Wallace Will Defend Belief That High Prices Are Only Means of Providing Farmers Fair Return, at Princeton

"It is not our aim specifically to keep prices of farm products high, but we do want to see to it that the farmer gets his fair share of the national income."

There, in one brief statement, is the philosophy of Henry Agard Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture and one of the most outstanding of the New Deal thinkers. Secretary Wallace will defend and illuminate on this statement when he addresses the Round Table on Agriculture at the Princeton-Harvard-Yale Conference on Public Affairs to be held at Princeton on May 8 and 9.

Heads Great Experiment

Called to Washington in 1933 by President Roosevelt, Mr. Wallace became the head of one of the greatest farming experiments in the nation's history. Coming from a long line of dirt-farmers and agriculture economists, Secretary Wallace is the second member of his family to hold the office of Secretary of Agriculture. Proximity to the farmers has given him a desire to see that they are fairly treated by the government and this he has striven to do.

As champion of the Great American Farmer, Mr. Wallace has done more than his share. In the field of agricultural economics, his contributions in the matter of crop-yield forecasts and long range price-level predictions head the long list of his accomplishments and efforts in behalf of the famer.

In a Paradox of Corn

In his present position, Mr. Wallace finds himself in a strange paradox. Whereas in 1926 he completed a system of inbreeding corn in such a way that the annual production of the country was increased, he is now engaged in the seemingly hopeless task of getting rid of a huge surplus. His ideas on the subject, expressed in his recent publication, "America Must Choose," relate the surplus question to the tariff. As his solution of the problem, Mr. Wallace advocates a "middle course" of reciprocal trade agreements.

"For example," he stated in a recent interview granted the CRIMSON, "The Netherlands agreement helps in the exportation of wheat; the Cuban agreement helps our export of lard and the Belgian and Canadian agreements are also effective aids in exports of farm commodities."

Will Not Predict Prices

As for the future, now that the AAA has come to grief on the Supreme Court rocks, Mr. Wallace declines even to guess where prices may go in case farmer cooperation in the soil conservation substitute for the fallen crop control system is not complete. Since the farm voters bid fair to be in a position to look back yearningly at the AAA days when the time comes for weighing the respective merits of the party platforms this year, the Wallace outlook as to what may happen in 1937 and 1938 could make a great difference at the polls in November.

If the effort to induce cooperation in the soil conservation indirect method of crop control fails of substantial support it would seem even possible that a farmer demand for a constitutional amendment approach to the problem might take shape at Philadelphia. It is certainly hardly to be expected at the Republican circus in Cleveland. To this extent then the influence of this rugged, partly grey haired ex-farmer will be felt through out the country.

A New Deal philosopher Mr. Wallsce certainly is. And he has not diminished his fight to place the purchasing power of the farmer on a parity with that of the industrial workers. He is first in his conviction that until this is done, recovery will still be a long way off