A LITTLE CLCLD OUT fF THE SEA ( a PST,' release)
A talk by Secretary of Agriculture Anderson at a special meeting
rf farmers and representatives »f farmer c'ooperatives of Washington,
Oregon and Idaho in Everett, Wash. December 11, 19^7> says in part:
Like Elizjah’s servant in olden tines, I have been scanning the
horizon. Like- him,, I must report that "There ariseth a little cloud
out of the sea, like a man’s hand."...
I have come here because I believe in farmer cooperatives. It' is
time- for all of us of like mind to reaffirm our faith. Already the
winds of dissension are blowing. The calm is over, n fter all these
years, in which farmer cooperatives have found a firm place in the com
petitive free enterprise system ofthis country, suddenly there arise
adversaries who would restrict your rights to cooperate in a business
way.
This of course,.is an old techninuc. It works like this: You
don’t corn,© right out and sa y ycu'r© against whatever it is you’re
against--farmers ceoperatives, for example. You pick out seme particu
lar thing about it tha t is not widely understood and has seme dram
atic appeal, and you ma ke sure it ties in with'ia particular objective
of the pa rty in power—an objective like reducing taxes, for example.
You ha rp on'the one thing you’ve picked out. Just for example, you
might say that farmer cooperatives under certain conditions are exempt
from Federal inco. me tax and you don’t think they should be. -Yeu harp
on that on e thing, but of course you can’t take time to spell it out
all the time, so you just talk about "ta x-free cooperatives...
Thus have our farmer cooperatives come under atta .ck,•The•open
ing gun ha s been fired. The adversaries--manv of whom have not seen -
fit to make p ublic thei r names-- still have the offensive. Their
next maneuver i3 concealed by the smoke of their propaganda barrage*
But it’s comir.g--make no mistake about that.
Do you want to fight it o ut? Are your cooperatives worth fight
ing for? If your answer is yes, I’m with-you* In a show-down, we’re
either for a thing or we’re a gainst it. I want to say just a s plain
ly that the- Truman Administration is FOR farmer cooperatives. I say
that with the sp ee'ific . authority of'President Truman himself.
How it is that anybody ever p ays a ny attention to the wild
charges made a gainst farmer's coopera tives I don’t know. You hear
it said or implied that there's.something "left wifog" about cooperate,
ives. I got a laugh ju3t trying to imagine Republlca n Senator -Capper
as a left-winger, and a s you know the Capprr—Volstead Act which Sen
ator flapper st eered through the Congress, is ..often sailed the...Magna
Charta of the farm cooperatives—the farm bo-op bill of rights.
You hear it said- that there ’ s something communistio about coorrr
atives. And in answer to tha t I might point to Sweden "the middle
or to other Scandinavian countries where boopera tives have flourished
and where communism ha s:found-less fertile ground in which to develop
than in ma ny other? parts Of iEdvppe’* I re#a 11 with’a grea t deal of
pleasure a visi t to the. beautiful Dalecarlia area of Sweden which was
my fa thc.r's home before he ca me to America. *•
In recent testimony before Congressional committees .on long-range
agricultural p olicy, Department o f Agriculture representatives ex
pressed the belief that coop eratives sh ould have an important place
in the agriculture o f the future. "They 'urged certain extension of
the farm cooperative field...
The committee further suggested continued vigilance against legis
lation which would interfere .with farmer's’ rights to cooperate, or
would handicap cooperative activities', o r v/ftuld cripple the cooperat
ive credit system. Whether these suggestions will be accepted I'have
no wav ~
y#ur act
on your, interest and
MILK PRICES IN CHIC 400
From the "Dairy News” of November ;•
2i|,l?ii7, we le-^rn that the Produc- I
ers under the Ohicaro federal milk!
market!n? order w ill receive- a
uniform blend ed price of 4*^7 per
hundredweight of milk of *.5 per
cent test f.o.b. 70-mile zone, fo r
all the Ir Octobe r 1' liveries .This
is 20 cents hlyher than the Septem
ber , 19li7,price but ^ cents lower
. t han_ pc ce-lved for Oct.’Ji^ deUverlm
MISSING PERSONS SOUGHT
Anyone havin'11 i nf o'rmat.on concc rn,n|f'
the following persons Is asked to
communicate .with the Governor's
Office In Junea u.
MARSH'.LL It . NDOLFH- CLAYTON - 6 feet
tall, Ul years old.
OTTO OF.ISV. - 71 years o-ld. i'dien
last heard from many years ajRo was
In Cape'Nome, nlaska.