all sorts of charges of favoritism, with regard to this relative or that friend or somebody else.

Mr. CANNON. How could they be charged with favoritism, Doctor, when they do not do the work? As you say, these local men organize and they do the work, and in each township the local township committee passes on the acreage allotments to their neighbors.

Dr. WARBURTON. I am speaking more particularly, Mr. Cannon, of our regular county agents, our regular extension workers, than of these emergency workers.

Mr. CANNON. We are speaking of these agricultural representatives who are handling the wheat campaign.

Mr. THURSTON. To amplify the statement of the gentleman from Missouri, I may say that in the State of Iowa, upon three or four occasions recently when they attempted to reenact the tax code, provisions would be in these proposed measures to the effect that the tax assessor should not be a resident of the county wherein he was to function. When the farm organizations learned about that provision, plus the citizens of the State, they promptly had this provision eliminated, because it was apparent that the people wanted what you might call self-government or local control over their assessor rather than have one imported. I think the same thought would apply to county agents. They would not want to be restricted to nonresidents. Mr. HART. Doctor Warburton, I want to call your attention to another situation in the Extension Service in Michigan. Now, I do not know whether this is true throughout the country or not. It may not be. But we have up there many marketing organizations that are organized by the Extension Service, organized by county agents, organized by men drawing their pay under the Extension Service, and variously designated as economists and with other titles, but under the Director of the Extension Service. Now, they organize these farmers, and, from my investigations, they exploit them. They build up an organization and then run their salaries up to twelve to fifteen thousand a year. In other words, they are just running a business organization.

Dr. WARBURTON. Well, these people who receive twelve and fifteen thousand dollar salaries are not Extension employees; I can assure you of that.

Mr. HART. Oh, no; but they are built up by Extension employees. Don't you consider what your Extension agents are doing? They are out serving those people. Now, the theory is that this is cooperative, but it is cooperative for these employees only. In other words, it is a racket; it is a plain, downright racket, and it is built up by the Extension Service. You, of course, are aware that you have one of the finest propaganda organizations in the United States. You have somewhere between five and six thousand of these people in intimate contact with the farmer and directed from your office.

Dr. WARBURTON. Probably it was a propaganda organization that accomplished the sign-up of more than a million farmers to cotton reduction contracts in a period of less than a month last summer. took some propaganda to do that.

It

Mr. HART. Certainly; and when it is directed along the right lines it is fine. But it can go along on other lines, and we have them in our State.

Dr. WARBURTON. I am frank to admit, Mr. Hart, that there are some things in the State of Michigan that need to be cleaned up, but the State has got to do it.

Mr. HART. What I want to point out to you is that we have not had any reduction in Michigan. We have had an increase, in my judgment, of around 25 to 30 percent.

Dr. WARBURTON. You are talking now of the wheat acreage?

Mr. HART. Yes; the wheat acreage. Now, you are aware that the junior Senator from Michigan, Senator Vandenberg, has demanded, through a resolution in the Senate, an accounting of your processing taxes; did you know that?

Dr. WARBURTON. No; I did not know it.

Mr. HART. He is evidently obtaining it for the purpose of attacking the program; and through political influencd in Michigan Mr. Vandenberg can control your organization. That is no joke. He is in absolute control of it. He has got his people right on that board of agriculture, that control it and that are responsible for firing those people out of the State agricultural college. I want to bring that home to you because that Extension Service, through these appropriations which flow from here, you can control. We have got two roaming fellows up there who are principally engaged in politics, under the Director of the Extension Service. That is their principal job. That is, they are working for this so-called "cooperative", and the rest of their time is spent in politics. One of them was down here writing a milk bill. He was sent down here to keep track of what is going on. He is not in the Department any more. I can furnish you their names; I can put them in the record if you want them.

Dr. WARBURTON. I would be glad to have the names. I think I know at least one of the men you have in mind.

Mr. HART. Yes; then the commissioner of agriculture, the governor, and myself initiated a movement to obtain the same kind of loans on beans that the cotton farmer is getting, or quite similar, except that we were not signing up a crop-reduction program, because we have no surplus, and due to the banking conditions up there our farmers were in terribly bad shape. Now, your Director of Extension sent A. B. Love down there with another crowd to obstruct that program. He is down here at State and Federal expense.

Dr. WARBURTON. I am not so sure that it was the Director of Extension. Love was down here, but I am not so sure that the Director of Extension sent him.

Mr. HART. He came down here with another crowd, and you will find out.

Dr. WARBURTON. I want to say frankly, Mr. Hart, that I have a great deal of confidence in Bob Baldwin, the Director of Extension. There are some folks in the institution in whom I do not have as much confidence.

Mr. HART. Well, Baldwin, of course, is subject to the people above him. I am not attacking him personally, understand, but the management is what I am after, and the management goes clear back to the State board of agriculture.

Mr. SINCLAIR. That is not a Federal board; it is a State board, is it not?

Mr. HART. Yes; but at the same time we are furnishing money which is being used through this extension service, and if it is being used for improper purposes, I think Dr. Warburton can still control it. Mr. SINCLAIR. Oh, absolutely.

Dr. WARBURTON. But we would be getting away from that democratic control in which you are interested if we went to Michigan and said, "You have got to change that State board of agriculture."

Mr. HART. NO; I am not suggesting that you change the State board of agriculture. We will do that. But what I am suggesting is that if you find that these funds are being used for improper purposes you should be able to do something about it. For instance, take the example that I gave here yesterday of this cooperative getting into trouble by embezzling money-this farm bureau cooperative-and then using Mr. Patch to go to St. Louis and settle it up for them at State expense. That is not a part of the Extension Service.

Dr. WARBURTON. No.

Mr. HART. Now, I do not know whether that goes on anywhere else or not, but if that is what the Extension Service is being used for, I am opposed to appropriating money for it. I am willing to furnish money for any legitimate purpose where it goes direct to the benefit of the farmer; but when it goes to the benefit of a bunch of propagandists or people who are exploiting the farmer, I am absolutely opposed to it.

Mr. SANDLIN. Of course I do not know what the situation is in Missouri or in Michigan; I am not familiar with it at all; but I do have some knowledge of the work of the extension agents in putting over this cotton-control project, and I have never heard of any criticism at all of any of them; and it is remarkable how efficient they were in propaganda of the proper sort, to sell this idea to the farmers. and in the result of the whole work. Most of the increase in the price of cotton is due to this crop-reduction program that was put over for cotton. Cotton was selling at about 5% cents when this program started. Today that same class of cotton is selling at 11 cents a pound. Of course the monetary program probably contributed some to it, but the fact that the cotton acreage was reduced last year, with a fair prospect for 1935, reducing the acreage from forty-odd millions to 26 or 27 million acres, has no doubt contributed mainly to the increase in the price of cotton, and were it not for the fact that this program was started and carried out last year, and in prospect for 1935, I doubt at the present time whether there would be much market for cotton with the large surplus that is now being held.

I have not the least criticism of the gentlemen who are complaining about the way this matter is handled in their counties and their States. They know that better than I do, and they are within their rights in discussing it, and if there is any maladministration of Federal funds here, we should know about it, and the correction should be made. But I do feel that in justice to the Extension Service and the many splendid agents that they have, and the very efficient work that they have done, it should be brought to the attention of this committee of the Congress.

I know this, and the members of this committee will find out if they do not already know it, whether it is caused by propaganda of agents or not; but the people as a whole, through their representatives,

will voice that sentiment on the floor of the House with respect to this very appropriation, and I would not be surprised-I have not the authority to say so-if the full amount should be restored by Executive order.

Are there any other questions on this subject?

WORK OF EXTENSION SERVICE IN CONNECTION WITH PRODUCTION CONTROL

PROGRAMS

Dr. WARBURTON. Some time ago you asked, Judge, what the effect would be of the reduction, and I stated that a reduction of $2,000,000 or more, unless these funds were replaced from some other source, necessarily would mean a very considerable reduction in the extension staff. If the Extension Service is to continue to present these production control campaigns for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and if there are to be further campaigns, as now seems probable-we have now under way the corn and hog campaigns, the tobacco campaign, and the 1923-35 cotton campaign-it now seems probable that some sort of production control will be worked out for the dairy industry, which will probably require a sign-up of individual farmers, and there is before Congress a bill to include beef cattle as a basic industry, with the future possibility of a sign-up there, which probably would go over into the next fiscal year.

If these production control programs are to be continued during the next fiscal year under the Extension Service, it will be a big educational job to present the program to the farmers, and I do not see how we could operate with many, if any, less people than we have now, and if we are to retain, during the emergency, some sort of agricuttural representation in the important agricultural counties, we would necessarily have to ask the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to replace whatever we lose through the 25 percent reduction provision.

Mr. SANDLIN. How much did you receive last year from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration?

Dr. WARBURTON. You mean in this fiscal year?

Mr. SANDLIN. Yes.

Dr. WARBURTON. The amount expended and the amount projected for expenditure to the end of the year is something like $5,000,000. That is for what might be called educational extension work, and that includes the employment during these campaign periods of at least one clerical helper in practically every county agent's office, to assist farmers in making out contracts, and to do other work of that kind. It also includes funds for extra travel by some of the extension agents, because while these campaigns are under way it is necessary for all these workers to do a good deal more traveling than in the normal course of their work.

Mr. SANDLIN. Are those funds administered by your organization or by the 3-A people?

Dr. WARBURTON. They are transferred to the Extension Service for allotment to the States, and administered by the Extension Service. Mr. SINCLAIR. So far, all these campaigns that are purely for the emergency Agricultural Adjustment Administration have been conducted in the various counties by your Extension Service?

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Dr. WARBURTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Is it expected that that will continue, if there are to be other campaigns put on?

Dr. WARBURTON. We have had no indication of any change in that plan.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Is there any other agency of the Agricultural Department that could be in touch, or could get in touch as efficiently or as easily with the various counties of the country as your Extension Service?

Dr. WARBURTON. The Department has no other agency as widely distributed or as familiar with the agricultural conditions. The only other course, so far as we can see, would be to set up an entirely new agency.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Then it would be better to meet the criticism of Mr. Cannon and Mr. Hart by a correction, if it can be corrected, in that agency than to set up a new agency, or to destroy that agency, it seems to me.

Dr. WARBURTON. That has been our feeling, Mr. Sinclair.

Mr. SINCLAIR. I have not had a great deal of contact with the Extension Service. I do know that in my State, which is a State of thin population and long distances, the only quick method of getting contacts with farmers in the State of North Dakota is through the county agents of the Extension Service, and I think their wheat campaign in my State was put on very efficiently.

Mr. CANNON. The county agents in your State, I take it, have been acceptable to the farmers themselves?

Mr. SINCLAIR. The farmers passed on the county agents. There are but few counties that have found they have had to discontinue the county agents, and in most every case the discontinuance has been the result of the expense; they want to reduce the county's

expense.

Mr. CANNON. You have no counties in which a man has been appointed over the protest of the farmers themselves?

Mr. SINCLAIR. No; I think not; I do not know of any. All those that I know of have been very satisfactory.

Dr. WARBURTON. Let me ask, Mr. Cannon, a question, if I may. How general was that protest, or was it a protest of a comparatively few individuals in the county? Of course, you can always find a few folks who will kick about anything.

Mr. CANNON. I think that is true, but the protest in these particular counties was practically unanimous. In one county which I cited, the organization there I think is almost 100 percent. I doubt whether there is another county in the United States that is so completely organized as that one county is. They are nearly 100 percent M.F.A. In many other instances the Farm Bureau is predominant. In such counties I would protest as vigorously against bringing in an outside man with whom the local farmers were out of sympathy as I would in the case of Franklin County. I am not speaking for any particular organization, but I think you should have local option in each county, and where there is such a vigorous protest I think some attention should be given to the protest by the authorities in Washington. In fact, I was promised that it would be observed, and the promise was completely forgotten.