Farm Board Research Articles

A Trailing Paper Trail

A Trailing Paper Trail

The Buddha and the Bumblebee: The Saga of Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter

The Buddha and the Bumblebee: The Saga of Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter JOHN D. FASSETT During the years since the first appointments of Justices to the Supreme Court in 1789, many interesting relationships have occurred between Justices. Some were amicable, but others involved animosity. No such long-Term relationship is more fascinating than the eighteen years Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter spent as Brethren. It featured neither consistent amicabil­ ity nor animosity, but it is intriguing because it ran the gamut from admiration and respect through pettiness and condescension to frustration and serious annoyance. Nevertheless, Reed and Frankfurter probably were closer for a longer period than virtually any other two Associate Justices in the history of the Court. Moreover, the hundreds of letters, notes, and memoranda they exchanged must dwarfthe output of any other two Justices. Stanley Forman Reed, the Solicitor Gen­ eral, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s sec­ ond appointee to the Supreme Court, taking the judicial oath on January 31, 1938.’ Felix Frankfurter, the Harvard Law Schoolprofessor who hadbeen an advisorto FDRsincethe Pres­ ident’s Term as governor ofNew York, was his third appointee, taking the oath on January 30, 1939.2 Between then and February 25, 1957 when Reed retired, Reed and Frankfurter oc­ cupied chambers a short stroll apart along the corridor behind the courtroom in the Supreme Court building. Except for their mutual devotion to the Court as an institution and the fact that they were both workaholics, Reed and Frankfurter had few characteristics in common. Reed was fairly tall and enjoyed an occasional round of golf; Frankfurter was short, somewhat rotund, and not athletic. Reed was bom in Kentucky in 1884 and spent his youth as the son of an af­ fluent and influential doctor; Frankfurter was born inVienna, Austria, in 1882 and emigrated with his parents to America in 1894. Reed at­ tended private schools in Maysville, Kentucky, before spending two years at Kentucky 166 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY Wesleyan College; Frankfurter attended a pub­ lic school in New York City before enrolling at the City College of New York, from which he graduated at the age of 19. Reed subsequently attended Yale University, graduating with its class of 1906, and thereafter spent one year each at the law schools of the University of Virginia, Columbia University, and the Uni­ versity of Paris in France; after a brief career as a civil servant in New York City, Frankfurter spent three years at Harvard Law School, grad­ uating with its class of 1905. Until he accepted the position of general counsel to the Federal Farm Board in Novem­ ber 1929, during Herbert Hoover’s presi­ dency, Reed was a prominent and successful Kentucky lawyer for almost two decades. He was an active Democrat and served two Terms in his state legislature early in his practice, but In 1911, Frankfurter became assistant to Henry Stimson (pictured) in the United States Attorney’s of­ fice in New York City. When President William Howard Taft named Stimson Secretary of War, Frankfurter accompanied him to Washington, where his mentor helped him make many important contacts. his legal reputation and particularly his experi­ ence as counsel to a tobacco farmers’ coopera­ tive led to his invitation tojoin the federal gov­ ernment. With the election ofFDRin 1932, as a result of recommendations by several Demo­ cratic friends, Reed remained in the govern­ ment and moved to the position of general counsel to the Reconstruction Finance Corpo­ ration (RFC), a Hoover creation that the New Deal administration decided to retain. Reed’s contacts with Attorney General Homer Cum­ mings while at the RFC were ofparamount im­ portance in Reed becoming Solicitor General and then being selected by FDR for appoint­ ment to the Supreme Court. Following Harvard, Frankfurter spent a brief stint working for a Wall Street firm. He abandoned that career path to join Henry Stimson in the United States Attor­ ney’s office in New York City. When Pres­ ident William Howard Taft named Stimson Secretary of War, Frankfurter accompa­ nied Stimson to Washington, where he made many important contacts, includ­ ing the acquaintance of FDR. Frankfurter returned to Harvard Law School in 1914 as a professor...

The AAA Cotton Plow-Up Campaign in Arkansas

ON MARCH 4, 1933, FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT assumed the presidency and, thus responsibility for leading the nation through its darkest economic hour. The country was entering the fourth year of a severe depression that devastated all major sectors of the U.S. economy. Cotton farmers in Arkansas and elsewhere in the South had faced hard times for over ten years, beset by the post-World War One slump in prices and natural disasters. But bad went to worse after 1929. These farmers saw their incomes plummet as cotton prices fell from 18 cents per pound in April 1929 to 6.1 cents by April 1932. Continuing production of large amounts of cotton, a drastic drop in domestic and foreign consumption, and an ever-increasing carryover of unconsumed cotton combined to produce the great price decline.1 The situation looked to get even worse as 1933 wore on. All available evidence pointed to a bumper crop that would drive cotton prices to record lows, leading very possibly to vast farm foreclosures and tenant and sharecropper displacement. Not only cotton growers would be affected by this calamity. All those individuals who were tied into the trade through the financing, ginning, shipping, and marketing of the crop would also be in great financial trouble if the cotton market collapsed. In the early 1930s, this meant a significant portion of the population of Arkansas and other southern agricultural states. The response that Franklin Roosevelt's administration eventually developed to this crisis would epitomize the improvisational nature and complex legacy of the New Deal. The policies initiated with the 1933 plow-up of the crop would aid many Arkansas cotton growers but slighted and ultimately displaced large numbers of the state's tenant farmers and sharecroppers. In the three years preceding Roosevelt's inauguration, Herbert Hoover's administration had attempted to aid America's sluggish agricultural sector through the creation of so-called stabilization directed by the Federal Farm Board. These corporations were set up to purchase surpluses of various farm commodities in order to temporarily remove them from the market in hopes of stabilizing prices. The Farm Board eventually purchased some 3.4 million bales of cotton before its appropriations ran out. The Board's actions, however, succeeded only in temporarily holding prices. In the end, the Farm Board failed because no effort was made to control production beyond pleas for voluntary reductions in acreage. When the Farm Board began to liquidate some of its holdings and put more cotton back on the market prices declined even further.2 During the First Hundred Days of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt's administration pushed through Congress a farm bill that included a provision creating the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA-a new government agency placed within the Department of Agriculture. The AAA was charged with the responsibility of boosting farm prices by subsidizing decreased production.3 The AAA's chief weapon would be the Voluntary Domestic Allotment Plan perfected by Montana State College agricultural economics professor Milburn Lincoln M. L. Wilson. According to Wilson's plan, the government would enter into voluntary contracts with producers of numerous agricultural commodities to reduce production by decreasing acreage in cultivation. As an incentive to join the program, the government would compensate all cooperating producers who agreed to decrease their output.4 The AAA needed to act hurriedly to aid American farmers. Because Roosevelt was not inaugurated until early March, and Congress then took two long months to debate various details of the farm bill, the president did not sign the Agricultural Adjustment Act until May 12. This delay was an added burden on the AAA to quickly fill its bureaucratic positions and to develop a workable cotton reduction program for the South after most of the region's crop had already been planted. …

National Grasslands in the Dust Bowl

National Grasslands in the Dust Bowl

Experiences with Recent Price Stabilization Programs for Agriculture

The stabilization of farm prices and incomes has been a goal of all farm legislation dating back to the establishment of the Farm Board in 1929. After the Farm Board concept failed in the wake of the great crash of 1929, price stabilization turned more and more toward price supports with prices set above market equilibrium. To absorb the differential quantities that arose, loan and storage programs were established for major commodities. Stocks of accumulated grain were used in times of war or world grain production shortfalls to even out the flow of food to consumers

The Role of the Farm Foundation in Agricultural Economics

5W 5 HEN I first joined the staff of the Farm Foundation, I spent considerable time attending meetings and conferences. One day one of the individuals that I had seen at many of these conferences said to me, Every place I go I see you. What is your racket, Joe? It happened that Henry C. Taylor, who was managing director at that time, was standing next to me, and before I had time to gather my thoughts for a proper reply, he said, Oh, he has the same function that yeast has in bread. I have often thought of that remark, and after almost thirty years, I can hardly think of a more apt reply. Farm Foundation is, indeed, much like a leavening agent, for one of its avowed aims is to start action that is self-sustaining and self-multiplying. principal founder of the Farm Foundation was Alexander Legge, who was president of the International Harvester Company at the time of his death. At one time he served as chairman of the Farm Board, and this gave him an excellent opportunity to talk with many farmers, businessmen, statesmen, and educators regarding his pet project, a fund that could be used to improve rural life. No agency existed for this specific purpose at the time, and he persuaded others to join with him in sponsoring a foundation. Frank 0. Lowden, another founder, showed his belief in the usefulness of such a foundation by a bequest in his will accompanied by these words: The quantity and the quality of the rural population is a major and most important factor in determining in the long run the strength, the character, and the well-being of the people of the nation. trust agreement which established the Farm Foundation in 1933 provides for the direction of its activities by a Board of Trustees of not fewer than 21 members. For purposes of insuring sound and effective management based upon broad information, seven of these Trustees are to be chosen at large; five are to be experienced in farming; three are to be selected from the executive, teaching, experimental, or extension staffs of the state universities maintaining agricultural departments; and the re-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF “AUTOMATIC STABILIZERS”

ECONOMISTS and politicians alike have for some time struggled with the problem of controlling or modifying the business cycle, offering many and diverse remedies. In recent history the first significant attack was made on the antiquated banking system. This was done just after the panic of 1907-8, the reasoning being that the attempted elimination of a weak banking structure would do much to prevent the business depressions that seemed to follow. The result was a compromise in the form of our partially centralized, partially decentralized Federal Reserve System. The strengthening of the banking system, however, did not provide the protection we had sought, as evidenced by the depression of 1920-22 (following World War I). This time, since the powers that be placed the blame not on the banking structure but on the credit policy of the newly established system, the central bank tradition of looking to the reserve ratio as a guide to credit policy was abandoned in favor of a policy of dispersing credit to business according to the Federal Reserve's conception of business needs. With the new policy an apparent success, it was commonly accepted among many that the long-sought-for preventive had been found.' The false security provided by the foregoing reforms was shattered by the stock market crash of 1929. This time the bank panic did not precede the depression but came after the depression slid to its lowest ebb (1933). Where was the blame to be placed this time? The stock market came under direct attack via the Securities and Exchange Commission Act of 1934. But several other remedies were also set forth, notably the policy of compensatory public works and relief payments, unemployment insurance, the Banking Acts of 1933 and 1935, the NRA, agricultural aid (actually begun by the Federal Farm Board under Hoover in 1929), the various and diverse loan acts, aid to labor unions, and the CCC. In spite of the dip of 1936-3 7

Herbert Hoover and the Federal Farm Board Project, 1921-1925

Journal Article Herbert Hoover and the Federal Farm Board Project, 1921–1925 Get access James H. Shideler James H. Shideler Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 42, Issue 4, March 1956, Pages 710–729, https://doi.org/10.2307/1889235 Published: 01 March 1956

Cooperatives and Income Taxes

Cooperative associations are subject to every real and personal property tax and almost every other type of tax, in the same way and to the same extent as ordinary private business corporations. It is in respect to income taxes that their treatment is different. It is to that point that this article is addressed. In order fairly to judge the point of view of cooperatives as to their income tax status, an understanding of the general nature of cooperatives is necessary. The cooperative corporation is essentially a group of individuals or corporations, or both, organized into corporate form for the purpose of acting collectively in the marketing of their products or the acquisition of their supplies. Almost every state in the Union has statutes expressly providing for the organization of cooperative corporations, and Congress has provided for the organization in the District of Columbia of cooperative associations of consumers.' Most of these laws were originally enacted principally to insure to groups of farmers the right to act collectively without violating state antitrust statutes. Congress assured to cooperatives the same immunity from federal antitrust statutes by enactment of the Capper-Volstead Act in 1922.2 Neither state nor federal law grants such immunity to cooperatives in their ordinary commercial transactions and dealings. A cooperative may be organized under the ordinary business corporation statutes of most states. The Federal Farm Board, acting under the advice of Stanley Reed, then its general counsel, now a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, organized its great cooperative marketing and warehousing corporations under the general corporation statutes of Delaware. There are, of course, some advantages in organization under the usual cooperative statutes, but there are also definite restrictions and disadvantages. The Minnesota General Cooperative Act3 is fairly typical. Cooperative associations organized under these statutes differ from business corporations in several important respects, among which are the following: i. There is a limit on the amount of voting stock a member may own, a common limitation being more than one-twentieth of the stock outstanding; 2. Dividends on capital stock may not exceed a stated rate, such as 6 per cent per annum, and are not cumulative;

British Food Journal Volume 49 Issue 3 1947

British Food Journal Volume 49 Issue 3 1947

Comments on “Economic Provisions of Marketing Agreements for General Crops”

W E ARE all indebted to Mr. Holt for his very fair and frank discussion of this large and difficult problem. His treatment has been objective and informative. In short he has given us a brief or digest of the A.A.A. program of marketing agreements for general crops which we will find convenient and reliable. It is an inventory of facts which we needed to have. This paper deals with This is the control era. We have now had some six years of control-three under the Farm Board and three under the A.A.A. The Farm Board tried marketing control, but gave it up saying we needed production control. The A.A.A. entered and tried both production and marketing control. Our neighbor, Canada, now has 21 controls going, under her Marketing Board. Twenty-four of our States have set up programs of milk control. Mr. Holt in this paper describes 25 federal controls. Most of the wheat countries of the world have set up wheat controls. Mr. Holt, for lack of time, has omitted milk controls from his discussion of A.A.A. Marketing Agreements. The first fourteen milk marketing agreements set up by the Federal government were all cancelled within a few months owing to difficulties of enforcement, particularly the enforcement of the price fixing provisions. Dr. E. G. Nourse, in his book on Marketing Agreements, lists a total of 61 such agreements up to September 1, 1935, at which time 39 had ceased to function and 22 were still in operation. This is a high death rate. Mr. Holt's topic, considered as a philosophy of economics rather than a mere inventory of facts, is price policy. The A.A.A. seems to assume that the big problem is one of price, and that the correct price policy is one of higher prices. I question this policy. The big cooperatives in the years 1920-1925, both in collective bargaining and in direct price fixing, suffered more harm from their high prices than from their low prices. Many of these cooperatives, looking back on their experiences, admitted their mistake. Their policy of high prices had curtailed consumption and stimulated production. The A.A.A.'s price yardstick, Parity prices, is a rubber yardstick and has no'practical value whatever as an economic barometer of a correct price. Mr. Holt mentions four types of control provided by these marketing agreements. (1) Price; (2) Supply; (3) Grade and Quality; (4) Reforms. He does not discuss the fourth type-reforms. It is my understanding that since the purge of the Department by the Secretary a few months ago, the militant reformers in the A.A.A. have been removed or silenced. On price control, Mr. Holt says it has now been abandoned, except as to milk. The major function, therefore, will now be control of supply, in one way or another. The key-note of Mr. Holt's discussion of these problems is found in these two statements:

Reorienting Research in Agricultural Economics

If one is to answer with any wisdom the question of the desirable reorientation of research in the future, he should prepare himself by getting in mind as clearly as possible the trends which it has already shown. With this in mind I directed a letter of inquiry to each of the agricultural experiment stations which has a section devoted to this work. I also put a similar set of questions to the men in charge of research work in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Farm Credit Administration. Viewing the latter organization as the residuary devisee of the Federal Farm Board, I suggested that their review should run back to 1929. Finally I asked Professor John D. Black to give me a memorandum of the impressions as to trend of research activities which he has derived from

Book Review: The Farm Board. E. A. Stokdyk, Charles H. West

Book Review: The Farm Board. E. A. Stokdyk, Charles H. West

The Farm Board

The Farm Board

What the Federal Farm Board is Doing for Livestock Producers

What the Federal Farm Board is Doing for Livestock Producers

The First Annual Report of the Federal Farm Board

American Journal of Agricultural EconomicsVolume 13, Issue 1 p. 155-158 Note The First Annual Report of the Federal Farm Board John D. Black, John D. Black Harvard UniversitySearch for more papers by this author John D. Black, John D. Black Harvard UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 January 1931 https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/13.1.155AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume13, Issue1January 1931Pages 155-158 RelatedInformation

The First Annual Report of the Federal Farm Board

The First Annual Report of the Federal Farm Board

Price Stabilization under the Farm Board

The Federal Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 authorizes the Farm Board to stabilize the prices of agricultural products so that agriculture will be placed on a basis of equality with other industries. To that end, the Board is empowered to establish stabilization corporations backed by an initial fund of $500,000,000. This function of the Farm Board is the culmination of a long campaign by the agricultural group to have the government, directly or indirectly, take a hand in the agricultural price situation. Stabilization has been the most popular form of proposed farm relief, yet the term itself has been one of those happy phrases of wide appeal but of very indefinite meaning. The general feeling among farmers has been that stabilizing prices meant increasing the prices for farm products which are paid to the farmer. To economists prices are unstable, and hence open to possible stabilization, when they have departed from some equilibrium. The nature of that equilibrium varies from the day to day market equilibrium to the very long time normal price or equilibrium. Between these extremes there are all degrees of equilibria, varying with the time period considered. The purpose of this discussion is to examine the meaning, and theoretical assumptions, of price stabilization as outlined in the Federal Agricultural Marketing Act and exemplified in the policies of the Farm Board. What type of market (competitive or otherwise) for agricultural products does the stabilization program assume? How does the Board relate the policy of conscious stabilization by combined governmental and producer action, to the type of market assumed? What is the Board's idea of the equilibrium or point around which prices are to be stabilized and how is this equilibrium located objectively? The beginning of the answers to these questions lies in the Farm Board's published statement regarding the meaning of stabilization. (595)

What Can the Farm Board do Toward Production Control?

What Can the Farm Board do Toward Production Control?

The Federal Farm Board’s First Year I

The Federal Farm Board’s First Year I