FDR Fire Side ChatsOn Legislation to be Recommended to the Extraordinary Session of the Congress - Tuesday, October 12, 1937

"The overwhelming majority of our citizens who live by agriculture

are thinking (very) clearly how they want Government to help them

in connection with the production of crops. They want Government help

in two ways -- first, in the control of surpluses, and, second, in

the proper use of land.

The other day a reporter told me that he had never been able to

understand why the Government seeks to curtail crop production and,

at the same time, to open up new irrigated acres.

He was confusing two totally separate objectives.

Crop surplus control relates to the total amount of any major crop

grown in the whole nation on all cultivated land, (good or bad) good

land or poor land -- control by the cooperation of the crop growers

and with the help of the Government. Land use (on the other hand)

is a policy of providing each farmer with the best quality and type

of land we have, or can make available, for his part in that total

production. Adding good new land for diversified crops is offset by

abandoning poor land now uneconomically farmed.

The total amount of production largely determines the price of the

crop, and, therefore, the difference between comfort and misery for

the farmer.

Let me give you an example: If we Americans were foolish enough

to run every shoe factory twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,

we would soon have more shoes than the Nation could possibly buy --

a surplus of shoes so great that it would have to be destroyed, or

given away, or sold at prices far below the cost of production. That

simple (law) illustration, that simple law of supply and demand equally

affects the price of all our major crops."