short of an outrage that one so ignorant of farm financing and with so little sympathy for agricultural needs and aspirations should be forced on the farming industry by the administration in the interests of old-line banking and big business. Yours truly, TAIT BUTLER, Editor. WHEAT GROWERS CREDIT CORPORATION, Hon. DUNCAN U. FLETCHER, Grand Forks, N. Dak., December 29, 1927. United States Senator, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: I have read with a great deal of interest your recent article in the Farm Journal for December, and fully agree with your statement that the Federal land bank system at the present moment is "in real and desperate peril." With Mr. Williams now on the board as a member, and with the confirmation of Mr. Meyer, Mr. Cooksey, and Mr. Harrison, the farmers of this Nation can bid good-bye to rural credits. The financial interests are fully aware of the fact that some two billions of farm credits has gotten beyond their control. These same interests are also aware of the fact that within the course of the next 10 or 15 years that the entire farm credit structure will be within the bonds of the Federal land bank and Federal intermediate credit bank systems and they will have no control over this credit. If they can now secure control by placing their henchmen on the Federal Farm Loan Board, they will be able to bring the system within their control and stop this rapid expansion of credit beyond their control. If they can not control the farm credit they can not control the farmers, and they are getting to be a mighty independent class. I hope you will be able to gather about you a fighting force of liberal-minded, forceful Senators with some vision of the future and that your fight will be successful. Trusting that you and yours will have a prosperous and happy new year, I am, Very respectfully, F. W. MCLEAN, Vice President. AMERICAN COTTON GROWERS EXCHANGE, Senator DUNCAN U. FLETCHER, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR FLETCHER: I have your letter of the 4th asking for certain information relating to the activities of Mr. Eugene Meyer in connection with the old War Finance Corporation. I do not have the information you request about the transaction with the Staple Cotton Growers Cooperative Association. You can get this from Mr. Oscar Bledsoe, jr., president of the Staple Cotton Growers Cooperative Association, Greenwood, Miss. I think you are likely to find this favorable. Personally, I share your opinion as to the confirmation of Mr. Meyer and his two associates as directors of the Farm Loan Bureau. I have a very high regard for Mr. Meyer's ability, but I doubt his sympathetic attitude toward the farmer in the administration of the activities of the Farm Loan Board, and I think this opinion is generally shared by the representatives of farm organizations. I have sent the speech which you made in the Senate just before the holidays to the representatives of farm organizations in the South, and suggested that they communicate their attitude and wish in the matter to their Senators. Mr. J. E. Conwell, president and general manager (attached) of the Georgia Cotton Growers Cooperative Association, Atlanta, Ga., may be in position to give you a statement regarding the operations of the War Finance Corporation in his State. I suggest that you communicate with him. Sincerely, B. W. KILGORE. Mr. MEYER. Would the committee desire me to show any letters which bear on the same question, the same subject? The CHAIRMAN. My thought is that when these matters are submitted you will have a chance to comment on them, give your views on them, so as to get them in the record. There may be some things that call for specific answers on your part. Mr. MEYER. I will be glad to read them. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, the committee will adjourn until 3 o'clock next Tuesday, in this room. (Whereupon, at 5.30 p. m., Friday, January 13, 1928, the committee adjourned to Tuesday, January 17, 1928, at 3 o'clock p. m.) CONFIRMATION OF MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL FARM LOAN BOARD TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1928 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 3 o'clock p. m., pursuant to adjournment, in the room of the Committee on Interoceanic Canals, Capitol, Senator Peter Norbeck presiding. Present: Senators Norbeck (chairman), Frazier, Brookhart, Steiwer, Fletcher, Glass, and Edwards. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. Senator FLETCHER. When we adjourned I had presented certain letters and documents which were turned over to Mr. Meyer to examine, and I have some more which I want to follow with; and you perhaps had better put these in, Mr. Meyer. They are identified by notes made before by the stenographer, I take it. STATEMENT OF EUGENE MEYER, FARM LOAN COMMISSIONER, FARM LOAN BOARD-Resumed Mr. MEYER. Four of them, I think there were [producing papers]. Senator FLETCHER. Yes, I think so; and some editorials. I ask that those be printed in the record, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. You have looked these over, have you, Mr. Meyer? Mr. MEYER. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, they will be placed in the record. Senator FLETCHER. I have a letter here from Mr. W. S. McCormack, dated Kalispell, Mont., December 22, 1927, in which he is referring to the proposed amendment that was introduced at the last session to the farm loan act, and he expresses himself as opposed to it. Mr. MEYER. May I interrupt, Senator, a moment? Senator FLETCHER. Yes. Mr. MEYER. I am opposed to the transfer of the examining functions from the Farm Loan Bureau. Senator FLETCHER. I was just going to ask you if you were. Mr. MEYER. I so expressed myself at the hearing on Friday, when I referred to a luncheon meeting in Spokane last summer, at which I was asked to state my attitude on the matter. I think it was an ill-advised proposal. Senator BROOKHART. What was the proposal? Mr. MEYER. A proposal to amend the act and place the examining function under the Treasury. I assume, of course, that the transfer 55 was proposed on account of the Treasury's belief that the work was not being properly conducted by the board at that time. Senator FLETCHER. Yes. Mr. MEYER. Whether it was right or wrong, it was a poor way to cure the situation, in my opinion; but there is no such proposal under consideration now, so far as I know. I said, Senator, you will remember, in that meeting at Spokane, that if any such plan were put into effect it would be done against my advice, as it would be impossible for the board properly to administer the act without the power to make examinations. The examining function, in my judgment, belongs to the bureau. But I have not heard of any proposal of that kind since the changes in the board took place? Senator FLETCHER. There is none, so far as I know, at present. The idea is that they are accomplishing the same thing by changing the personnel of the board. Now, are you of the opinion that rights, powers, and duties of the Farm Loan Board as set out in the act ought to be maintained and exercised by that board without any dictation or domination from any other source? Mr. MEYER. I am; and I will say they are being so administered. The Treasury has not undertaken to dictate to the Farm Loan Board since I became a member of it. As a matter of fact, we have had very little contact with the Treasury during the past eight months. Senator FLETCHER. I have another letter here from Mr. Harry L. Lowe, of Eau Claire, Wis., dated December 16, 1927. He says as follows: I have noticed, with interest, your phases on the appointment of Eugene Meyers, as chairman of the Federal Farm Loan Board. I am of the opinion that the prevailing interest among the people of the Northwest that the policy of Mr. Meyers is very detrimental to the agricultural interest and that he is serving the Treasury Department instead of the farmers, which the law was designed to help. I also think that some attention should be given to the great amount of wealth that is escaping taxes through stock dividends of the large corporations. I refer to that letter as coming from that section of the country, for whatever it may be worth. The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to put that in the record? I have a letter also from the Dark Tobacco Growers Cooperative. Association, dated Hopkinsville, Ky., December 3, 1927, transmitting a set of resolutions. I offer that in evidence without reading it, unless you want it read. Said letter is as follows: DARK TOBACCO GROWERS COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, Senator DUNCAN W. FLETCHER, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR FLETCHER: Please accept our thanks for your courtesy in sending us copy of the Farm Journal of December, 1927, in which is published your article "The land banks in peril." I want to assure you that we have read this article most carefully, believe it to be a most forceful one and we agree with all your statements. As an evidence of this, we inclose for your information copy of resolution passed by our board of directors at their last meeting, which I am sure will prove of interest to you. We are also sending you copy of resolution that they passed in regard to their attitude on the McNary-Haugen bill. On behalf of the tobacco growers of this district, I want to thank you for the interest that you are taking in their behalf. Yours very truly, [Inclosure] GEOFFREY MORGAN, Whereas the Federal Land Bank Board was created by act of Congress for the purpose of supervising all loans on farms through the Federal land banks, and all loans to cooperative associations through the Federal intermediate credit bank, and Whereas this board should of necessity be composed of farm-minded men who understand the problem of farmers and who are sympathetic to their interests, and Whereas President Coolidge, shortly after the last session of Congress adjourned, ousted from this board three farm-minded men, namely: Gov. Robert A. Cooper, E. S. Landes, and E. E. Jones, all of whom had demonstrated by their actions that they were administering their duties to the best interests of farmers, and appointed in their place Eugene Meyer, F. R. Harrison, and G. R. Cooksey, three former members of the War Finance Corporation and all of them Wall Street-minded men who are under the complete domination of Secretary Mellon who has stated in an open letter that equality for agriculture would weaken the competitive position of American manufacturers in the field of foreign commerce: Therefore be it Resolved, That we, the board of directors of the Dark Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, in regular monthly meeting assembled this the 15th day of November, 1927, and speaking for the 76,000 farm families that we represent in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, do respectfully_request Senators Kenneth McKellar and L. D. Tyson of Tennessee; Senators F. M. Sackett and Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky; and Senators James E. Watson and A. T. Robinson of Indiana to refuse to confirm the appointment of Eugene Meyer, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Cooksey when this matter is presented for consideration by the United States Senate. Whereas the plight of the farmers of America is even worse now than it was 12 months ago at the time that President Coolidge vetoed the McNary-Haugen bill and offered neither substitute nor even consolation to the agricultural classes; and Whereas an American standard of living has been guaranteed to merchants and manufacturers through the tariff bill; to bankers through the Federal reserve act; to railroads through the Interstate Commerce Commission; to laborers through the Adamson bill and the immigration law; while farmers. by being compelled to buy on a protected market and sell on a world-wide market. are forced to a standard of living on a level with European peasants and Mexican peons; and Whereas the law of supply and demand does not apply when the supply is in the hands of unorganized farmers and the demand is in the hands of organized dealers; and Whereas cooperative marketing of farm products on a large scale has failed because it is financially impossible for members to carry all the burden of the surplus for the benefit of nonmembers: Therefore be it Resolved, That we, the directors of the Dark Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Association, in regular monthly meeting assembled this the 15th day of November, 1927, and speaking for the 76,000 farm families that we represent in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, do reaffim our faith in the McNary-Haugen bill and especially the equalization-fee feature which requires all growers of a commodity to share alike in carrying the burden of the surplus, just as all national banks are required to be members of the Federal Reserve System; and be it further Resolved, That we earnestly request our Senators and Congressmen to show their sympathy for their farmer constituents by using their influence and votes to secure the immediate passage of the McNary-Haugen bill in the next session of Congress. Senator GLASS. As evidence as to what, Senator: as to the unfitness of Mr. Meyer. |