prices, has doubled his overhead and left his income practically where

it was.

I do not want to take up the time of you gentlemen in a very lengthy discussion of that, but I believe that right there is the major factor, admitting that all the others come in and have their influence, as they do in all other lines of business. But there is the major factor that has caused increased agricultural bankruptcy in excess of a thousand per cent in the last five-year period. You have to concede that. The statistics run over 15 years, but we all agree there was no increase in the agricultural bankruptcy in the first 10 years of that period.

Senator HARRELD. I thnk we all agree on that. What is your remedy?

Mr. CROES. I wanted to come up to that. In the first place, I wanted to point out very definitely what I think is the cause, and just how it happened. We find that during all that period-and you gentlemen are probably familiar with it, but I can make my outline better if I follow it through-there was a general trend of increase in agricultural commodities and all other commodities up to and during the war, and that when the break came labor, through its organizations, came in and said, "We want machinery hele that will bar the foreigner, the cheap labor."

I have in my file also a record showing the wages scale of foreign countries, which will show you at a glance that the wages scale of foreign countries is approximately 50 per cent of ours. That is just roughly speaking, but it is in the neighborhood of that. So that it is evident at a glance that if we did not restrict immigration, the Belgians, Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, and German, etc., good citizens and good laborers, would be in here offering to take out laborer's job at 50 per cent, at least, of what he gets now. Labor said "We do not want that. We want restricted immigration__so as to actually bar the law of supply and demand and keep that fellow out, so that we can maintain a wage scale here on a wai-level of 100 per cent higher than it was before the war." As a result of that, I think perhaps that is the keystone that the price is based on, and I am not saying that in derogation of labor or anything of the kind. But that, with the protective tariff policy, has made it possible for industry and labor to maintain that level, and the exportable surplus has forced the American farmer to take the world level for his market.

Senator HARRELD. Why is it that he has a sruplus in view of the fact that labor is short?

Mr. CROES. That he has a surplus of commodities?

Senator HARRELD. Yes; in spite of the fact that labor is short, and made so by the restriction on immigration, why is it that he still has a surplus?

Mr. CROES. The farmer's plants are so set up that he could not afford to stop his operation, and he put his children in the field, took them out of school, and put the wife in the field to do what he could not hire labor to do.

Senator HARRELD. I presume machinery has had a good deal to do with it.

Mr. CROES. Machinery has had a good deal to do with it. He had to do it in order to pay the taxes and keep up with his fellow

farmer, who was going to do that and keep himself from being wiped out individually. So that the supply could not very well be decreased, but his overhead has been artificially kept at war levels and his surplus automatically put his price at pre-war levels, which any business man can reckon at once. When the overhead is maintained twice as high and the income is left where it was, it spells bankruptcy, and there has been in excess of a thousand per cent increase in farm bankruptcies during the same period of time that industrial bankruptcy did not increase at all.

Now I think you can say there briefly what the remedy must be. It means the removal of the cause, the difficulty. That must come, it seems to me, in one of two ways, from the removal of the protective policy, or making it adaptable to all alike. Now, we in the West, in my State, have always been for a protective policy. We favor an American standard of living. But we want to enjoy it with our fellow laborer and fellow business man, and we can not stand to have it enjoyed by them if we can not share in it. So the remedy must be, it seems to us, in making it applicable to all. We believe it can be done.

Senator HARRELD. If you do away with the tariff you close factories and shut off your market, and how would that help you?

Mr. CROES. We do not want to consider doing away with the tariff if we can possibly find any other way out.

Senator HARRELD. I should think not.

Mr. CROES. No. Now, gentlemen, I do not believe it would be necessary for me to take any more of your time.

The CHAIRMAN. Now what you want to do, as I take it—you have just gotten up to the point of the remedy-is to take care of the surplus.

Mr. CROES. That is it exactly. In other words, we want some sort of machinery set up here whereby we can create, you might say, a transformer that will allow us to take out our surplus at the border and market it in foreign markets in the best possible way, but in such a way that that surplus will not fix the price of all of our products for home consumption.

Senator HEFLIN. Speaking of the tariff, if you are favorable to a tariff, you want a tariff that will benefit the manufacturer and laborer, and one that will not destroy the farmer.

Mr. CROES. Yes; we want a protective policy that will afford the same protection to labor and industry and agriculture.

Senator HARRELD. And you are entitled to that.

Mr. CROES. We feel we are.

Senator HEFLIN. You know, now, as everybody else knows, that the present tariff system works great injury to the farmer. Mr. CROES. Yes, we do.

Senator HEFLIN. And is a benefit to a special favored few.

Mr. CROES. Yes. In fact it benefits practically everyone, we feel, but the farmer, and him indirectly, under normal conditions, but it has made his burden so much greater than his benefit in the last five years that the result has been all burden to him.

Senator HARRELD. Is it not true that the things you mention as having increased in price such as farm machinery, are all on the free list?

Mr. CROES. What is that?

Mr. HARRELD. Is it not true that the things you complain of the farmer having to buy, such as farm machinery, which you mention, is on the free list under the present tariff schedules?

Mr. CROES. I think that is true, but I think you will agree that the fact of its being on the free list does not put it on a marker level that would ordinarily exist from putting on the free list other things. Senator HARRELD. That is because in Europe farm machinery is not being manufactured in competition with ours.

Mr. CROES. Yes; to a great extent because of the protective policy. We have built up manufacturing industries here so strong in times gone by that foreign competition can not hold a candle to them, and then the price of the product to us is held at its present level to a great extent as a result of the cost of labor, which is again a protective policy.

Senator HEFLIN. Is it not also because these big concerns who manufacture and sell farm machinery organize themselves into combinations and trusts and absolutely dictate the price, regardless of the tariff?

Mr. CROES. I do not question their organization has helped them to a great extent. Unquestionably it has helped them to a great extent to maintain their price, the same as it has in labor, and we will agree that if agriculture was in such position that it could organize at once we could be greatly aided. But agriculture, thoroughly organized, could not maintain its position without this class of legislation any more than labor could maintain its present standards of labor through its organization without restrictive immigration.

Senator HARRELD. If I understand you, then, you think that what we ought to do is to do something that would equalize benefits of the tariff to the farmer instead of trying to lower the tariff in a way that will affect your market by disrupting industrial concerns. Now that is a good program. That is what is worrying me about this thing.

Mr. CROES. We realize it is somewhat of a hard problem. As I said before, we favor the protective policy, and we favor an American standard of living, but we have faith, we have confidence enough in American ingenuity to believe that a remedy can be worked out. All of these other things looked hazy before they were begun. We believe that we have plans worked out here that can be put into operation first on a few major commodities, and that it can be developed just as well and just as thoroughly.

Senator HARRELD. What particular legislation do you refer to? Mr. CROES. We refer here to the committee bill supported by the committee of 22.

Senator HARRELD. It is the committee print before you, H. R. blank. It has not been introduced in the Senate as yet.

Senator HEFLIN. Does this bill contain provisions of the various measures that have been introduced on the subject?

Mr. CROES. It contains provisions from some of the other measures. There are other men here who are better qualified to go into detail on this bill, and who know more about it, men who have been here all the time, who know more about the work and just where these various clauses come from.

The CHAIRMAN. I would just like to say at this point for the benefit of the committee that this bill has been worked out by this committee of 22, as Mr. Croes says, but they are in conference to-day and were

yesterday with the cotton men with the idea of seeing whether any modifications of this bill will be necessary to protect the cotton industry, and they tell me that as soon as these conferences are over with the cotton men it may be that they will want to suggest some amendments to this which may be brought about by this conference. Senator HEFLIN. Before this bill is introduced?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; before it is acted upon. This is drawn up for our information, Senator Heflin. The theory is that if we approve this suggested measure in this committee print, and if they agree on some amendments that we likewise approve, to add it as an amendment to the House bill that we have finished the hearings on, the so-called administration cooperative bill, which nobody is objecting to, as I understand it. That is the reason these gentlemen are not here discussing the particular details of this bill, because they are not yet quite through with their conference.

Senator HARRELD. May I ask where those conferences are being held?

Mr. CROES. The conference that you refer to of the House committee?

Senator HARRELD. No; with the cotton men.

Mr. CROES. I believe in the Lee House.

Senator HARRELD. The reason I asked is this. I am in receipt of a bill that is somewhat on the line of this that has been submitted, by the officials of the Oklahoma Cotton Growers' Association.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, your cotton men of Oklahoma are represented in this meeting that I mentioned.

Senator HARRELD. That is what I wanted to know, if they were represented in this meeting.

The CHAIRMAN. They are represented. That is my understanding. Mr. HIRTH. I do not want to interrupt the testimony, but I wanted to say that the directors of the American Cotton Growers' Exchange are at the Lee House, and that exchange is the court of last resort; the supreme court of cotton, you might say.

Senator HEFLIN. Have they finished their conference?

Mr. HIRTH. I think that they will soon, but I can not assume to say, Senator.

Senator HARRELD. Who is at the head of it?

Mr. HIRTH. Mr. Mosier, I think, is the chief spokesman.

Mr. CROES. Unless there are further questions, I do not believe

it will be necessary for me to take up any more of your time.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not care to discuss the details of this bill? Mr. CROES. No. The details are not entirely worked out, and there are other men here who are better prepared to discuss the details than I am.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

STATEMENT OF JOE PLUMMER, PRESIDENT

COLORADO

WHEAT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION AND COLORADO BEAN GROWERS, AKRON, COLO.

The CHAIRMAN. First give your name, Mr. Plummer.
Mr. PLUMMER. Joe Plummer, Akron, Colo.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your business, Mr. Plummer?

91358-26-PT 1—3

Mr. PLUMMER. I have been a farmer until the farmers took me away from the farm and such work. I have been the president of the Colorado Wheat Growers' Association for three years, the Colorado Bean Growers, and represent different farm organizations in Colorado, the different branches in that State.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you connected or are any of your organizations connected with the national council?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You are represented on that council?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir.

I was appointed to this position by the governor of our State at the request of 10 different farm organizations.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you attend the Des Moines conference?

Mr. PLUMMER. Our State was not represented at the Des Moines conference. I have a resolution that was adopted at our Federation of Farm Organizations on January 25, also the resolutions that were adopted March 8 in our Denver meeting.

The CHAIRMAN. That is this year.

Mr. PLUMMER. This year.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, I might ask you about those resolutions, did those resolutions have anything to say about the so-called surplus question?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes. Perhaps they would explain themselves better than I can explain them. Shall I read them?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. PLUMMER. This was submitted with the brief to the committee of 22. This was submitted to the committee of 22.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee of 22 comes from the so-called Des Moines conference?

Mr. PLUMMER. This was submitted to the farm-bureau federation, suggestions of the committee of 22. The resolution adopted January

25, 1926, at the Federation of Farm Organizations, reads thus:

Believing that we have an opportunity to get some definite legislation for farm relief in this session of Congress through the creation of an organization for the handling of surpluses of farm products and thereby stabilizing the price of the product: Be it

Resolved, That we request civic and rural organizations throughout the State of Colorado to appoint committees which will meet together for the selection of representatives to call on the Governor of the State of Colorado requesting him to appoint a committeeman to confer with the Congressmen and Senators and to insist on their urgent support of farm-relief legislation in accordance with their program as outlined by the leading farm organizations of the United States.

The following resolution was adopted by the Farm Relief Association March 8, 1926, at Denver, Colo.

Be it resolved, That we urgently request the same protection for farm products as is received by other industries of the country.

Be it further resolved, That legislation be enacted by this Congress which will put farm products on a parity with other price levels in line with that proposed in the Dickinson bill now pending, or such bill of like character as may be framed. Those are the resolutions.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you know that the officers of the national council, of which your organization seems to be a part, has made an agreement with the President and Secretary of Agriculture that they would oppose any legislation at this Congress except that cooperative bill; that they would be against any legislation in reference to the surplus?