Heat &. Wheat

Last week it was 110DEG in the wheat fields of Kansas and Iowa. Politically it was even hotter as wheat prices slumped to the lowest level in 17 years, 60-c- per bu. locally, 86-c- at Chicago. To escape a brassy sun harvesters worked by moonlight. By day, horses heaved and died by the score. The grain turned white, the ground cracked open. But the threat of a burned crop and reduced production was not sufficient to revive wilting prices.

Into this Midwest oven last week went Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Mastick Hyde and Chairman of the Farm Board Alexander Legge to preach the gospel of wheat acreage reduction. Before they left Washington they solemnly warned wheat producers that ahead of them lay seven lean years with "world wheat prices . . . appreciably lower than in the last seven years" (TIME, July 14). Secretary Hyde, comparing himself with Paul Revere, declared: "We are posted as sentries on the lookout towers to see what is coming. We would be derelict in our duty if we didn't warn the farmers. . . ."

Messrs. Legge and Hyde opened their campaign at Hastings, Neb. The thermometer stood at 100DEG. Declared Chairman Legge: "A 25% reduction [in wheat acreage] will put production on a domestic basis. Reduce the acreage of wheat, without regard to what is done with the land thus released. You can put this land into grass for the benefit of your children. Do anything with it but don't raise wheat on it. ... If a great majority of producers could act collectively, adjustment in production becomes easy."

Swinging out through Colorado, Campaigners Legge and Hyde entered western Kansas where, at Hays, Governor Clyde Reed was waiting to dispute their economic message. Governor Reed had last month asked the Farm Board to buy 25 million more bushels of wheat to up the market price (TIME, July 7). Chairman Legge had sharply reminded him that the Farm Board was no "Santa Claus!" In their hotel lobby Chairman Legge met Governor Reed, joshed him: "Don't mind Hyde and me. We're harmless. But watch out for these economists. They're chain lightning when you tangle with them."

Before a large coatless audience in the Hays Coliseum, Governor Reed opened the argument by bitterly flaying the Farm Board's crop reduction program. He declared western Kansas could raise nothing but wheat unless it returned to live stock, asked why crop limitation was not imposed east of the Mississippi River, criticized the Farm Board's "gospel of despair."

Governor Reed took a personal dig at Chairman Legge as onetime head of International Harvester Co. when he declared: "Is it fair, is it sound public policy to ask the wheat farmer to leave his land idle to permit an expansion of the agricultural implement trade in foreign countries so as to enable those countries to better compete with the American wheat farmer?" On the platform beside him Chairman Legge clamped his cigar, made no answer. When his turn to speak came he explained that the Farm Board had already sunk in wheat twice the crop's proportionate share of the $500,000,000 stabilization fund. Said he: "Fellow farmers! At least I hope some of you are farmers. . . . Are you fellows mendicants or beggars that you want more [U. S. funds]? ... If you'd quit being a confirmed individualist and organize to control production, you could get some place."

Next day at Dodge City Chairman Legge, referring to Kansas as the largest U. S. wheat producing State, declared: "The biggest hog will always lie in the trough. Kansas is now in its trough." By the time he had reached Amarillo, Tex., Kansas was up in arms at his epithet. Max and Louis Levand, publishers of the Wichita Beacon, wired President Hoover that his Farm Board Chairman had "insulted 1.850.000 people," demanded Mr. Legge's resignation. To Chairman Legge they telegraphed :

"Since you say you are through and the best you can do is to advise farmers of Kansas to 'sit tight,' we ask you to resign."

To newsmen Mr. Legge said: "You may present my compliments to Max and Louis and tell them I said they can go to Hell. . . . The expression I used is one farmers understand. My listeners got the idea I was conveying that Governor Reed is putting Kansas in that position. I can't say I was wholly faultless in peeving Governor Reed but I couldn't let him get away with that. . . ."

But the week's most astonishing turn against the Farm Board's wheat policy occurred not on the Legge-Hyde barnstorming trip but in Washington where Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, staunch Administration supporter, joined the hue and cry for the Board to buy more wheat. Earlier in the week, through the Republican National Committee, Senator Capper had issued a political statement praising the Board and its chairman. Mr. Legge's appointment, he said, "has proved one of the most notable to public service in many years." President Hoover, he insisted, had fulfilled his farm aid pledges of the campaign.

Four days later Senator Capper (up for re-election this year) switched around to demand that the Farm Board buy 100 million bushels more of wheat. He cried: "Reduction of acreage may be all right but it can't remedy its situation this year. Wheat prices have approached a crisis and it must be met. If the stabilization program is ever going to work, now is the time for it. The Government couldn't lose money on the purchase of wheat at present prices and it would improve conditions. The farmer was never in a worse predicament."

Only small crumb of comfort the husbandmen had last week: announcements that Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery, Ward were reducing mail-order prices from 10% to 25%.

Midwest hostility toward the Administration for the kind of farm relief it was supplying continued to grow at such a rate that President Hoover was seriously advised by G. O. P. leaders to give up his summer trip into that disaffected territory lest unseemly scenes along his route cause him public embarrassment. Only crumb of comfort for the Administration and the Board: in his daily syndicated message Calvin Coolidge said: "It would certainly be fair and probably wise to defer judgment on the reported actions of the Federal Farm Board until the results are fully matured and they are in a position to reveal what they have done and why they did it. This board is so well supplied with hard-headed business experience that they are entitled to the presumption of having used the best judgment possible in executing the law under existing conditions. The reported use of public money in a direct attempt to steady the market may turn out to have been justified. . . . Possibly it will make a bad matter worse. ... If . . . the Farm Board demonstrates . . . that even the United States Treasury cannot maintain a fixed price for farm produce ... it will be worth all it costs."

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