My dear Mr. Senator:
As to our conversation this morning, I am glad to confirm at once that the proposed additional drought relief measure was suggested for the purpose of real aid to the weakened credit situation in the drought area and that in the administration of it the Secretary of Agriculture assures me he has no other intention and that he will interpret it fairly and sympathetically.
Yours faithfully,
HERBERT HOOVER
[The Honorable Joseph T. Robinson, United States Senate, Washington, D.C.]
Note: The proposed measure, a substitute for the previously rejected Robinson amendment to the Interior Department appropriation bill, would provide $20 million for loans to agricultural credit corporations and drought rehabilitation. It became law on February 14, 1931, as Public, No. 666 (46 Stat. 1115). Passage came after Secretary of Agriculture Arthur M. Hyde declared that there could be no ban against spending some of the rehabilitation loan proceeds for foods.
Herbert Hoover, Message to the Senate Minority Leader on Drought Relief Legislation. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/207202