Harry S. Truman photo

Address in Lincoln, Nebraska.

May 08, 1950

THANK YOU very much. I just can't realize the compliment which you are paying to me, to come out here in all this rain, although I had told Governor Peterson that I was very sure that the rain would be more welcome at this time than the President of the United States. I believe they are both welcome.

You know, I have been very well acquainted with several of your Governors. I have had two of them in the public service, Roy Cochran and Dwight Griswold. That is a bipartisan arrangement, because one is a Democrat and the other is a Republican. I was well acquainted with Mr. Bryan when he was Governor of this State, and I have been up here on numerous occasions.

I came up here at one time when I was responsible for the construction of the courthouse in Jackson County, to examine your great Capitol buildings. The architect of that building was very nice to me, and explained to me that your Capitol would go down in history as one of the wonders of architecture. You do have some wonderful things up here.

I just want to explain to you that I am a neighbor. I understand your situation, and I sincerely wish that the weather was such that you could stay and listen to what I have to say. Now, whether you like it or not, I am going to have to make this speech, because it is on the record, and it has been given out on the streets, and the newspapermen will be checking on me to see whether I have got nerve enough to make it.

I know what rain means to farmers, so if you don't stay here while I make this speech, I won't be offended in the slightest.

You know, I have been looking forward very much to this visit to the Middle West. This is my own home country, and I always enjoy coming back to it.

I am particularly glad to be in Lincoln on this trip. Here in the center of the Nation, where the Corn Belt merges with the Great Plains, we can see clearly the greatness and the importance of American agriculture.

This city of Lincoln depends on the farming areas around it for the sources of its livelihood. The city draws products from agriculture, and in turn provides goods and services to the smaller towns and farm families nearby. This is the pattern all over this great country.

The whole development of this Nation shows how city and country, industry and agriculture, can grow and prosper together, by cooperation and with mutual benefit.

What's true of our country is true of all the world.

Our country today, along with other free countries, is engaged in a tremendous effort to bring about peace based on freedom and justice. Make no mistake about it, the struggle we are in now is just as important to our future as was our victory in the last war.

If we are to win through to the peace, we must maintain a healthy and strong economy. And our economy can grow and prosper only if the other free countries grow and prosper also. For the genius of freedom is to succeed not by exploitation but by cooperation.

American agriculture is directly concerned with the success of our program for peace. You here in Lincoln are directly affected by what happens these days in Berlin, in Paris, in Singapore.

No one should know that better than the American farmer, because farmers remember what happened to them after the last war.

In the early 1920's the bottom fell out of agriculture in this country. Export markets disappeared. Prices plummeted to the bottom. The price of corn dropped in 18 months from $2 to 42 cents a bushel. The price of cotton fell from 40 cents to 10 cents a pound. Land values collapsed. The resulting agricultural depression in the 1920

's was the forerunner of the national depression of the thirties.

Those were the days when international trade barriers were built up and up, in a foolish and futile effort to gain advantage at the expense of somebody else. Those were the days when farmers were left alone to struggle with their problems while the rest of the country went up and up on the bubble of the boom.

When that bubble burst, the hollow nature of that boom was revealed. Our country and the whole world suffered the agony of the great depression.

It is perfectly evident now how worldwide depression paved the way for the Second World War.

That is why we are doing everything we can to see that the same thing doesn't happen again. That is why we are working so hard to bring about a sensible development of world trade and a healthy world economy. That is why we are determined to prevent another agricultural depression.

Fortunately, we have the experience of the last 17 years to guide us.

In 1933 we started in to attack the national depression at its roots. One of our first efforts was to overcome the farm depression. We developed special credit programs to rescue farm families. We stepped up agricultural research to develop better crops and broader markets. We started national soil conservation programs to restore the basis for the abundant production. We developed a price-support program to assure farmers a fair income.

These and other farm programs helped farmers and they helped the whole country. The national farm income in 1940 was twice as large as in 1932--which meant twice as big a farm market for industrial products. As farm income increased, the income of the rest of our people also increased. This was a practical demonstration of the truth that the people of this country prosper together, and they suffer together also.

Of course, these new farm programs were opposed by selfish or shortsighted people. It was the same kind of mudslinging, name-calling opposition that you hear now every time we bring up a new proposal for the benefit of the whole people.

I remember when I first went to the Senate, an important farm bill was being debated which became the foundation of our present agricultural conservation program. Over in the House of Representatives, one Congressman said this legislation was "an attempt to enslave the farmer," and that it was "communistic." Another Congressman said that under this legislation farmers would be "dominated and regimented for all time"--they would "no longer . . . be free men."

These were the same people whose weird brand of "statesmanship" had brought us to the low point of 1932. They and their kind opposed all the efforts that were made to get the country out of the trouble they had got us into--just as they are opposing our efforts to improve things today.

When you think how miserably wrong they have proved to be in the past, you can see just how little truth there is in the wild charges they are throwing around now.

They said--back there in the thirties-that our farm program was "an attempt to enslave the farmer." Instead, it has made the farmer free--free of the crushing burden of debt that had driven him to the verge of revolution in those dreadful days of the depression.

They said our farm programs were "communistic." Instead, they have strengthened the foundations of democracy by making the farmer more secure in the ownership of his own land.

They said farmers would be "regimented." Instead, farmers regained control over their own destinies, and under these programs they have enjoyed more liberty and led a better life than ever before in the history of the country.

That is the real story of what happened under our farm laws.

These laws led to freedom and prosperity. They were, and are, strong bulwarks for our free and democratic society. Remember that fact when you hear people today croaking the old charges of "socialism" and "regimentation" about every new proposal for progress.

Then, when the war came along, our farm programs proved their worth all over again. The soil conservation, research, and education programs made possible an enormous rise in farm output, even though fewer people were available for farm work. The stored-up surpluses of cotton and wheat and other crops, which had been bitterly criticized before the war, turned out to be extremely valuable.

The price-support system was adapted to wartime needs. It was used to encourage farmers to increase total production and to turn out the right amounts of each essential product. As a result, we provided well for our fighting men and our war plants, we shipped great supplies to our allies, and our civilians had more and better food than ever before.

The tremendous expansion of production during the war was equally valuable when the shooting stopped. In the years since the war, literally millions of people have been saved from a starvation diet by the products of our fields. Food from this country helped to stop and roll back the advance of communism. Without that food, many of our friends in Europe would have been lost to the cause of freedom.

Today, our farm programs are undergoing new tests. They have proved their worth in bringing about economic recovery and meeting the demands of war. During the last few years, we have been faced with the problems involved in readjusting to peacetime needs.

Two things have been made abundantly clear. First, that our programs have served us well--have indeed been our salvation-- in preventing the kind of disaster that followed after the First World War. Second, that there are defects in the present system which require correction.

One of the main reasons we have had no serious economic downturn since the war is the farm price-support system. After the First World War, net farm income dropped nearly 50 percent in a single year. This time, when the market prices of some commodities began to fall sharply, the price support system checked the decline and protected the farmers' incomes. Everybody in this country is better off today as a result of this fact.

However, our present farm price-support program is not fully satisfactory. It is not encouraging the substantial readjustments in production that are needed. It has allowed farm income to slide downward too much and too fast.

In the last 2 years, farm income has dropped more than 20 percent. That is nothing like what happened after the First World War. Nevertheless, it is very serious. This drop is not good for farmers, and it is not good for the rest of the country. We need to take positive action to stop and reverse that trend.

Furthermore, the present law provides no satisfactory basis for dealing with perishable crops. The present program relies on the Government's taking off the market commodities which are in temporary surplus. That works all right for products which are storable, as long as we don't build stockpiles bigger than may be needed in an emergency. But such a system doesn't work for perishables.

It is foolish to have the Government buy and store food that people want to eat now. It is even worse to have the Government buy food and destroy it, but that sometimes happens under the present program.

Everyone knows about the shameful potato situation. This can lead to public resentment strong enough to discredit the whole farm program. The taxpayers should not be expected to foot the bill for buying food which has to be wasted.

These obvious defects of the present support program have led to a great clamor. Some people would like to abandon the program altogether. Others would like to abandon all of it except the part that helps the crops they are particularly interested in. Others are just interested in muddying the waters for partisan political advantage.

It is not easy to disregard this clamor and see clearly what is right to do in the interest of the whole Nation. We must base our decisions on the facts that are demonstrated by our experience.

We must preserve the good features of the present program. They are built on a solid foundation. They are necessary for our own welfare and that of the free world. But we clearly need to improve and strengthen existing legislation.

This administration has made a very careful study of the changes that are necessary to adjust our farm support program to present conditions. A series of recommendations were worked out within the administration and were presented to the Congress last year by the Secretary of Agriculture. Those recommendations take the existing program which has been built up through years of experience, and seek to improve it further to meet the shortcomings which are evident.

No one claims that these recommendations are perfect in every detail. We are constantly looking for ways to improve them. I am firmly convinced, however, that they form by far the most comprehensive, effective and progressive proposals that have yet been offered.

The essential purposes of these proposals can be very simply stated.

First, they are designed to obtain the amounts and kinds of farm products that are needed in an expanding economy, and to assure the farmers the opportunity to earn a fair income for producing those products. The support program must encourage farmers to reduce costs, and to shift production to the commodities for which we ought to have expanding markets. In particular, it should encourage farmers to shift to livestock, rather than to continue producing surpluses of such crops as grain and cotton.

Under the proposals we have made, farmers would be given incentives to make the needed shifts in production. Farmers would be assured of support for all the crops which yield a major share of farm income. At present, some of the most important ones are left out. Furthermore, recent production and prices, rather than some out-of-date historical period, would be used in calculating fair income support levels. These are obviously desirable changes.

It would continue to be necessary, in some cases, to limit production to genuine consumer demand, in order to avoid surpluses greater than amounts which are needed for storage. There are some people--the same people who have been against the farmer all along--who seize on this fact and go around crying "regimentation" and talk about how the farmer is going to lose all his liberty.

Now this is just as strange as it can be. The truth is that such limitations have been provided for in our major farm support programs for many years. We have known since the experience of the Federal Farm Board, some 20 years ago, that there are times when some control of production is needed to make a support program workable. Unless production controls are available on some crops, for use when needed, price support could be an impossible burden on the taxpayers.

And here is something to remember. Under our system, quotas are not imposed unless two-thirds of the farmers affected vote for them. When two-thirds of the farmers vote to adopt quotas for themselves it is preposterous to go around calling that regimentation. Moreover, quotas are administered by local committees elected by the farmers themselves. These production controls are in complete accord with the tradition of democratic self-government.

The second purpose of the administration's proposals for changes in our support program is to provide a method for using our entire supply of perishable products, instead of taking part of it off the market and putting it on the shelf. Under our method all the product would go into the market and be consumed. A system of direct production payments to farmers would make up any difference between the average market price and a fair return to the farmer.

Such a system would be simple and efficient. The farmer would be sure of getting at least the support price. The people of towns and cities would get the benefit of what is produced.

I have heard this system attacked on the ground that it would cost too much. Most of the fantastic estimates of the cost you hear are made by those who don't understand how it would actually work. When you study the facts, you will see that this plan should cost no more, and may well cost less, than the present system. And it would have the tremendous advantage of using, instead of wasting, perishable products.

The plain fact is that the production payment plan is the best plan yet proposed for getting an abundant production of perishable crops consumed without knocking the bottom out of the farmer's income. It is in the farmer's interest. It is also in the consumer's interest. I firmly believe that it should be made a part of our national farm program.

Our third purpose is to encourage the conservation and wise use of our land and water resources.

A price-support program can do this in two ways. The first is by encouraging livestock production. If we produce the livestock products that our people want, we shall need to keep more land in grass and hay. And that is one of the major things we need to do in order to conserve our soil. Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas have a right to land from the lower counties in Louisiana because they have been washing away.

The second way is to make soil conservation practices a requirement for anyone who wants the benefit of price support. The whole Nation has an interest in soil conservation and benefits by it, just as the whole Nation has an interest in and benefits by a sound price-support program. It does not make sense to provide just as much price support for the individual who is deliberately ruining his soil as we provide for the good farmer who is keeping his land productive for future generations.

The need for soil conservation is one of the most important challenges confronting us. Our price-support program can, and should, help us meet that challenge.

The fourth purpose of our recommendations is to give the most support where it is most needed--that is, to the family-size farm. The present program channels too much of its benefits to the largest farms. Of course, we must not ignore the welfare of the large farms, which contribute so importantly to agricultural production and income. But it is only sensible, where public funds are involved, to provide a higher degree of protection for the family farm, which is so fundamental to our democratic society.

These are the four major purposes of the recommendations this administration has made for improving the farm-support program. They are designed to contribute to a stable and prosperous agriculture as part of a strong Nation. They will encourage a sustained, realistic abundance of farm production as the basis of rising living standards for all our people.

They are an expression of our faith that we can all go forward together toward well-being and abundance--farmers and city folk--the people of the United States together with free people of the world.

That is the only way to assure peace and prosperity for ourselves, and for the world. Now, my friends, that is a fine program that will work, and I want you to perform it.

I want to thank you so much for staying with me. I never, never in my life anticipated that there would be a single person left here on the grounds when I got through reading.

Note: The President spoke at 4:56 p.m. from a platform that had been erected near the railroad station, at the intersection of 7th and Q Streets, in Lincoln, Nebr.

In his opening remarks the President referred to Val Peterson, Governor of Nebraska; Robert LeRoy Cochran, Governor of Nebraska from 1935 until 1941, and deputy chief of the American Mission for Aid to Greece in 1947; Dwight P. Griswold, Governor of Nebraska from 1941 until 1947, and chief of the American Mission for Aid to Greece from June 1947 until September 1948; and Charles W. Bryan, Governor of Nebraska from 1923 until 1925, and again from 1931 until 1935.

Following the President's address he was presented with a birthday cake in honor of his 66th birthday, at which time all of the persons in attendance joined in singing "Happy Birthday" to the President.

Harry S Truman, Address in Lincoln, Nebraska. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230396

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