AWAY WITH A. A. A.

Even if the A. A. A. had not been unconstitutional, it would have remained one of the worst acts passed in the History of the United States, ranking only with such recognized monstrosities as the Wagner Labor Hill, the Guffey Coal Act, and the N. R. A. The idea that a President should have the power to bribe districts of non-sympathetic voters with direct cash payments is unbelievable. But to have the effrontery to make these payments for nothing,--nay, for less than nothing, for refraining from doing something productive and constructive for the country--, transports one to the realms of Alice in Hades.

Again according to the simple reasoning of New Dealers, there seems to be some trouble among farmers. They do not make enough money. Why not tax somebody, or borrow from somebody and rectify these low incomes? Not that the victims of the Processing Taxes are exactly rolling in wealth.

When a group of producers of any sort cease to make money, they will gradually be reduced in numbers, shifting to more lucrative fields, until the remaining ones have sufficiently large incomes to be induced to stay. What the Government should do is encourage this shift, make it less painful, and above all stimulate, through sound economic policies, other industries to such an extent that an absorption of the unnecessary factors of production may be possible.

During the last century, and the beginning of this one, a tremendous movement from farms to industrial areas took place. The shift was extremely painful, but it happened. Not only did the A.A.A. make the future shift more painful; it deliberately slowed it up, made it temporarily impossible, by making direct payments to the farmers for remaining where the country does not need them.

It seems a ludicrous way of achieving "parity" with industrial prices to introduce into agriculture the very monopolistic factors which have done so much to throw a steady flow of monkey wrenches into their works. But after all, if industry had managed to get a steady flow of monkey wrenches, it's only fair that agriculture should have them too. Justice is a consideration far higher, and more important than mere economic reasoning.