Senators v. Hoover

Campaign speeches are written to mean a lot of things to many men. Candidate Hoover's were no exception. Last week the more incongruous of his campaign sup porters arose in the Senate to decry what they called "inconsistencies" between the Hoover position on farm relief before the election and after.

Candidate Hoover discussed husbandry and its problems in his closing campaign speech, at St. Louis. President Hoover recommended to Congress a farm relief plan, consisting of tariff revisions and the creation of a Federal Farm Board with "adequate working capital" to reorganize marketing, to assist co-operatives handle surplus crops. Later, he opposed the export debenture plan produced by the Senate, whereby exporters of farm produce would receive a bounty equal to one-half the tariff rate on the same commodity (TIME, April 29).

Deserters. First to square off at the President's farm program was florid, blinking Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart of Iowa. A vociferous champion of radical farm measures, Senator Brookhart had pleaded the Hoover cause in 200 stump speeches last autumn. He had shouted to rural audiences that the Republican candidate was "progressive" on farm legislation. "Progressive" in those days meant much more than it does now.

Last week Senator Brookhart called the Senate's attention to quotations from Mr. Hoover's campaign speeches, contrasted them with his official statements as President:

Candidate Hoover: "The most urgent economic problem... is agriculture. It must be solved."

President Hoover: "The difficulties of agriculture cannot be cured in a day . . . by legislation ... by the Federal government alone."

Candidate Hoover: "The traditional co-operative is . . . not a complete solution."

Senator Brookhart: "In his [Hoover's] message to Congress there is no method pointed out for a solution except loans to co-operatives."

Candidate Hoover: "Another part of the solution must be to secure greater stability in prices."

President Hoover: "No governmental agencies should engage in the buying and selling and price-fixing of products."

Senator Brookhart: "This is where the price-fixing proposition comes in and that dogma of price-fixing now rises up to nullify the pledge the President made, the one that perhaps influenced more farmers than any other in the campaign."

Candidate Hoover: "We give the Federal Farm Board every arm with which to deal with the multitude of problems."

Senator Brookhart: "This Senate Bill gives it no arm to buy and sell the surpluses of farm products . . . cuts out the very pledge made by the President so distinctly."

Tactics. Despite Senator Brookhart and friends, however, President Hoover's opposition to the Senate bill began to show results. Support of the debenture plan began to crumble. Informal Senate polls predicted its probable defeat. Its advocates schemed how they could transfer it from the farm bill to the tariff bill, explaining that its location there would be more logical. In the tariff bill they thought it would muster more House support, would be harder for the President to veto. Nebraska's Norris drafted an amendment to reduce the bounty on crops over-produced.

Many a Senator put aside his own opinions in favor of the President's to hasten action on this legislation. North Dakota's young Nye, usually troublesome, saw the futility of wrestling with the Hoover bloc in the House. Said he: "There is no use wasting time. . . . We ought to agree upon a bill promptly so that the farmers will get assistance in this year's crops."

More potent support for the Hoover position came, unexpectedly, from Frank Orren Lowden, mightiest of Farmer's friends, the man who withdrew his candidacy at Kansas City when the Republican National Convention refused to endorse the equalization fee, and sulked on his Illinois estate through the campaign. Mr. Lowden said: "It becomes the duty of all sincere friends of farm relief to cooperate with the Administration in giving effect to its' program." Reports filled the capital that Mr. Lowden might be asked to head the Federal Farm Board.

The House Bill.--The full force of Hoover authority was plainly exhibited when the House, docile and well-pledged, passed the administration's-- farm bill 367 to 34.* Fenced off with the barbed wire of special rules which kept out all amendments including the debenture plan, the measure was practically unchanged by eight days of debate. It provided for: A Federal Farm Board, supplied with $500,000,000 to advance to farm co-operatives for marketing purposes, to stabilization corporations for buying and holding surplus crops.

* The House passed the first McNary-Haugen Bill 214 to 178; the second, 204 to 122.