of fact, the few million dollars added to his income represent a drop in the bucket as compared with what he has lost since 1920, or since 1926.

It seems to me that if agriculture is going to be given a fair deal, these facts should be laid before our consumers in the big metropolitan centers. They read these releases which you send out and they get the impression that we farmers are getting relief when, as a matter of fact, we are not.

The industrial income and the labor income are higher now in some instances than they were during the war, while the farm income is vastly lower than it was during the war. The cities ought to understand that, and if they did understand the facts of the great disparity between industrial and labor income and agricultural income, it would be much easier to satisfy them as to why they must pay more, why the cost of living must be increased.

For example, here in the District of Columbia, the average income of the departmental worker during the war was between $1,400 and $1,500, as I recall it. At the present time the average income is much higher. The cost of living at this time is materially less than it was during the war.

During the war the farmer was receiving from $23 to $28 for his hogs. He was receiving from $1.75 to $2.40 for his wheat. He was receiving 50 to 60 cents for his eggs.

I am taking the District of Columbia merely as an example, because I am heartily in favor of an increase of wages of Federal employees to normal. But I simlpy want to point out that the farmer also should be getting an increase to normal.

We reduced the average Federal salary 15 percent but still left him more than he received during the war, while the cost of living is considerably less than it was during the war.

The farmer, instead of losing 15 percent of his war time income, is getting only about 15 percent of what he received during the war. I can readily understand the reaction of the man in the city who reads these reports from the Department of Agriculture, which represent the problem of the farmer and the agricultural interests of the country, as being solved. I can understand his reaction when he reads those reports and sees that the farmer's income is being increased and that apparently he is getting back to a prosperous condition. He would then resent any increase in his cost of living. The full facts should be laid before the consumer so that he would understand the farmer's condition, that he is still receiving less than the cost of production while his expenses are being increased by the N.R.A.

Mr. EISENHOWER. Mr. Cannon, I am certain that there has never been in the Department of Agriculture a more real interest and sympathy for the farmer. To my way of thinking there has never been more actual knowledge of what his condition is. facilities for learning the facts are superior to what they once were. Mr. CANNON. I think that is true.

Our

Mr. EISENHOWER. I know from experience in handling this work that for every release or radio talk that may have gone out saying that the income of the farmer has been increased, let us say, by $1,500,000,000 this year, there have been 100 issued deploring the condition of agriculture, and pounding on the fact that we have got to achieve a balance between the income that the farmer receives

and that business and industrial groups receive; otherwise we will never get a normal exchange of goods.

Secretary Wallace has gone on the air more than any man I have ever known in public life to express that point of view; and I think that this is very significant-we are receiving few if any serious complaints about the farm program from the cities.

Mr. CANNON. From the cities?

Mr. EISENHOWER. From the cities. I am convinced that for the first time in our history the consumer is aware of the fact that we have got to make agriculture prosper; that we have got to give agriculture a chance to achieve parity prices. I cannot help but believe that you have received the wrong impression of the facts we are putting out. As proof of that, I should like to send you samples of the radio talks and of the press releases on this situation. Right now we are emphasizing the deplorable condition of the livestock farmer. That is an especially acute situation and we are trying to make people understand it.

Mr. CANNON. I am glad to have a statement of your attitude. Of course, it is in consonance with what I had understood. But I have read, I believe, every radio release which has been sent out, and I have yet to find in a single radio release a statement or even a reference to the fact that while the income of agriculture has risen, it has not approached anything like the amount which was received in 1926 or 1927 or 1928 or 1929, or 1920 and 1921; that there was still a vast disparity between the income of agriculture and the income of industry and labor. That is not stated anywhere.

Mr. EISENHOWER. I shall have to send the releases to you.
Mr. CANNON. I would be glad to see them.

Mr. EISENHOWER. As a matter of fact, one of the points that the Secretary personally is constantly making in radio and other talks is the close relation between the income of the wage earner and the income of the farmer. This relation is especially close between pay rolls and the cash income from livestock products, but it roughly holds good for the cash income from all farm products. If you chart pay rolls and cash farm income you will find that the two lines go up and down together.

Now, it so happens that I have here a publication which we have just issued, entitled, "Economic Bases for the Agricultural Adjustment Act. It gives the very facts you are discussing.

It is probably true that we have not put out numerous comparisons with the situation prevailing in 1921 to 1926, or 1926 to 1928 because the Agricultural Adjustment Act names the base period as 1909 to 1914. It is only natural that most of our press releases and radio talks have used that as the period for comparison. The objective named in the act itself is parity prices, using the pre-war period as a base.

Mr. CANNON. I take it for granted that your Department keeps clippings of the metropolitan press on this subject?

Mr. EISENHOWER. To some extent. We have no authority in our appropriation to buy clippings. All we can do is to get them fortuitously.

Mr. CANNON. I think that is unfortunate, because undoubtedly you ought to have them. If you have read, as no doubt you have, the metropolitan publications in the last 6 months, you will not find a single article that gives us this very vital phase of the matter.

You

say that you have had no complaints from the consumers. If you will take into consideration the attitude of Members of Congress who represent the consuming areas, who represent the cities, you will find that they are not disposed to cooperate in legislation which will bring the farmer's income up to a parity with the city worker's income. That is the reflection of the consumer's viewpoint.

Mr. EISENHOWER. I was engaged in this same work during the so-called "prosperous era." At that time there was a terrific inertia or opposition on the part of city people to any argument which demonstrated that the farmer was not getting a square deal. I am positive that that is not true today.

Mr. CANNON. I hope that you are correct about that. I have seen no evidence of it.

Mr. EISENHOWER. Magazine editors of New York and Philadelphia with whom I have talked seem to be thoroughly convinced that we must achieve the fair-exchange objective. Of course, I suppose there is opposition always, but I am talking about the preponderance of opinion.

Mr. CANNON. I will just repeat one statement that I heard made by a Congressman representing a metropolitan district. He said that he would object to any legislation which would increase the cost of any article of food or the cost of any raw material consumed by his constituents. Of course, his position was naturally a reaction to the attitude of his constituency.

Mr. EISENHOWER. This is getting somewhat out of my field, but let me say that at first when the cotton processing tax went into effect, retailers began advertising in many cities that the big jump in the price of shirts and overalls, and so forth, was due to the processing tax. But when the secretary and the consumers' counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration stepped down on that and showed that the maximum increase in a shirt, for example, should not be more than 5 cents, retailers very quickly stopped the practice. I think people today are aware of the fact that the processing tax of 4.2 cents a pound on cotton does not make a vital difference in the final retail price of the commodity.

Mr. JUMP. Mr. Cannon, your remark about city Members of Congress recalls to my mind the very fine attitude of the present mayor of New York City when he was a Member of Congress. Although he came from a large city, he repeatedly stated on the floor that while he was from a large city he was fully aware of the fact that the farmers had to get a good return on their products in order that they might be able to buy the products of the city. He constantly took that attitude, as I recall it.

Mr. CANNON. The attitude of Mr. LaGuardia was admirable. He cooperated at all times on the floor and was a typical illustration of what the ideal Representative ought to be.

AVERAGE SALARY OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. JUMP. While this has no bearing upon the principle we have been discussing, I want to correct something that was said about the average pay of the Government employees in Washington. I do not know how you got your figures on this matter of Federal pay in the District of Columbia. You stated someone had informed you that the average income of Federal employees in the District of

Columbia was $2,800 a year. That sounds too high, and upon reference to table no. 19 of the Budget for 1935 (pp. A122 and A123) I find that there are 53,000 employees listed in the departmental service in Washington, and that number divided into the total pay roll—— Mr. CANNON (interposing). You are speaking only of those under the civil service?

Mr. JUMP. No, sir.

Mr. CANNON. I was speaking of those under the classified civil service.

Mr. JUMP. This statement covers the entire Government establishment, including the Executive Office, independent establishments, and executive departments, but excluding the legislative establishment, the District of Columbia, and the military. I simply divide the total number of employees shown there, that number being 53,000, into the total pay roll of $103,000,000. Then, after making a deduction of the pay cut, you will find that the average salary is approximately $1,900.

Mr. CANNON. All right. That demonstrates conclusively the point we were discussing. During the war the average salary was $1,500 and the farmer was receiving $2.40 a bushel for his wheat and $23.50 for his hogs. Now the average salary is $1,900 according to your figures and the farmer is receiving 80 cents for his wheat and $3.35 for his hogs. I am not urging a reduction of salaries. But if labor and industry and the Federal employees would join in a movement to give the farmer a fair wage and a fair price for his product— if they would treat the disease instead of the symptom-the whole country would soon be prosperous again and everybody would be getting what they earned and enjoying general prosperity. You can't sell when there is nobody to buy and you must give the farmer the buying power he is entitled to receive if you expect to end the depression. The Department of Agriculture can contribute to that end by stressing the facts in its press releases, by showing that while the farmer is receiving a million dollars more than he received last year, he is receiving $7,000,000 less than when Government employees were receiving an average salary of $1,500 a year. I was hoping that in your publicity work some stress would be laid upon the fact that the farmer is not well off because he has received a dollar or two of additional income when in fact his income has decreased 10 or 20 times that amount since 1920.

Mr. EISENHOWER. I think that, so far as our mail is concerned, taking the complaints that come to my office, we must get 100 complaints to 1, expressing just the opposite to what you indicate. I would like to send you the material I mentioned a moment ago and let you see it, including the Secretary's own talks.

Mr. CANNON. They have not come to the attention of the average farmer and nothing is more vital and educational on this question than the reports that come from the Department of Agriculture, because they are taken to be official.

RADIO SERVICE

Mr. EISENHOWER. I would like to emphasize, as I do each year, that all of this radio time costs the Government nothing. There is still, despite repeated reiterations that the statement is incorrect,

the belief in some quarters that we must be paying vast sums of money for radio time.

Mr. SANDLIN. As I understand it, that is not the case.

Mr. EISENHOWER. It is not, and never has been. The radio service has been absolutely indispensable in our present work. We not only have at our disposal a full hour at noon on the networks of the National Broadcasting Co., both east and west, but we have had all the night time we needed. For example, during the first cotton campaign, we had 15 minutes on the Columbia System and 15 minutes on the N.B.C. network each night for 2 weeks, at no cost whatever. In addition to the network programs, 300 independent stations daily devote time to agricultural broadcasts, the time on various stations ranging from 15 minutes to 21⁄2 hours.

Mr. SINCLAIR. What was the $25,000 carried for?

Mr. EISENHOWER. That is exclusively for the payment of personnel who prepare the programs. We have a chief of radio service, 4 agricultural writers, I home economic writer, and 2 clerks. That is the total personnel for carrying on the radio programs. They prepare about 3,000 separate interpretive programs each year, these programs requiring more than 35,000 hours of radio time. Commercially this would cost about $2,000,000, but we pay nothing for it.

Mr. THURSTON. In your releases over the radio, do you give information as to the selling price of dairy products, for instance, in the agricultural regions, as compared with the prices that the consumer pays in the cities?

Mr. EISENHOWER. Practically all market-news work goes on the radio. That is not included in this item, however; it comes under the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The market reports give the farm prices of commodities. The Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and now the Consumers' Counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration give wide publicity to retail prices.

Mr. THURSTON. There is a good deal of statistical matter sent out over the radio that probably only one person in a hundred thousand understands, because they have not been taught to appreciate the value of it. For instance, when eggs are selling in the State of Iowa for 15 cents per dozen, and the consumer in town is paying from 40 to 60 cents per dozen for eggs, that comparable information should be given. The same thing would be true as to the price of hogs, cattle, or pork, and so forth. If that information were given, it seems to me that we could educate our people in this country concerning the vast spread between the price that the producer gets and the price the consumer pays.

Mr. EISENHOWER. We do that very intensively. May I say this, that I have always had a high regard for the farmer's intelligence. Even so, I have been utterly amazed at the ability of farmers to take our technical information, comprehend it, and use it. For example, here is a booklet that is almost wholly statistical, with charts; Í know that thing has been understood by the average farmer. This publication, Economic Trends Affecting Agriculture, analyzes the relation of the industrial depression to agriculture, world influences on American agriculture, and, finally, disparities in incomes and prices.

Mr. THURSTON. When I leave my home in Iowa, where we pay 18 or 20 cents per dozen for eggs, and, possibly, 20 cents per pound for butter, and reach Washington I find that those prices have not