Dear Jim:
I fully understand the importance to members of cooperatives of the tax questions now under consideration in Congress, and I appreciate this opportunity to reiterate the Administration's long-standing support of cooperatives.
The Democratic Party has consistently encouraged the efforts of farmers and consumers to improve their economic status through cooperatives. In 1948 the Democratic Party reaffirmed this principle and I campaigned on it. The following paragraph from that platform is as good today as it was then:
"We will encourage farm cooperatives and oppose any revision of Federal law designed to curtail their most effective functioning as a means of achieving economy, stability and security for American agriculture."
I sincerely hope that this principle will be the guiding one when the current tax legislation is finally written.
Sincerely yours,
HARRY S. TRUMAN
[Mr. James G. Patton, President, National Farmers Union, 300 Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C.]
Note: The White House press release making public the President's letter stated that it was written in response to an inquiry from Mr. Patton about the President's views on taxation of cooperatives.
Harry S Truman, Letter to the President, National Farmers Union, on the Taxation of Cooperatives. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230672