First Merger

BOARDS & BUREAUS

Today a farmer thirsting for a loan from his Government is shuttled back & forth among eight separate and distinct Federal credit spigots. Last week President Roosevelt moved to save him time and trouble and the U. S. $2,000,000 a year by consolidating all eight spigots into one Farm Credit Administration.

Using for the first time his new authority to reorganize the Government, the President sent to Congress an executive order merging the functions of:

The Federal Farm Board created by President Hoover in 1929; The Federal Farm Loan Bureau set up in the Treasury by President Wilson in 1916 to supervise the Federal Land Banks and the Joint Stock Land Banks and in 1923 the Intermediate Credit Banks; The Agricultural Credit Corp., an adjunct of Reconstruction Finance Corp. established in 1932; The Crop Production Loan Bureau of the Department of Agriculture dating back to 1921; and the same department's other Co-operative Loan Bureau.

Unless a House and Senate majority veto it beforehand, the Roosevelt order becomes effective May 27, 1933.

The Farm Credit Administration will not only handle all brands of loans newly made but will also undertake the President's billion-dollar mortgage relief program when enacted (see p. 12). New York's Henry Morgenthau Jr., 41, son of Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to Turkey, was to be made Governor of the Farm Credit Administration upon the abolition of the Farm Board of which he was appointed chairman. A Dutchess County neighbor of President Roosevelt, he served under him as New York State Conservation Commissioner. He publishes the American Agriculturist, runs a 1,400-acre fruit and dairy farm. Said he: "Our idea is to fix the credit structure so that a farmer can borrow money for planting, harvesting and upon his land all in one spot."

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