inasmuch as there are already many factors making it difficult for small farmers to operate successfully, the further competition that would be created by opening up this irrigation privilege to big owners and corporations would most certainly cause the abandonment of more small farms. I hope the committee will realize that it is not true that people have lost interest in the American principles of widespread ownership of land and the operation of family farms. I wish to register my protest against any changes in the Reclamation Act which would give more privileges to the already powerful corporations engaged in agricultural work. The evidence does not convince anyone that a trend toward factory farming, large scale corporate ownership should be encouraged by the Congress with irrigation water developed by tax money. Sincerely yours, CORNELIA RUSSELL. UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: I am writing with reference to the hearings announced for this coming week on the excess land provisions of reclamation law as these would be affected by the bills introduced by Senator Barrett (S. 3448 and S. 2541) and by Senators Douglas, Morse, and Neuberger (S. 1425). The Council for Christian Social Action of the United Church of Christ, which I serve as associate director with staff responsibility for our subcommittee on economic life, has not had opportunity to study the bills presently under consideration, or to formulate a policy statement concerning them. However, both the Council for Social Action of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Commission on Christian Social Action of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, whose interests and work have been joined in the present council, have long been on record in regard to two principles which are at stake in the current hearings. One is a concern for the welfare of the farm family. In February and May of 1950, respectively, these two predecessor bodies stated that any national farm program "should perpetuate the pattern of efficient owner-operated family farming *** In the face of the growth of great industrialized farms on the one hand and the existence of thousands of uneconomic, small farms on the other, a satisfactory farm program must not only defend but positively aid the perpetuation of efficient, owner-operated family farms." The other question is that of the method by which the family farm is sustained in areas irrigated by federally constructed dams. As long ago as March 1948 our two agencies said: "We support the retention of the 160-acre limitation in the Federal Reclamation Act." As stated above, our present council, formed as a result of the union of our two denominations, has not had opportunity to review this issue. I am, however, convinced that nothing has happened during the past 10 years which would lead us to question or change the position previously taken. And much of the responsible leadership of our denomination, especially in our rural churches, would share this point of view. |