The Milwaukee Journal (October 20, 1940)
WALLACE SEES FARM DANGER
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Says Victory for Willkie Might Cost Agriculture Billion Dollars a Year
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Chicago, Ill. (UP) –
Henry A. Wallace, Democratic vice presidential candidate, said Saturday that American farmers would lose $1,000,000,000 a year of their present income under a revival of the McNary-Haugen farm program espoused by his Republican opponent, Charles L. McNary.
Wallace told the Illinois Agricultural club location:
The income of farmers producing export crops would be a billion dollars a year less than under the present plan.
The expert market is gone and when this war is over the American farmers are going to have to tighten their belts still more because the rest of the world will not be able to buy American farm products.
Wallace said crop production control initiated under his administration as Secretary of Agriculture “is necessary to protect market prices which commodity loans have built up.” He said the present administration has done “a truly remarkable job in adjusting production to market.”
Wallace said he once believed in the principle of the McNary-Haugen proposal and sent Chest A. Davis to Europe in 1936 to investigate the possibility of expanding foreign markets for American farm produce.
He found no prospects whatsoever.