Mr. BRIDGFORTH. That is right.

Mr. WATTS. There is a certain amount of reluctance on the part of one neighbor to go to another neighbor's farm and say, "You have to do this and that." I imagine you in the enforcement division run into that problem.

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. WATTS. I as a grower run into it. That is one of your reasons for a little more supervision from the State level.

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Yes, sir. We want to be sure, too, that some of these criticisms which we feel are just and some unjust, we would like to be in a position to tell you gentlemen when something is so or is

not so.

Mr. WATTS. It is very common when something is wrong that everybody looks for an excuse to blame it on somebody.

I think that is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jennings, do you have any questions?

Mr. JENNINGS. In your enforcement, have you noticed any particular pattern, especially as it pertains to the violations as to groups? In other words, do you find the smaller allotments comprising the largest percentage of violations, or do you find the larger producers comprising the largest number of violations?

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. May I refer that to Mr. Todd? I have no records on that.

Mr. JENNINGS. Percentagewise.

Mr. TODD. Our experience has been that there is no material difference. I guess human nature is about the same, sir. I do not believe there is any significant difference.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chelf.

Mr. CHELF. Just for the purpose of the record, if you do not mind, I would like to read this No. 2 and No. 3, so we know which ones to join together.

"2. That the rate of penalty on the marketing of excess tobacco be increased from 50 percent to 75 percent of the average market price during the previous year.

"3. Amend the Act to provide that any acreage of tobacco harvested in excess of the allotted acreage for any farm for any year shall not be considered in the establishment of the allotment for the farm in the succeeding years."

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. That is right.

Mr. CHELF. I just wanted to get that in the record so there would be no doubt about it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BASS. I got in late. I understand this gentleman is in the compliance field, and I imagine you have already been pretty well questioned. I am sorry to come in late, but I was invited to have lunch with the President today. He invited several freshmen Congressmen today. We had a good lunch and a good discussion and I enjoyed it.

As you probably heard me state a few minutes ago, I think your Division can do more in bringing about a better marketing quota program for tobacco than anything else I know of at the present time. I have been very interested in this side of it, and I have had several letters-I have had too many letters-relating to the administration of the program for there not to be something wrong with it.

When I get this type letter: "I have two-tenths of an acre. My neighbor has five-tenths of an acre. Why can't I have five-tenths of an acre?" I understand we will have a lot of that.

I think there is something wrong. I do not have any questions to ask you. I am doing most of the talking because most of the questions I have come on the local level. I know it is not primarily the fault of the Department here in Washington. But I believe sincerely that more consideration should be given both by the Congress and by the administration or the Department on determining why the program has not fully been complied with, and if we need some more teeth in the law, if we need to throw some county committees out, or State committees out, I am very much for that, and I will back it 1,000 percent. I talked with the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Cooley, several weeks ago. Of course, he has a resolution giving the committee authority to make congressional investigations in this sort of a situation. He has introduced his overall resolution. I introduced a separate resolution which would give this committee the authority to make investigations on the local level. I do not expect my resolution to be acted on because the chairman's resolution, of course, will incorporate all of those things. But I did want to go on record as believing that there is something wrong with the compliance part of the law. I hope that the Congress this year, and the Department will give a great deal of consideration to that situation which exists.

Mr. Chairman, before we get away-I meant to this morning, we were late one time I wanted to ask Mr. Miller one other question. This deals with a resolution.

Do you study the bills that are introduced in relation to the tobacco program?

Mr. MILLER. Yes.

Mr. BASS. This is House Joint Resolution 45 that I introduced dealing with allotments to veterans. Have you read it?

Mr. MILLER. I have. I am sorry to say, Congressman Bass, I think the bill provides, does it not, that any veteran whose tobacco allotment has been reduced because of nonworking because he was away in the service for a period of 3 years

Mr. BASS. Yes. This would restore him to what it would have been if his farm had been raising tobacco. There is an alternative thing, that they could restore him now if they want to, but it is not mandatory that he be restored. The passage of this resolution would make it mandatory that veterans be given the same quota that they would have had if they had been there working their quota during the period of time that they were in the service.

Would you think the Department would have any objection to this resolution?

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Bass, I am sorry to say that I am not familiar with the regulations as now existing. Mr. Todd has the information, and Mr. Schoonover.

Mr. BASS. Did I talk to you about this before, Mr. Todd?

Mr. TODD. We talked about most everything. I don't remember that particular point. I guess we did.

Mr. BASS. You understand the regulation now does not make it mandatory that a veteran or a service man who has been absent 3 years, and because he was unable to get a tenant for his farm or because nobody could keep his tobacco base active, could have his quota restored to him, but it is not mandatory. Isn't that the law now?

Mr. TODD. I would have thought that the regulation was mandatory. It is a problem that we ran into several years ago during the war when

these boys were drafted into the service. At that time it was agreed by all the administrative people that no one wanted to take a fellow's allotment away from him because he was not growing and was off fighting. We did put a provision in the regulation then that says:

If the county committee determines that failure to grow as much as 75 per cent of the allotted acreage during 1 of the past 3 years was due to service in the Armed Forces on the part of labor regularly engaged in producing tobacco on the farm prior to entry into the armed services

they were not supposed to cut him.

If there are any instances-there could be one, I am not saying there are not any-they should not have been cut.

Mr. BASS. I read that part of the regulation, but it is being interpreted that the county committee may do it, but they do not have to do it. That is the way the law is being interpreted.

Mr. TODD. The regulation uses the word "shall." I am afraid we need to check back on it.

Mr. BASS. The reason I introduced this resolution, I had a letter from two of these veteran class instructors. You know what I am talking about.

Mr. TODD. Yes, sir.

Mr. BASS. They instruct on the veterans' farm program. They told me that the law did not make it mandatory that the quotas be restored to the veteran.

Mr. TODD. Would you give us their names and let us check into it, to see if the committee has made a mistake?

Mr. BASS. I certainly will. I will get the letter and let you have it. Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Congressman, there may be some confusion there. Was this farm owned by the veteran when he left? Do you mean to say that if a veteran buys a farm that an allotment has been reduced on due to underplanting, that he had no part in, that you are going to restore it on that farm?

Mr. BASS. Unless he owned it during the period of time he was in the service.

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Sometimes there is some confusion in that in the letters you get.

Mr. BASS. This resolution makes it very clear that it would not apply to those that you are talking about. If they buy a farm after they return, in other words. Unless the farm failed to be worked due to absence in the service, it would not apply. The man who gave me this information could be confused because I immediately called the Department and Mr. Todd's office sent over the regulation that you are talking about. I checked it. I wrote back to the man and sent him a copy of that, and referred him to that regulation. Then he wrote me back and said that there is nothing mandatory about this. The county committee says that they do not have to do it unless they want to. That was the information I had.

If it is necessary you would not have any objection to this being passed, if it is found necessary to protect the veteran?

Mr. MILLER. No, sir; not in the least.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask one other question for the record.

Since your responsibility is in the compliance section and you are more familiar with that-I know you want to do a good job and have done a good job-you talked about spot checking. Would you get

into this record for us briefly what you do when making a good, clean, spot check?

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. I would, and we have, sir, put enough men on the State level who are responsible to the State committee to check a sufficient number of farms in each county, both farms that had been over planted and had been spot checked for overplanting to determine whether they went all the way back to determine if they did a good job, so we would be satisfied that we were getting a good job out of the county.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Then you would have a record of that, and have it for future reference, because those things, if they are done accurately and promptly, have an uncanny way of getting around.

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Yes, sir. We provided also for progress reports that come into our office periodically, once a month. We will probably ask for them twice a month. These reports will show the number of spot checks being made both by the county people at the county level, and the number of spot checks that the State people are making of the county people, and also to show the progress.

In other words, we would be in a position that if the work has not been done timely in the county, we could move our own men to get it done. We are determined to get a good job done.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bridgforth, I would like to ask you or you and Mr. Miller or whoever is the proper party to question-it doesn't relate to the matter that is being discussed, but I have received several letters from my home section with regard to this situation-it seems that lumber interests are buying up submarginal farms in my home county and adjoining county, and are taking them out of crop production and planting pine seedlings and turning them over exclusively for timber growing.

It is my understanding from the letter and resolutions that if these farms have a tobacco acreage, and the owner of the farm did not have another farm at the time he sold his farm, that acreage would be lost to the county and revert to the State committee.

The sense of the resolution is that they want the law changed so that if this man purchases a farm within a few months, that acreage could be transferred to his new farm when his old farm was taken out of crop production.

I wonder if you follow me on that?

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Yes, sir. You have something in mind like land that is acquired by the United States Government. You want to put that in the same position.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, that is when the land is taken out of crop production, and the owner purchases another farm which he puts in production in place of his present farm which was better suited to timber than to crops.

I wonder how that would affect us or whether it would hurt the program, by leaving the acreage in the county rather than reverting to the State committee. In other words, if the farmer himself personally farmed the farm, he would get the acreage. If not, it would go to the county committee.

Mr. BRIDGFORTH. Congressman, may I refer this to Mr. Schoonover, of the Solicitor's Office?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. TODD. May I take a chance at it?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. TODD. First let me say it would not necessitate legislation because the present law says that quotas and allotments may be transferred from one farm to another as provided in regulations issued by the Secretary.

We interpret the law now that there is authority to transfer allotments pretty freely. Actually we now provide the only time you can transfer an allotment from one farm to another is when a farm is removed from agricultural production through acquisition by some Federal, State, or other agency having the right of eminent domain.

For instance, we used it in the Buggs Island project. I don't think that was a Government installation. Originally I guess it was. I believe it later was a public utility. The farmers had to sell their farms there. They had no option. They got paid but they had to sell them. In that case we say you can take that allotment to any other farm that you own or acquire within certain limits.

In 1938, the first time we had quotas under present legislation, we did permit widespread transfers of poundage quotas then. They are very difficult to handle administratively. There is an awful lot of recordkeeping that goes with them.

Frankly, our experience was that they led to bartering and trafficking in them. You could buy some from somebody who was not using it. He could sell it to the highest bidder. We felt that was one factor that contributed to the farmers voting against quotas in both flue cured and burley in 1939. It is a thing that we need to study more, sir. But I don't believe it would require any legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it would not require legislation to let it revert to the county committee rather than the State committee? As I understand now, when a farmer fails to work his tobacco and loses his allotment, it reverts to the State committee, rather than the county committee. If he sells his farm or takes it out of production, they want it to go to the county committee, rather than the State committee.

Mr. TODD. May I consult my lawyer, sir? We don't have county allotments on tobacco like cotton and some other things. We go from the national quotas in pounds which are apportioned to the State in pounds, and we convert the State marketing quota in pounds to a State-acreage allotment, and then we go to the farm-acreage allotment. Could we leave that acreage in the county?

Mr. SCHOONOVER. As Mr. Todd said, we do not have any provision by law for county allotments. I think perhaps in peanuts a few years ago they set up what they called county acreage shares, which was about the same thing as the county allotment, but it was sort of frowned on by our office, I may say. Certainly if you start establishing county allotments, you would have to change the pattern of alloting the acreage out as it is done now.

The CHAIRMAN. It would require quite a change. There is a provision whereby if farmer X owns farms B and C and sells B, and takes it clean out of production, he can put it all in C.

Mr. SCHOONOVER. That is what we call a combination of farms. If those 3 tracts are all operated as 1 farm, he can grow it on any tract he wants.