The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 22, 1919, Page 5

Wait,” Houston Tells Drouth Farmers Secretary of Agriculture Frowns on Sinclair Relief Bill—Favors Reclamation Plan to Extend Aid in Fifteen or Twenty Years Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. ELIEF for drouth-stricken farm- ers of the Northwest in 15 or 20 years is the best that can be hoped for from the present secretary of agriculture, is the conclusion drawn from the ac- tion of the secretary, David F. Houston, in refusing indorse- ment of a bill to provide im- mediate relief. The attitude of Houston may kill a bill introduced by Representative James H. Sin- clair of North Dakota to approprlate $5,000,000 for loans to farmers in the drouth regions. After the bill had been in the hands of the sec- retary of agriculture for several weeks, he return- ed it to Mr. Sinclair together with a letter explain- ing his stand. Briefly, the secretary holds that federal assistance to the farmers should take the form of reclamation work rather than in direct loans to the affected farmers. In view of the fact that the proposed reclamation work will take 15 or 20 years, many of the farm- ers who suffered from the drouth will get no- aid whatever and -in hundreds of cases will lose all their investment and labor in these. farms. Ma- terial reduction in food production also is apt to result from Mr. Houston’s action, since it will tend to stop farming in the regions affected. Mr. Houston indirectly gives his indorsement to a proposal that the drouth-stricken. farmers, in- stead of getting federal aid, should become day la- borers until the time that the government can get around to the reclamation project. After its introduction, Sinclair’s bill was referred to the house appropriations committee, whose chairman, Representative Good of Iowa, asked that Houston pass on the bill. It took several weeks for Mr. Houston to make any reply to Sinclair’s request for a statement of his attitude. “After careful consideration of the matter,” the secretary wrote finally, “the question arises whether, with such aid as may be given through local and national organizations to re- lieve the people in distress, a sounder public policy would not be to undertake necessary reclamation construction work in_the regions affected, which is now held in abeyance on ac- count of the lack of funds, and also to prose- cute vigorously road-building operations and such other public works as may be feasible.” . A leading thought in Mr. Houston’s mind in this connection, it appears, is that homesteaders and even settled farmers who have been forced into bankruptey through the drouth could be readily utilized as labor in constructing the various irri- gation projects. Indeed, Representative Riddick of Montana, who has a reclamation bill involving a $50,000,000 appropriation in committee, was re- cently told by former Assistant Secretary of Agri- culture Ousley that such work for drouth-stricken farmers “appears- to be a very practical way of _ enabling them to maintain themselves without charity through the existing acute emergency so that they can be in position to again take up their farming operations when climatic conditions per- mit.” . Coming on top of so many instances of indiffer- ence to the farmers’ needs in the department of agriculture—the Brand wheat grades, the sabotage of Doctor Spillman’s honest, far-sighted work, the unsavory records of Ousley and other high officials —this latest rebuff is arousing intense indignation among farm representatives at the capitol. NEED TOO IMMEDIATE FOR RECLAMATION SCHEME “If Mr. Houston had taken any pains to fa- miliarize himself with the situation,” said Repre- sentative Sinclair, “he would have realized that the problem is too widespread and serious for state relief, too immediate for delay until reclama- tion schemes can be put into effect. My bill speci- “fies that the secretary of agriculture shall have full discretion in determining the security on which loans would be made; no loss to the treasury is in- volved if the matter is handled carefully. - “The serious drop in food production result- ing from the drouth is apparent from the de- partment’s own statistics. The need for in- créased production is being preached by every _ economic authority from President Wilson —Copyright by Harris & Ewing. DAVID F. HOUSTON down. I can only conclude from his letter that «Mr. Houston is not overinterested in the wel- fare of the American farmer. I am afraid many in the Northwest will not be as chari- table in their conclusions as that.” In addition the department of agriculture seems to have decided to enter on a policy of actively dis- couraging all farmers whose land is not assured of adequate ;rainfall. “The experts of the bureau of plant industry tell me,” Houston has written to Sinclair, “that at the present time in a consider- able number of- individual cases the advisability of “encouraging_ settlers to remain on their land during the autumn and winter will be contingent on the occurrence of timely and adequate rains to make possible the effective preparation of the soil for autumn and spring-sown crops, a condition which it is impossible to forecast with sufficient accuracy to justify advances of funds in the ex- pectation of their return by the farmers.” In other ‘words, the department of agriculture seems to have decided that without extensive irri- gation a considerable proportion of northwestern ' O THE Nonpartisan Leader: I I wish to extend my hearty con- gratulations to the Nonpartisan Leader upon the fourth anniversary of the founding of the paper. The members of the Nonpartisan league appreciate very much the good work you have done and realize that with- out your assistance it would have been - impossible to have made the splendid progress which has been achieved. Per- sonally I have great Lynn J. Frazier admiration for any newspaper that consistently fights for the rights of the common people. Your paper has done a great work and I wish you still greater success in the future. LYNN J. FRAZIER, Governor of North Dakota. farm acreage is not worth farming. At least not sufficiently so to justify the risk of making fed- eral loans. Northwestern farmers who have been hit by the drouth are themselves the best judges of the sec- retary’s statement that for several weeks the de- partment has been “actively co-operating with the state and local authorities and the farmers and stockmen of drouth-stricken reglons in making ar- rangements for securing feed for livestock and, where necessary, for removing the stock from sec- tions where their maintenance has become impos- sible on account of lack of feed and water to sec- tions in the same or other states where feed and water are available.” It is known here that the department has made arrangements with the rail- road administration that cattle shipped to unaf- fected regions at full transportation charges may be brought back later at one-third normal railréad charge. But the rebate is only for bringing the cattle back, and it seems unlikely that any farmer would deem the trouble of repatriation worth while for any but the minority of milch cows. PLAN IS PRACTICABLE, SECRETARY ADMITS Mr. Houston freely admits the practicability of the Sinclair bill when he says that “through the machinery and personnel of the depart- ment and of the federal farms loan banks, the type of relief proposed by the bill could be ad- ministered.” He asserts, however, that no such use of federal funds as is proposed by the Sinclair bill has yet been sanctioned by the government except as a war emergency. He neglects to mention the statements of Herbert Hoover that food production will remain a “war emergency” for several years. His stand is, in reality, a direct rebuff to the president’s repeated pleas to the farmers in favor of in- creased production. Representative Sinclair himself is of the opinion that when matters of strictly local concern are go- - ing badly it is not the business of the federal gov- ernment to set them right, unless local and state aid prove unavailing. He holds, however, that the drouth emergency in the Northwest is something of national and world-wide importance in view of food shortage and the intolerable cost of living problem affecting the great cities. And Mr. Hous- ton himself admits that “reports to this department from those areas (Montana, Idaho and, to a less extent, North Dakota and Wyoming) indicate that heavy damage has been done to both crops and livestock.” The failure of the secretary of agriculture to indorse the Sinclair bill, which probably means its indefinite pigeon-holing in the appropriations com- mittee, emphasizes a defect of legislative govern- ment at Washington which has become strongly _ marked in recent years. More and more congress is becoming a legislative rubber stamp for the executive departments. When a bill is introduced the first question is always “What does so-and-so (meaning the appropriate cabinet officer) think of it?” No matter what the merits of the measure if the secretary of the department concerned frowns upon it, the bill is generally no better than waste paper. If he indorses it there are good chances of passage, providing the measure can run the inevitable gauntlet of partisan attack. The result is a tremendous centralization of power in the hands of the cabinet officers, who are not an- - swerable to the people, who are generally purely _ political appointees, and who very often, as in the case in point, have the scantest personal knowledge of the problems they are called upon to solve. None of the farmer members in the house, for instance, are able to effectively pass judgment on 'the Sin- clair bill unless the secretary of agriculture, who is not even a farmer himself, approves it first. The Sinclair drouth relief bill, carrying an ap- propriation about one-sixth of that necessary to build a single modern battleship, is not yet dead, however. It has many powerful friends in Wash- ington, among them Asbury F. Lever, the new chairman of the federal farm loan board. The bill applies to the 1920 crop and hope still exists that there may be successful action before the time for spring planting. The Nonpartlsan representa- tives will continue the fight in its behalf. If they were five times as numerous its chances of passage would be increased in just that proportion. R e R D 0 e A T AN SIS A TR