First Fruit

(See front cover**) In Chicago last week the Federal Farm Board bore its first fruit--a 20 million dollar grain marketing corporation. Still minus a wheat member and without Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Mastick Hyde who was kept away by many another official duty, the Board journeyed westward from Washington to meet 52 officials of farmers' grain elevators, cooperatives, pools and marketing agencies, representative of 650,000 grain-growers.' At the Sherman Hotel behind closed doors a harmony meeting was held from which Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart of Iowa was politely ushered out despite his political plea of representing "all farmers." When the doors were opened Chairman Alexander Legge announced his Board's first concrete achievement.

F. N. G. C. Miss Lucy Hannon, general manager of the Ohio Equity Exchange Co., "only woman executive in coopera- tive marketing," named the new creation --Farmers' National Grain Corp. Organized grain groups will subscribe to its stock, elect its directors and officials The corporation, thus privately owned, will buy grain from its members, sell it nationally to the best advantage. To it the Federal Farm Board will make operating advances from its $500,000,000 loan fund.

Chosen as F. N. G. C. organizer was William H. Settle, president of the Indiana Farm Bureau Federation, the man who led the "Equalization Fee March" around the Republican National Convention hall last year in Kansas City. Ever an enthusiast, Organizer Settle said last week in Chicago: "This is the greatest day in the history of agriculture since I can remember. . . . This is what we have been dreaming for years--united action-- and it's the first time it has been realized. . . . President Hoover is sincerely trying to carry out the pledge he made. . . ."

To Baton Rouge. With farm relief at least started in the grain belt, the Board traveled south to Baton Rouge, there to attend a meeting of the American Institute of Cooperation, composed of executives in all lines of farm selling agencies. Each member of the Board had been previously invited to attend in his private capacity as an executive of a cooperative; now all went officially as Board members to discuss technical problems, to make helpful contacts, to gather opinions.

At Baton Rouge the Board was joined by Secretary Hyde, its ex-officio member, who came with a well-prepared address on "The Government's Policy Toward the Cooperative Movement." What the Farm Board was about to undertake he called "a great adventure on a new frontier."

Basic Policies. Thus in a half-month the new Board had traveled far. Before leaving Washington it had established fundamental policies:

1) It would work only with big well-knit cooperative groups.

2) It would make no loans to individuals at all. none to cooperatives until they had exhausted local credit.

3) It would deal with no lobbyists representing cooperatives but only with executives.

Cooperatives Only. In the U. S. are some 6,500,000 farmers, of whom 2,000,000 belong to 12,000 different cooperatives large and small. The Board's policy presaged about 1,000 cooperatives composed of all husbandmen. No farmer outside a cooperative will receive any assistance from the Board.

Halterophera Capitata. The Board has done some preliminary relief work on the citrus fruit situation in Florida where the ravages of the Mediterranean fruit fly (Halterophera capitata) had created an acute local problem (TIME, May 6 et seq.). Two competing fruit cooperatives appealed for the Board's help. The Board sent them away with a promise of help after they had merged their efforts, eliminated duplication, become representative of all Florida fruit growers in trouble.

The Florida fruit fly problem rested more heavily at the moment upon Secretary Hyde than it did upon the Board. Florida banks were failing, 24 in a row. A rigid Federal quarantine around the infested areas had imperiled a $60,000,000 fruit crop. Five thousand workers fought the fly. Into long trenches fresh fruit and truck were dumped, covered over with lime and earth as a means of exterminating the pest. Florida's so-called Little People (small growers) were hard hit, lacking as they did resources for such an emergency. Congress had already appropriated $4,800,000 to control the spread of the fly in Florida, to exterminate it, i resident Hoover, at Secretary Hyde's suggestion, had spoken promisingly of the moral obligation" resting upon the U. S. to compensate Florida citrus growers for loss of property incident to the Federal program of destruction and quarantine

Secretary Hyde. Prime issue in the campaign, farm relief has continued a prime activity of the new administration When President-Elect Hoover summoned Arthur Mastick Hyde to dine with him last winter in Florida (a social summons which greatly perturbed Mr. Hyde because he had no evening clothes with him) Mr. Hoover offered him the post of Secre- tary of Agriculture with the warning that it would be one of the hardest and busiest in the new Cabinet. Mr. Hyde reluctantly accepted with that understanding.

In five months since March 4, Secretary Hyde has shown a patient persistence in carrying out his job. He is hardworking earnest, honest. What he lacks in brilliance he makes up in frankness. If he has brought no remarkable innovations to the vast departmental organization under him, he has at least kept it on an efficient basis, has played no politics with its appointments.

It was he who rounded up the candidates for the Farm Board, placed them with their endorsers before President Hoover. The Board's personnel bears his imprint. As the President's special agent he has been combing the country for a wheat representative to complete the Board's membership.

Shortly after his appointment, in the lobby of a Washington hotel, Secretary Hyde met another Missouri lawyer, his political archenemy, onetime Senator James A. Reed. Reed's greeting was: "As one dirt farmer to another, Arthur, howdy! How's crops?"

At his first official conference, Secretary Hyde said: "Don't try to make me a dirt farmer because I am not. I'm a lawyer. It's supposed to be good politics to claim to be a farmer but farmers don't want to be fooled that way."

Secretary Hyde's only practical knowledge of farming has come through his personal management of four farms, totaling 710 acres, belonging to his wife. To many a Missouri farmer his name is still anathema because as Governor he put through a road program which earned him the epithet of "tax-eater."

A simple man. tall, with grey hair, a mouth that smiles easily, steady patient eyes, a sincere handclasp for all comers. Secretary Hyde is without pretense. When he is asked a question about farming which he cannot answer he says: "I don't know. That's not reticence. It's ignorance." Once a Missouri legislator was haranguing him about cattle and beef. The talk wandered endlessly afield until Governor Hyde cut in with: "I'd like more meat and less wind. if it's all the same to you."

Secretary Hyde is a personal Dry whose chief beverage-is buttermilk. His favorite pastime is fishing in Ozark streams. A Methodist, he used to teach Sunday School so ardently that his enemies charged that he used this means of fostering his political career. He smokes cigars, likes chess, pie, plays pitch. He is a perspiring mem- ber of the Hoover Medicine Ball Cabinet.

In Washington he is rather a lonely man with few close friends. He lives at the Mayflower Hotel, keeps no car. (In Missouri he drives a Buick.) He works from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., returns to his office about four evenings a week "to catch up on him-self."

The Department of Agriculture is one of the most far-flung government agencies. A few of the activities upon which the Secretary must keep his fingers:

1) Farm experiment stations throughout the land.

2) The Weather Bureau with its crop service, its forecasts for aviation.

3) Crop reports collected from 3,000 field agents, compiled into estimates of future harvests.

4) Animal Industry, including the inspection of beef, the control of hoof-and-mouth disease, cattle tick, livestock quarantine and interstate transportation.

5) Dairy industry, with the inspection of imported milk, cream, butter and cheese, the protection of cows from diseases, the breeding of better herds, sanitary milk transportation.

6) The Pure Food and Drug Law.

7) Public Roads built with U. S. money.

8) The National Forests (159 million acres') their preservation, protection against fire, development for tourists and grazing.

9) Insect pests studied and controlled by scientific eradication and quarantine.

10) Home Economics, including cooking lessons, treatment of children, making money on poultry,

11) Administration of the laws controlling speculative trading in grain futures.

** Painted for TIME by Douglas Chandor (see p. 36)