Parity Puzzle

Senator George D. Aiken, leader in the fight for farm supports, received a serious setback this weekend when a Joint Conference Committee of Congress agreed tentatively to adopt a flat 90 percent of parity for the support of basic farm crops. But immediately after, the Committee withdrew its decision, leaving Senator Aiken confused, uncertain, and unhappy.

Leader of the fight for a flexible price-support system for two years, Aiken had succeeded in wooing the Senate to his side, but ran into unexpected opposition from the House, which stubbornly held out for a fixed-parity support. Aiken's plan would allow a flexible parity range from 60 to 90 percent of the base period, depending on current agricultural conditions but still securing a parity principle in the long run. Meanwhile, Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan introduced a complex farm program so confusing that the Republicans saw their chance to push a plan of their own.

The House drafted a bill allowing 90 percent fixed parity, which was rejected by the Senate in favor of the flexible scheme. During the 1948 campaign, President Truman promised the farmers to do everything possible to maintain a fixed parity based on some prior period of high farm prices. It is now the problem of the Administration to secure legislation which will make good these promises.

The present deadlock in the Committee came Saturday when a previously-adopted agreement over fixed parity was scrapped. This had appeared at first to be a House victory, but now there is some question as to which side will come out on top. The aim of a parity program is to give farmers a stable purchasing power, based on some former period of prosperity. The House plan would determine such a period and then maintain it as the price base; the Senate, on the other hand, favors more flexibility in the computing of support prices. Badly split, the Democratic ranks are fighting to hold the states they won in 1948, while the G.O.P. is doing its best to win them back. The farmers can only sit back and wait for an adjournment-hungry Congress to battle it out.