The farmers of America want a sound national agricultural policy in
which a permanent land-use program will have an important place.
They want assurance against another year like 1932 when they made
good crops but had to sell them for prices that meant ruin just as
surely as did the drought. Sound policy must maintain farm prices
in good crop years as well as in bad crop years. It must function
when we have drought; it must also function when we have bumper
crops.
The maintenance of a fair equilibrium between farm prices and the
prices of industrial products is an aim which we must keep ever
before us, just as we must give constant thought to the sufficiency
of the food supply of the nation even in bad years. Our modern
civilization can and should devise a more successful means by which
the excess supplies of bumper years can be conserved for use in
lean years.
On my trip I have been deeply impressed with the general efficiency
of those agencies of the federal, state and local governments which
have moved in on the immediate task created by the drought. In 1934
none of us had preparation; we worked without blueprints and made
the mistakes of inexperience. Hindsight shows us this. But as time
has gone on we have been making fewer and fewer mistakes. Remember
that the federal and state governments have done only broad
planning.
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