marketing of meat-type hogs. We doubt if any useful purpose would be served with individual State livestock associations sponsoring separate research programs in these fields and that if they did so, it would tend to change the whole pattern of financing and administration of research currently conducted through our State agricultural experiment stations in the land-grant college system.

In our judgment, there is very little support among rank-and-file livestock producers and feeders for additional checkoffs to finance. separate programs for beef and pork outside the National Livestock and Meat Board.

There is, however, strong support for strengthening the work of the Meat Board. The American Farm Bureau Federation and our member State organizations will cooperate with all livestock and meat industry groups in efforts to further improve this invaluable program.

In summary, we wish to reemphasize that the National Livestock and Meat Board is the logical organization to promote the increased consumption of red meats, that producers' money should not be checked off and divided into a large number of separate State programs for individual species of livestock, each competing with and, to a considerable extent, canceling out the efforts of the other, and all subject to the control of a Secretary of Agriculture.

We feel that this legislation is unnecessary and contrary to the best interests of livestock producers and feeders.

Now, in introducing these four gentlemen, I want to make this

statement

Mr. POAGE. Mr. Shuman, may I ask, before you introduce these gentlemen

Mr. SHUMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. POAGE (continuing). And not wanting to impose upon the committee or witnesses, but I would like to call attention to some of the things I mentioned to Mr. Butz this morning.

It seems to me, page 3, the first paragraph, or two paragraphs, you have there, you either misinterpreted the bill I introduced or I am not sure of what you say in your paper, where you say that H. R. 5244 would require keeping of voluminous records.

I think that is true, and I think you would have to keep records if you are gong to keep any kind of accounting but you say:

The State of origin of every animal handled would have to be determined before deductions could be made and the funds transmitted to each authorized State association.

I do not understand that. I did not so understand the bill as I introduced it, and I do not believe it does that. I just wonder whether you or I are mistaken about it.

Mr. SHUMAN. Well, our conclusion is that it does.

Mr. POAGE. Well, where, what is there about it to make you think so, because I deliberately took out the provisions which were in that original draft which were intended to do that.

Mr. SHUMAN. Well, the provision which says that the Secretary shall designate in each State certainly requires that, or certainly would imply that, the marketing agency would need to send a checkoff deducted, to that State agency.

91840-57-6

Mr. POAGE. I say the Secretary shall designate an agency in each State, but it does not say if there is an animal sold in the Chicago market that originated in Wyoming, that there shall be some accounting to Wyoming. There is nothing in here which says anything about that. There is in some of these bills.

Mr. SHUMAN. Well, I think that is correct. However, I do not believe that the livestock producers from Wyoming are going to tolerate

Mr. POAGE. Maybe they would not, but all I am talking about is, you make the positive statement that the bill I introduced requires that. I do not think that it does.

Now, maybe the bill I introduced is not acceptable to certain people. That is entirely a different question. All I am trying to do is just get the facts out here.

Mr. SHUMAN. I think you are correct on H. R. 5244, it does not require it.

Mr. POAGE. That is all I am talking about, and I just want my own bill correctly presented to this group.

I do not want to have it presented as somebody else's bill presented here under my name, because I did not introduce a bill of that kind. Mr. SHUMAN. I stand corrected, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Chairman, might I make a statement there? Quoting your bill, Congressman, H. R. 5244 provides that the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to pass on the qualifications of and to designate not more than one producer-sponsored agency in each State as being the proper producer-sponsored organization or organizations to support such research, and so on, to the end of the quote. We hope we quoted your bill correctly.

Mr. POAGE. But you did not quote my bill correctly, and that is exactly the point I am making. That has nothing in the world to do with the statement Mr. Shuman makes here, that you would have to determine the State of origin and make a return to the State of origin, of the money collected at terminal markets. It simply says that there may be an association in each State and that the Secretary shall determine, which association it shall be. Now, as far as I am concerned, I think there is maybe a good deal of merit in what the Secretary suggested this morning, letting him stay out of the whole thing. I have no objection to that.

But as long as we are discussing H. R. 5244, I want to keep the provisions of H. R. 5244 separate and distinct from some other bill, because what you are actually referring to are the provisions in the Berry bill, are you not?

Mr. SCHENCK. Yes, sir, S. 646 does require that. Mr. POAGE. That is right. And I went to some pains to see that this bill did not require that. And that is the reason, I do not want to offer any criticism, but I just want to make it plain when you make a statement that this bill does do that, after I went to some pains to see that it did not do that, then I think it is just fair that we make it plain that you are talking about the wrong bill.

Mr. SHUMAN. Mr. Chairman, we stand corrected.

Mr. POAGE. Please understand, I do not charge anything wrong, except I do think there was an error there.

Mr. SHUMAN. I am sure that many of the organizations supporting S. 646 would not support H. R. 5244 if the States where the market was were to retain the checkoff.

Mr. POAGE. Mr. Shuman, I am not raising any question about whether it is good or bad legislation. All I am trying to do is get it clear before this committee as to what we are proposing, and not saying what ought to be proposed.

You have a perfect right to say what you think ought to be proposed, but let's not put words in my mouth to the effect that I am proposing something, simply because you think it ought to be proposed or because you think it ought not to be proposed.

Because I want to say I deliberately and carefully left out the thing you object to, and then to come along and say that the proposed bill is objectionable because it has in it the things that I took out, I want to get it cleared up that it has been left out of my bill. Mr. SHUMAN. We accept the correction. Thank you, sir. Mr. POAGE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHUMAN. Now, in making these supplemental statements, I want to clarify what seems to be some misconception in some of the previous testimony, and that is the status of State resolutions in the American Farm Bureau Federation.

This is not the first time where, in the discussion of issues, State Farm Bureaus in their own State conventions have differed, and some States have differed on this issue. But when we come into the national convention, where we have the delegates from all of the States participating, and we adopt a position on this or some other legislation, that position automatically becomes the position of all the State Farm Bureaus in the United States, regardless of what action they took in their own State convention.

There is provision, of course, if a State Farm Bureau feels very strongly, that they provide in writing an exception to the position taken by the national organization.

As of this moment, we have had no notice or no action by any State Farm Bureau in support of either one of these bills; and so, the actions taken by the State Farm Bureaus in their conventions in November, or October, or December, were simply advisory to and recommendations to the nationwide American Farm Bureau Federation convention.

Therefore, our statement is correct that no State Farm Bureau is in support of these bills, as far as we have been informed.

Now, we have with us Mr. Hassil Schenck, president of the Indiana Farm Bureau and a member of the board of directors of the American Farm Bureau, and I would like, if it is agreeable, for him to make a brief statement.

Mr. POAGE. We are glad to hear from Mr. Schenck.

STATEMENT OF HASSIL E. SCHENCK, PRESIDENT, INDIANA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION

Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I think there isn't an individual in this room here but what believes in a program of research and in a program of advertising. Mr. POAGE. Mr. Schenck, you may be seated if you want to.

Mr. SCHENCK. I would just as soon stand up. I have been sitting most of the day.

Mr. POAGE. That is perfectly all right.

Mr. SCHENCK. And I hope that I conclude that that would be a true statement. It is the method by which it is done that seems to be the element of disagreement here.

We now have a well-coordinated national program which is raising, I think, in the neighborhood of $1,200,000 on the basis of % cent per hog, 25 cent for sheep and lambs, and 2 cents for cattle.

This is matched, by an equal amount, and the two together make up the $1,200,000, by the packers of the Nation. In my humble opinion, rather than to have a program set up subject to supervision by a Government department, it would be far better to expand the program which we already have.

We are currently getting an enormous volume of advertising free from radio. Radio stations are requested by the Federal Communications Commission to devote so much of their time to different types of public service. That is advertising that is not costing us money today.

But if we ever started paying for one bit of that kind of advertising. we would pay for all of it or we wouldn't get it. We would stand to lose there.

The industry, from the processors, handlers, wholesalers, on through to the retailers, are spending something like $100 million a year. I have the humble opinion that research is pretty largely in the realm of private enterprise. We have just recently completed raising a considerable amount of money in Indiana and, with the cooperation of Purdue University, we are putting in a research evaluation laboratory.

Why are we doing about that? We are wanting to produce what the consuming public wants and to produce it at the lowest possible

cost.

If you will pardon an experience that I had not so long ago, I was invited by the Indiana Chain Stores Council, as a member of the board of directors of the Indiana Farm Bureau, to visit one of their retail establishments. I will concede I think they took us to the best one they had. I would have done the same thing had I been in their place.

I observed the pork counter there of some 80 feet, and a small portion of that, the most remote portion, was the meat-type hog. The larger portion was the lard-type hog, and this was at a time when hogs were selling from $11 to $12 a hundred.

The average price of this smaller display was 10 cents a pound higher than the average price of the other. I stood there, Congressmen, for 20 minutes, and saw a continuous stream of people go by. A few purchases were made on the lard-type display, but the big majority were buying down at the meat-type display.

When I got an opportunity, I talked to the head of the meat department, and I told him my observation. He said, "That is a correct. observation." I said, "What do you do when you run out of this?" He said, "Our sales fall away down."

Now, a big job that we have to do if we are going to sell to the consuming public is produce what the consuming public wants, and

you can produce it, we are finding that out in our research studies, for less money, and possibly in a little less time.

If all of our meat at the time we had $11 and $12 hogs was the kind the public wanted, you can figure it out pretty quick that we would have had $20 hogs rather than $10 or $11 hogs.

I would rather approach it on that method and expand our advertising and research program as carried on by the National Livestock and Meat Board, on the basis that we are working, and make some alterations in that, rather than to get the Government in any capacity in the advertising business.

I made this remark some 2 or 3 years ago when the national wool bill was passed, and we supported it, but it had a little innocent section in there whereby, at the discretion of the Secretary, they could take a portion of that money which was going to the producers, to be used for advertising purposes.

The Secretary yielded to certain pressures, and we had that put in. But I made this statement in opposition to the Secretary's position at that time: that we were opening the door, we were opening the door, and there would be no end to the commodities that would want such a program, sooner or later.

These bills right now are evidence of that surmise, in my humble opinion.

Personally, and I think that I speak for the majority of our Farm Bureau folks in Indiana, we have got a lot of good Farm Bureau folks who want that, I want you to know that, but we go by majority opinion.

I believe in the end we will be far better off to expand the program we already have, and not pass any particular type of legislation at this time along the lines that are being proposed. Thank you.

Mr. POAGE. Would you be kind enough to go into it a little further as to how the program we have at the present time would be expanded, in place of the stockyard plan of action?

Mr. SCHENCK. The checkoff now is two-thirds of a cent.

Mr. POAGE. Yes.

Mr. SCHENCK. You could raise that to 2 cents, and it would just be multiplying the amount of money three times.

Mr. POAGE. I know, but do you understand there is legal authority for that?

Mr. SCHENCK. The Secretary or the Assistant Secretary this morning dealt with that. In other words, it has been going on for some 30-odd years. He used the term, that I am not familiar with, but it is a term meaning it has become an accepted practice. There is no opposition to this program up to the present time.

Mr. POAGE. Had not separate but equal schools become an accepted practice? Had it not been accepted by the Supreme Court for 50 years? Had it not, as a matter of fact?

Mr. SCHENCK. I would say we are conducting our schools in Indiana just as we have throughout the years.

Mr. POAGE. I understand.

Mr. SCHENCK. My hometown is about to hire

Mr. POAGE. I understand. But you understand what the Supreme Court has held, do you not?

Mr. SCHENCK. Well, we as an organization have never become involved in the integration issue.