extension work is now being conducted as well as to complete the objective of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 by providing sufficient additional funds to make possible the employment of a county agent, a home-demonstration agent, and a boys' and girls' club leader for each agricultural county of the United States. If the measure which we are discussing with you today, is enacted and the funds are made available, I can easily visualize the creation of farm thought and farm leadership on a scale unparalleled in this or any other country. I can see in my mind's eye, the development of our rural economy to the point where it will represent the soundest thinking, the best philosophy, the most constructive action, not only in its own interests but in the interests of all society.

Prior to 1914, it would have been physically impossible to have put into operation the works of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This may sound dogmatic, but I believe it is true. At that time there were no county agents. There were no home-demonstration agents. There were no agricultural extension specialists. There were no extension workers to aid the farm boys and girls. There was no Farm Bureau. In short, there was no vehicle for translating into practice the beneficial provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The job simply could not have been done. And, I need not say, at this time, to this committee, that the task has been exceedingly well done, as farmers all over the country, in every section, North, East, South, and West, will attest.

It is indeed a glorious thing to go into any State and see that one of the most important institutions is the land-grant college. As Secretary Wallace has so well said, it is

an institution that will carry on over the years, and in my mind, my friends, the only institution we have in America today that is really fundamentally democratic, close to all people of the Nation, not influenced in any way by small things, working with farm people and with city people and evolving the best there is in the economic, social, political, and I will say, spiritual affairs of men.

It is the hope of our leaders of organized agriculture that these institutions shall continue to be charged with the duty and responsibility of carrying out the program for agriculture as it will shape up in the future. I know of no other agencies so well equipped to do this. I think every extension agent in the country should squarely shoulder his share of the responsibility in carrying out this program, for our plans will not reach a successful completion until they are sufficiently localized to meet the needs of each individual community and commodity.

The farm bureaus and the land-grant colleges, working together, have put over great programs very successfully in our various States, during the last 20 years. These programs were developed to meet th economic needs of the day and time. We gave of our best to these programs. I wish to pay particular tribute to the masterly job of organization work which the men and women in extension work have accomplished. In an astonishingly short period of time, they have gone out with the thousands of staunch farm leaders on the farms of the Nation, mobilizing more than 3,000,000 farm people much more easily and economically than our man power was mobilized during the World War. They also have borne efficiently and without complaint much of the responsibility for the direction of various other agencies set up under the national recovery program,

including emergency relief, rural credit corporations, and public works departments. This natural program has given them the opportunity to prove their worth, and their whole-hearted response has proven the faith and confidence that we have had in them over the years.

Experience showed the increasing need of organized effort to meet other problems of agriculture. The individual farmer, guided by the scientific advice of his county agent, could cope successfully with the problems of production on his own farm, but no matter how efficient he became in his own production, he found himself helpless to cope with the great economic and political forces which determined the conditions under which he lived. Only by collective action through an organization could farmers correct injustices in State and national policies, remove inequitable tax burdens upon agriculture, attain effective bargaining power against powerful groups of middlemen, and deal effectively with the great social, economic, and political problems of vital importance to agriculture. The task of putting into operation the principles of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, for example, fell upon the shoulders of the agricultural colleges and their personnel, the county agents, the home demonstration agents, the various extension specialists, the boys' and girls' club workers, and upon the shoulders of the community, county, and State farm leaders. It has been one of the best and most efficient jobs done in the interest of American agriculture; and it has been one of the most difficult. Those who took part in it, thousands of them, as members of committees, as members of advisory boards, as generals and privates in the army which set out to organize agriculture nationally for economic betterment, worked night and day. No task of agricultural education and organization, in all the annals of American agricultural history, has been better done.

The benefits of this work cannot be measured merely in dollars and cents. There is no known way of evaluating the benefits of education. There is no financial yardstick with which such benefits can be measured. Out of this work has developed a new American agricultural philosophy, a new spirit of farm life, a new American agricultural thought, a new incentive for building the country's basic industry to higher and greater standards. Out of this has emerged a new horizon colored with the rays of an optimistic future. Those of you who have lived in the country, who know and appreciate farm life, realize, as I do, what it means to the farmer and his family to give him the educational opportunities which are provided in the measure we are discussing today. It is the soundest investment which can be made by the Federal Government on behalf of its citizens. Its particular merits lie in the opportunity afforded for farmers to train themselves to act collectively in sound economic projects, to act constructively in the interest of everything which means a happier, a more contented, and a more satisfactory farm life and living,

No farmer, irrespective of what his material advantages may be, regardless of his economic conditions, can carry on for himself the research and experimental work necessary to determine the most suitable farm practices. This lies wholly within the province of

such institutions as agricultural experiment stations, whose discoveries have proved of inestimable value to agriculture. Similarly, no farmer or group of farmers, if they are to take advantage of the discoveries of science as applicable to the farm, can progress in agricultural practices without having the findings of science brought to them, explained to them, and demonstrated to them.

This, precisely, is what is being done daily, under the limitations of present appropriations, by our agricultural colleges, our agricultural experiment stations, and our agricultural extension services. The better equipped these institutions are, the more personnel they have, the better trained that personnel is, the greater the advantages accruing to agriculture. We want to see, as soon as possible, every agricultural college and all of its divisions, including its agricultural experiment station and agricultural extension service, so equipped with all the tools of research and personnel as will render the maximum educational service to every farmer in the United States.

New facts in agriculture are being discovered every day. They are limitless in number. They cover every phase of agricultural production and distribution. In plant breeding, in animal breeding, in control of diseases and pests, in soil analysis, in the development of new and better varieties and species, in soil management, in drainage, in irrigation, in orchard practices, in the organization of the farm itself, in everything associated with farming and farm life, new facts are constantly developed. The discovery of these facts is one of the romances of agriculture. The application of these facts to practical farming practices and farm life is part of that romance translated into actuality.

We want to see every agricultural county in the United States equipped with one or more county agents to serve the farmers of those counties. We want to see every agricultural county in the United States equipped with at least one home-demonstration agent to aid the farm women of those counties in their problems of home management. We want to see every agricultural county in the United States equipped with at least one boys' and girls' club specialist to work with the farm youth of those counties. We want to see this work, as well as the resident teaching in the agricultural colleges, and the research work of the agricultural experiment stations, placed on a permanent basis of service to agriculture.

In asking for this aid by the Federal Government, we are not requesting anything unreasonable or lacking merit. The very nature of agriculture demands that science and practice must work hand in hand as partners if success is to be achieved. It is exactly for this purpose that the entire agricultural educational program of the United States, through Congress, was conceived. Agricultural science, harnessed into practice by farmers, points the surest route to the improvement of agriculture and farm life.

In conclusion, let me say this: To induce men and women and boys and girls to come together and thing collectively, plan collectively, and then act collectively, to bring about desired conditions, does something to the individual. It gives opportunity, the greatest boon to mankind, for self-expression and development.

We have not only improved farm practices, have better homes, broader lives, but farmers are thinking, thinking in a trained way, collectively and unselfishly. Farm men and women are learning to

live and work together for the individual and common welfare. Working together in State and national programs has given confidence, courage, and understanding to farm people. Their outlooks have been broadened. They have a greater respect for themselves and farming as an industry.

Agricultural education has brought hope and happiness into thousands of our rural homes. Women take an equal part with the men. Just as the farm woman is a partner of her husband in the making of the home, so she is his partner in this great social institution, which is building a better rural civilization and a strong and vigorous Nation.

We have developed a great organized rural leadership, which, after all, is the soundest leadership. We have developed a leadership to fulfill the idea of Jefferson, which he stated in 1797, as follows:

Farmers, whose interests are entirely agricultural, are the true representatives of the great American interests, and are alone to be relied on for expressing the proper American sentiments.

Senator BANKHEAD. This whole agricultural program has evolved around the Agricultural Extension Service, has it not?

Mr. O'NEAL. That is right, Senator.

Senator CAPPER. And this is to provide a set-up, largely, to carry it into effect?

Mr. O'NEAL. That is right, Senator. I know from observation what was done in the Spanish-American War and the World War, and these boys, these men and women-the women helped too did, to my mind, a more effective job then was done at that time by all the agencies of the Government. It was no small job to go over 3 or 4 million farms and deal with 15 or 20 million people and get a thing done like that was done.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. Is it the purpose of this bill to take care of the additional duties that have been placed upon the agricultural organizations by the Agricultural Adjustment Act?

Mr. O'NEAL. Yes, Senator, to a large extent, and to put it on a permanent basis.

Senator BILBO. Mr. O'Neal, you said the bill would provide three people for each county to carry on this work. Does that mean the Federal Government will pay for it without supplementing on the part of the counties?

Mr. O'NEAL. No; the old act will remain in force. In other words, many of the States

Senator BILBO (interposing). It will be handled in the same way? Mr. O'NEAL. In the same way, to a large degree. The details of how that is distributed, Senator Bilbo, could be given by the distinguished gentlemen here. They can tell you about that.

Senator BILBO. I thought that by these additional appropriations provided here, which was supplementary to what is already made in the general appropriation, you meant to relieve the counties of the burden.

Mr. O'NEAL. No; the counties would still have, and the farmers themselves in some of the States. You know, the farmers themselves contribute very extensively to help carry on this work.

Senator BILBO. I just wanted to know if you were trying to relieve the counties of that burden.

Mr. O'NEAL. No indeed. I might supplement my statement there by stating that where the counties are too poor, as they are in many cases, we feel that the work should go on, it will have to go on anyway, and here is the result of that. As you know in Mississippi, frequently that has been done, and then the farm people or the county authorities come across. They may be hard up and their tax budgets short, as they have been, and this of course will help until they can get on their feet.

Senator BILBO. We have this situation in lots of counties, some of the larger counties where they need this work most, they will get a board of supervisors that will not cooperate, and it results in not having any service for the farmers at all. They are the unhappy victims of stubbornness.

Mr. O'NEAL. That is right; politics.

Senator BILBO. In cases of that kind will this fund be ample to give these people the service?

Mr. O'NEAL. This will carry them on, as I understand it, till they can get on their own feet, but not cutting out cooperation. These additional funds will provide for that.

Senator POPE. I notice at the bottom of the second page of the bill, under subdivision (2), that the several States and the Territory of Hawaii shall not be required to offset allotments authorized in this section. Are they required to offset any allotments now?

Mr. O'NEAL. Yes, sir; and I think, Senator Pope, if you will let these college representatives explain that-they understand it better than I do the details of it.

Senator BILBO. That is what prompted my question, the offset. Mr. O'NEAL. Now, Senator Bankhead, if there are no more questions, I would like to present to the committee, as Mr. Tabor is very ill, having just undergone a very severe operation, much to our distress-I would like to present to the committee Mr. Brenckman, who is here to make a statement for the National Grange.

Senator BANKHEAD. We will be glad to hear Mr. Brenckman.

STATEMENT OF FREDERIC BRENCKMAN, WASHINGTON
REPRESENTATIVE, THE NATIONAL GRANGE

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, let me say that in the early seventies, when the land-grant colleges were new and when the Grange was the only general farm organization in the country, the Grange made a determined fight to secure the teaching of agriculture in the land-grant colleges, where it had been very much neglected up to that time. We likewise supported the Hatch Act in 1887, providing for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations.

In 1914, when the Smith-Lever bill was pending, we supported that, because that was to bring the college direct to the farmer and to make the services of extension workers available to those engaged in agriculture. I personally assumed the initiative in the organization of the Carbon County Farm Bureau in Pennsylvania in 1917. A young man named Nicholas Rahn was appointed county agent. I recall distinctly that we had some difficulty in persuading the county commissioners to make an appropriation toward defraying the expenses of the county agent, which they finally did, however.