Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 11, Number 7, DeMotte, Jasper County, 2 January 1941 — Washington Digest 69 [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Washington Digest 69

NewAAA'Alabama Plan' Promotes Soil Betterment Crop Payments Based on Land Improvement; Roosevelt Suggests U. S. ‘Loan’ War Material to England.

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(Released by Western Newspaper Union.) WASHINGTON—You may have heard about the “Alabama plan” of the Triple A which some have said is an attempt of reversing the policy of paying farmers for “not doing” and rewarding them for “doing.” I find that the department of agriculture doesn’t go that far. Officials there describe it rather, as paying farmers less.for “not doing” but assuring them benefits for taking part in a constructive program. This is the way one member of the Triple A tells the story: Down ih Alabama they’re trying, on a state-wide basis, an experiment in balanced farming that may eventually be a pattern for farm programs in other areas. It’s known as -the “Alabama Plan” and it’s simply a plan based on good farming practices, which over a five-year period, provides for building up the soil and otherwise "Improving the individual farm to the point where it becomes a productive unit. The Alabama plan is not" complicated. It is part of the AAA, farm program. It carries further than ever before the conservation work done under the AAA program. As under previous AAA programs, farmers will receive conservation payments for planting within their acreage allotments of special crops, such as cotton, tobacco, peanuts, wheat, and potatoes. However, under the so-called Alabama Plan, in operation for the first time in 1941, full payments made to Alabama farmers will be contingent upon carrying out of certain good farming practices. Planned Conservation. The difference between the Alabama Plan and the general conserA vation program is about the differy ence between going into a cafeteria and picking out a dish or two that you especially like and sitting down to a well-balanced meal. Heretofore, farmers in Alabama and other states have had available to them certain practices which they could use to earn the payments available under the farm program. They • have used many of these but naturally they have not always picked out the best combination of practices for the land. That was the cafeteria method of soil conservation. Under the Alabama Plan, the conservation program worked out for each farm represents a balanced type of farming. That’s the well-planned meal type of conservation. Not only is the conservation well planned for each year, but it is worked out for five years in advance. The Alabama Plan, like most parts of the farm program, came from suggestions from farmers themselves who have observed the operation of the farm program and made suggestions on it from time to time. Alabama farmers have felt the* need for more planning and more balance in their conservation work the AAA program has beeft adapted to make it possible for this state-wide experiment ,in conservation to be undertaken beginning in 1941. The Alabama farmers who want this type of program believe that a farmer who does not take care of his soil should not receive the full benefits under the farm program. Requirements of Plan. Here’s what the Alabama farmer has to do to avoid deductions in his conservation payments for 1941: 1. Grow erosion-resisting crops each year on an acreage equal to •t least 25 per cent of his cropland. 2. Properly terrace all cropland in the farm having a slope in excess of 2 per cent. 3. Establish or maintain perennial soil-conserving crops on at least one acre for each 15 acres of cropland. 4. Establish or maintain permanent pasture on at least one acre for each 15 acres of cropland. Requirement No. 1 has to be carried out each year, of course, byt numbers 2,3, and 4 are to be done over a five-year period. One-fifth of the requirements under points 2,3, and 4 must be carried out each year. Deductions in the farmer’s con 4 servation payments will be rhade on the basis of 5 per cent of the payment for each 10 per cent by which he fails to carry out the 1941 requirements. The Alabama Plan is resulting in more co-operation among farmers in many cases. For example, operators of small farms are not able to

maintain heavy equipment required in terracing. However, groups of farmers can form an association to buy this equipment, and can pay their share on the basis of the amount of time they use it. That is the story—told from the standpoint of the Triple A. You are better able to judge its merits than I am. Of course, if you have any views you would like to express, I would be only too glad to hear them. • • * President Announces * Loaned’ Aid to Britain It was late as I hurried across the paved space in front of the executive offices. The waiting B room w r as jammed. Overcoats were piled high on the huge mahogany table presented to the President by the Philippine General Aguinaldo. We were soon crowding through the inner waiting room and across the hall and into the President’s oval office. The moment I had wormed my way forward and looked at the President, I was sure he had something important to say. He wasn’t laughing and chatting with the men pushed close around his desk. He looked very serious. Finally the last reporter had come in. The President began to speak. He spoke slowly, deliberately; informally but seriously, announcing his long-awaited plan for lending or leasing implements of war to Great Britain. , Because 1 had to broadcast almost immediately afterward I was kept busy taking notes, but as I wrote down the words-that would be history some day, I suddenly felt that nothing was real around me. Roosevelt Tells Story. \ It couldn’t be that the other side of the wdrld Was burning up—that a proud natiop which claimed to rule the Sever Seas was begging for help—that I- was actually writing down on a piece of copy paper a gigantic plan to bring that help. It was simply too big to grasp. How could any one human being hope to sit down and draw up a scheme that involved these millions of people, that must answer the crisscross, conflicting hopes, beliefs, demands and desires of half the globe? . . . my pencil kept on forming words and suddenly I saw they were writing down a simple little anecdote about a lot of men in a smoking car making bets. Thi§ seemed still more unreal but it is the President’s way of trying to illustrate frightfully complicated things with very simple, everyday experiences. He told how, when he was the young assistant secretary of the navy back in 1914, war in Europe was suddenly declared and he was hurrying back to Washington. . j| In the smoking car with him were a number of brokers and bankers—“the best economic brains of the country” the President-called them. They were saying that no war could last long. The I bankers could stop it in two and a half months for no nation could fight long without money in the bank. Money Not Essential. This, the President said, showed how wrong the accepted beliefs were!. History show's, he said, that no country ever lost a war because of lack of money. And then he went on describing his plan for lending or leasing implements of war to Great Britain instead of lending money. He had no notes before him but it was plain he had spent plenty of thought on his plan, that it was the result of study and thought. Whatever the merits of the plan may be, its one merit seemed to be this:; it stilled for a while at least, something that came very near hysteria in Washington and what might have been hysteria in England, too. For while it did not increase by one machine gun bullet, immediate aid to Britain, it promised them “economic cooperation” and restored their morale.

And it stilled, too, the angry demands Of the pressure groups in this country which would push us right up to the very verge of war. They could hardly complain if London was satisfied. And yet, on the other side of the picture, it did not even imply a single immediate act which would bring us nearer the war then we were jut the moment for the President mdde it clear that congress would haye to pass upon it. He also made it clear that it woiild not be presented to the old congress for any hasty action. It must lawait the convening of the new congress when you folks have had time | to think it over. The plan may be, as some of the -critics say, the most bald of subterfuges. It may be utterly impractical. But it has postponed rancorous discussion and discord in this country which would have served as aid and comfort to the totalitarian nations which seize with joy any example of the lack of unity in a democracy.

Nat’l Farm and Home Hour Commentator.