Coal County, was one of the most prosperous counties in the State, and I understand now that there is not a bank left in the county, State or national; that every one has failed; that there is not a single bank in the county. And all along the line of the Frisco Railroad running east out of my town, the Arkansas line, there are 8 or 10 little towns, and of course every little town had a first national bank, and I think every first national bank in those little towns has failed except 2. There are 2 out of 8 or 9, I think it is, that still have their doors open and are doing business. The farmers just haven't had the money. Mr. ASWELL. Oklahoma is not in any worse condition than the Dakotas and the Northwest. Mr. CARTER. Of course, I have not been to the Dakotas for five or six years, and I don't know their condition, but no section of the country could be in any worse condition, financially-that is, the agricultural people-than southeast Oklahoma. Mr. TINCHER. This committee established a policy of loaning money to farmers in dire need to furnish them seed to enable them to replant. You voted for it in the House. Now, I am in favor of doing that for Oklahoma if she wants it and the situation exists down there that calls for it, and I think we ought to leave that largely to the delegation that represents the State. If so, it is a loan that this committee ought not to quibble about, because they have paid back 80 per cent of the money in the various sections of the country. Of course, I want you to understand that this is not a very generous hand that they reach out to you. The Secretary establishes pretty strict requirements in regard to these loans, but if it will help Oklahoma, I for one am willing for them to have it. Mr. CLARKE. It seems to me, as I pointed out before you came in, that the conditions between Oklahoma and New Mexico are not comparable at all. New Mexico is up against it generally. Now, there are sections of Oklahoma where they are prosperous, and in some places they are very prosperous. This is the first step, the general situation. The second step in the thing is what the State itself has done. Probably New Mexico can not do anything. Mr. TINCHER. The west end of my State, embracing my district, was as hard hit as any place this last fall, Dakota or anywhere else. We got some voluntary appeals and went all over the United States and solicited seed wheat from chambers of commerce and people were patriotic and we got money from almost everywhere we went. Now, that section is a green field to-day and it looks prosperous, and a lot of them would have had to move off their farms if they had not got their seed. Mr. CLARKE. I am in sympathy with them. In the Northwest they have to a large extent a one-crop proposition, and in Oklahoma, of course, you have diversified crops. Mr. CARTER. Let me say this: In the first place, as to oil, the oil interests are confined to a few men, and as Mr. Tincher and others here know at this time the oil men are pretty hard pressed. This is on account of depressed prices recently, and the fact that development in the oil fields has practically stopped. When you stop development in an oil field an oil field does not do anybody any good but the lessee and the lessor. The thing necessary about oil to make a country prosperous is to have development, so you can put men at work. Now, we have no men at work to any extent now in Oklahoma. Just one other thing. The other difference between Oklahoma and New Mexico is that New Mexico is largely an irrigated country, which makes crops practically certain, whereas Oklahoma has no irrigation whatever. Mr. ASWELL. Why has not New Mexico made good crops, then? Somebody here said they had not made any crops for three years: in fact, the evidence here shows that. Mr. CARTER. Anybody that knows an irrigable country knows that the elements have very little to do with the making of crops, unless it is where you have condition of floods to wipe out the crops. I was in New Mexico last summer and I am frank to say that I saw more evidence of prosperity there than I did in Oklahoma after I returned home. Mr. ASWELL. You were probably only down about Rockwell and Carlsbad, in a little valley where they had irrigation. Of course. the irrigated lands is only a very small percentage of the total land in New Mexico. Mr. CARTER. Yes: I know that. Mr. ASWELL. It does not amount to anything, taking the State over. That is the thing I wanted to bring out. Mr. CARTER. I think it is; what I have noticed about New Mexico is that it had not so many large irrigation projects but a great many small ones, embracing probably from a thousand to two or three thousand acres. Mr. ASWELL. Do you know the percentage of lands that are under irrigation in New Mexico? Mr. CARTER. A very small percentage, I know; but outside of the irrigated lands there is not much land that is suitable for crops except some little in the mountainous regions where they have rain. Mr. TINCHER. This is not a dangerous policy that has been adopted by the Government, and I do not know but what a good policy for this committee to adopt in the matter of seed loans is to leave it to the State delegations. Mr. CARTER. I have voted for these other seed appropriations for the Northwest and other States, and I think our State is entitled to the same help, and I am sure we need the help now as badly as any State ever needed it. Mr. FULMER. As to the failure of banks, I know of one county that had 11 banks, and all those banks are now wiped out, and the farmers do not know where to go, and inasmuch as this is a loan from the Government and they are to look after the type of fellow that they expect to make these loans to for feed and for seed, I don't see any reason why we could not pass this bill as we have the other bills. STATEMENT OF HON. MILTON C. GARBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA Mr. GARBER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, many of the counties in my district are involved in this distressed condition, just as Mr. Carter's district is. Probably more than half the counties in the State are in this state of depression. Mr. CLARKE. How many counties are there in the State? I want to simply state to you, gentlemen, that I urgently request a favorable report on this resolution, because I feel that the actual existing agricultural facts of the State amply warrant it. Quite a number of years ago the Rock Island Railroad Co. took it upon itself to bring seed wheat into the country at a time when conditions were so disastrous that farmers were unable to even get seed wheat and the Rock Island advanced the wheat; and the result was that about 83 per cent or 84 per cent of that money was all paid back, and the money that was not paid back was money advanced to parties who moved out of the country, and later on, those men, at least most of them, came back, until finally the Rock Island Railroad recovered practically all the money it had advanced, and it enabled the farmers of the country to put in a crop and recoup and recover from the disastrous effect of several periods of drought. Now I received numbers of letters from my district making this inquiry: Is there any possible aid we can get from the Government to buy our seed, to help us to diversify and get into something else; is there any possible way for us to do that? If we only had just a small amount at this time to help us to get the seed to plant, it would enable us to start over again and get into different lines that would enable us to finally get out from the condition in which we are now hopelessly involved. In the town of Carmen, in the heart of the wheat belt of Oklahoma, during the last month a national bank failed, and in the previous month the State bank there failed; those two banks failed, and there is no bank there. The banks are just simply staggering with their tremendous loans of slow frozen paper, and if you gentlemen could see your way clear, I am sure that the facts would warrant you, and you never would regret it, to extend this aid to us now, and all the money you advance in the way of loans would be returned to the Government. Mr. KINCHELOE. How many crop failures have you had in succession? Mr. GARBER. About three crop failures in succession. Mr. KINCHELOE. What does that consist of-cotton and wheat? Mr. GARBER. Well, I am living in a wheat section, but it consists of cotton and wheat and corn in certain sections. Mr. KINCHELOE. Was that caused by drought? Mr. GARBER. Mostly, in certain sections, by drought; in other sections by the floods. The floods along the Cimarron and the Canadians have been disastrous and destructive. Judge Swank is familiar with it, as is also Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. Mr. ASWELL. I would like to ask Judge Garber a question. He has raised an important point. You live at Alva, do you not? Mr. GARBER. I live at Enid. Alva is in my district. Mr. ASWELL. I was in Alva last November. You spoke of diversi fication. There is a German who lives 4 miles out of Alva, in the midst of that depression that you have described, who has city water and city lights, and the day I was there he was selling corn and turkeys, and seemed to be most prosperous, although he was surrounded by poverty. I said, "Why don't these other people succeed in getting along the way you do?" He replied, "It is because I work 12 months in the year and the others only want to work about 2 months." Now, is there something to that? Mr. GARBER. There is something to that. As you gentlemen know, Germans are especially thrifty and industrious. Mr. ASWELL. He was living right in the heart of that depression. Mr. GARBER. Last fall I attended two public auction sales within 5 or 10 miles of Enid. I have been familiar with farming land and farm stock and farm values in that connection all my life, and for the first time in my life I saw horses put up at public auction. weighing from 1,300 to 1,500 pounds, 6 years old, and sound, good individuals, selling for forty and forty-five dollars a head. Mr. SWANK. Did not the leading bank at Alva fail last fall? Mr. FULMER. Mr. Chairman, coming from a State where we use fertilizer to make cotton, I do not think you could add anything to this bill that would help more than to put in "fertilizer"; in addition to the seed I think they ought to have fertilizer, especially nitrate of soda. The CHAIRMAN. Are you satisfied to have the bill amended to conform with the bill that we passed giving relief to New Mexico! Mr. CLARK. That is for the purchase of seed and feed, and for actual farming purposes. Mr. TINCHER. I move we amend it to comply with the New Mexico proposition, and amend the amount from fifteen thousand to ten thousand dollars, as the amount to be expended in administration in the District of Columbia, and that the chairman report the bill favorably. The CHAIRMAN The time for the hearing has expired, and we will go into executive session. (Thereupon, at 10.15 o'clock, the committee went into executive session.) HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 745 A BILL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MIGRATORY-BIRD REFUGES TO FURNISH IN PERPETUITY HOMES FOR MIGRATORY BIRDS, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PUBLIC SHOOTING GROUNDS TO PRESERVE THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF FREE SHOOTING, THE PROVISION OF FUNDS FOR ESTABLISHING SUCH AREAS, AND THE FURNISHING OF ADEQUATE PROTECTION FOR MIGRATORY BIRDS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES |