of subsidy for other segments of our society, I think we are in a very good position to ask for reasonable subsidies for our farmers who are being completely destroyed economically by reason of drought and flood and low prices, and so on.

Therefore, I appeal to this great committee in final summation on this basis. I appeal to you in behalf of my own great district that I represent, which is largely, almost entirely agricultural. We have some other interests, oil and others, but basically it is agricultural. I appeal to you on behalf of all of our great State of Oklahoma, and I appeal equally earnestly to you on behalf of the people in these other States that have been affected. I believe I can say to you honestly that I would be just as anxious to support this kind of legislation if other States were affected and my own State was not affected. I appeal to you to give earnest and careful consideration to this legislation. Thank you very much.

Mr. POAGE. Any questions?

If not we are very much obliged to you for your appearance.

The next bill we have was introduced by Mr. Steed, of Oklahoma. We will be delighted to hear from you, Mr. Steed.

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM STEED, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Mr. STEED. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, about all I can add to what already has been said is by way of emphasis as to the extent, magnitude, and nature of the disaster which has swept upon us. For more than 100 days we have been buffeted by unprecedented rains, tornadoes, and other attacks from the elements which has created a situation which I believe is absolutely unprecedented. Our farmers have been kept out of their fields throughout this entire period by the flood and wet grounds, and it is almost impossible to describe to anyone just what the situation has been.

Almost every community in my district has been under flood at least 4 times during this 100-day period. We have had many rains which ran from more than 4 inches up to 13 inches in a single day, and this whole thing has created sort of a triple-header disaster.

The northern part of my district produces a lot of wheat and oats, and the disaster there is in the loss of a crop which already was made. Unusually heavy rains within the last week have forced the abandonment of what little effort was being made or could be made to harvest wheat.

In most cases the wheat crop is a total loss. Those few acres that were harvested in 1 or 2 days when they could get into the fields the best yields they got ran from 4 to 8 bushels an acre.

Most of the oats grown in my district were lost.

There is another kind of disaster in the upland crops, and that is that the wet fields has made it impossible to plant row crops. A few acres of peanuts have been planted in the last few days, but even there the farmer is taking an unprecedented risk because if we happen to have an early fall he will lose the crop. I don't believe there will be any corn or cotton grown in my district this year because it was not possible to plant it.

Then we have a third type of disaster that came, and that is in the lowlands which have been flooded so many times.

I have thousands of acres of rich bottom land, most of it devoted to the production of alfalfa, which have been absolutely ruined. It will be impossible for some of the farmers to treat this lowland and put it back into production. It has been silted up, it is full of debris, and we will not be able to make a crop again until it can be reworked and retreated. Many of them are financially unable to stand the expense that will be required to put this land back in production.

Even if the requests we are making here in this legislation are granted, I would like to emphasize to you that the very best we can hope to do here will be only of minimum help to these people. The disaster we have gone through, in view of the fact that our crops are gone for this year, will be a continuing disaster, and the economic impact of it will be much more severe upon the people of our State this coming fall and winter than it is now.

I only regret that I do not have the articulateness about me to paint to you the true picture of just what a terrible regional unprecedented disaster has been heaped upon our people, and I hope that this committee will be able to find some means of helping to provide some relief for these people.

We are at our rope's end and our wits' end and this is about our last hope here in terms of legislation, and we would like to have this committee bring this forth.

Mr. Chairman, with that I want to express my appreciation for the statements already made by others who come from this southwestern section of the United States which has been hit, and to endorse all of the remarks they have made to you.

Thank you.

Mr. POAGE. The committee is obliged to you for your statement, Mr. Steed.

Any questions?

If not we thank you very much. That completes the list of witnesses on this bill.

We have before us a member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee who has been waiting patiently to be heard. We will be glad to hear from Mr. H. Carl Andersen.

STATEMENT OF HON. H. CARL ANDERSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Mr. ANDERSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the Committee on Agriculture to testify regarding the serious problems facing farm people whose crops or livestock have been severely damaged by natural disasters. I know of no committee of the Congress in which the Members are more directly interested in and concerned with these problems than the members of this great committee. A natural disaster is not necessarily a regional problem. A disaster is just as personal to a man if it happens in a township in some isolated area hit by hail, tornado or some other storm as it is in a vast area such as my region, or such as yours in Texas, or one in Oklahoma which has been stricken generally.

I hope whatever we do here can be done along the line of permitting everyone affected to benefit from legislation that you gentlemen report.

It is my understanding that you have before you bills introduced by our distinguished colleagues from Oklahoma, Carl Albert and Ed Edmondson and others, the purpose of which is to authorize the reopening of the acreage reserve section of the soil bank to farmers whose crops have in 1957 been destroyed or seriously damaged in the course of a major disaster determined by the President to warrant assistance by the Federal Government under Public Law 875, 81st Congress, as amended.

I think the best testimony I could give would be the reading of a petition received just yesterday from 150 farmers and businessmen in only one section of the flood area in my District.

With your permission I would like to include this petition in the record at this point.

Mr. POAGE. Without objection that may be done.

(The petition referred to is as follows:)

We, the undersigned farmers of the Swift, Chippewa and Kandiyohi Counties area, in the State of Minnesota, assembled this 22d day of June 1957 in an open and public meeting in the courthouse in the city of Benson, Minn., together with Benson businessmen and businessmen of neighboring towns, for the purpose of discussing the disastrous floods in our area and proposing such action as will alleviate the highly detrimental and long-term results of the economic losses caused by such floods, do propose, resolve and petition as follows:

Whereas the above mentioned area suffered a flood from storms in the year 1952 which was determined by the United States Soil Conservation Service to be one of a 50 year frequency; that is, one of such severity that it will only occur once in every 50 years, and

Whereas the above-mentioned area suffered another flood in the year 1953 which was also determined to be of a storm of a 50 year frequency by the United States soil conservation, and

Whereas the above-mentioned area has just suffered flooding and inundation in this year of 1957, at the present time, which is more severe and more damaging than either of the other 2 years mentioned, and

Whereas thousands of acres have been flooded due to this very abnormal rainfall, and

Whereas the flooding is due to an act of God, the flooding occurred through no fault of our own and in spite of the preventative action we have taken, in that for the last 5 years, through the small pilot watershed program, we have been constantly preparing ourselves to go into such program in cooperation with the United States Soil Conservation Service and in doing so, have obligated ourselves to many thousands of dollars to pay for such program, and

Whereas we presently have an unstable farm economy due to tremendous transitions that have been and are now taking place in the field of agriculture: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, and we respectfully herewith petition for direct help under present existing authority of the United States Government for all farmers who have flooded acres or for participation in an emergency soil bank program for 1957 for all farmers; that a program of additional credit was extensively and thoroughly discussed with a unanimous decision against such credit as an adequate means of action for the reasons above mentioned, reasons such as 3 years of disastrous flooding and inundations which have forced farmers in this area to use credit beyond the point of safety, the fact that our area has been hard hit by the transitional period in agriculture causing extensive use of credit beyond reasonable limits and the fact that our younger farmers have had little or no opportunity to acquire any kind of financial reserve; that an emergency soil bank program would be in keeping with the theory and desired results of the soil-bank program in that the catastrophic flooding will prevent tremendous crop production by reason of having taken thousands of acres of land out of production; and

Lastly we pledge our united support to all flood disaster areas throughout the country inasmuch as this is the type of emergency which should clearly be above politics and is rather on the basis of mankind's help to mankind, as one would aid another member of his family in the face of dire and severe difficulties.

We, the undersigned Benson businessmen and businessmen of neighboring towns, wholeheartedly support this resolution and petition setting forth the disastrous emergency that has come about in our area of western Minnesota due to

devastating floods of recent weeks. We are thoroughly familiar with the fringe economy of our farmers which has largely resulted from the transition period in agriculture together with the loss of crops in 1952 and in 1953 due to floods, knowing full well that the crop loss of 1957 without any direct help to tide them over will result in large numbers of our farm people losing their life savings and liquidating their farming operations and we therefore sincerely solicit your support as our representatives in the Congress of the United States to meet this dire need for help for our farmers and business people in this very critical emergency. Mr. ANDERSEN. We know from firsthand experience and observation what it means to farm people to see investments of time, labor, and material wiped out in a few hours or days' time. Just last week farmers in my district lost millions of dollars in one the worst floods on record.

I know in recent days how deeply affected they have been by these disastrous floods. The President just last Saturday agreed to our request that he declare the entire flood area in southwestern Minnesota a major disaster area under the terms of Public Law 875, 81st Congress.

As you well know, Mr. Chairman, when a farmer's crops are wiped out by flood or other natural disaster he is faced not only with the loss an entire year's income but also with the loss of his investment in that year's crops. In my district, this represents a gross loss running into many thousands of dollars for the average farmer. With corn, barley, flax, soybean, and livestock prices at their present low level the farmers in my district do not have the accumulated cash reserves to see them through such disastrous losses, and I am sure the same is true of farm people in Oklahoma, Texas, and the other disaster areas of the Southwest. We have the same problems, and we are all interested in a practical solution. I want to emphasize the word "practical."

As ranking Republican member of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for Agriculture, I am painfully aware of the severe criticism directed at the acreage reserve in recent months because it was last year opened up for participation by farmers who had suffered crop losses due to natural disasters. Personally, I did not like to see the acreage reserve made a crop insurance and relief program last year, but every member of this committee knows that the provisions of the law required the Secretary of Agriculture to do just that. Now, we are considering emergency legislation which will direct the Secretary of Agriculture to do this year precisely that for which he and his Department were so severely criticized last year. I am not opposed to this legislation in principle, referring to the bills before you, but I would like to think that if you do give them your approval, the program and its administrators will not later be criticized for carrying out the express intent of the Congress.

My purpose in appearing before you today is to give testimony regarding an urgent need on the part of farm people in these disaster areas and to recommend to this committee that appropriate action. be taken to provide such assistance as may be necessary. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the need for help.

I again reiterate that a disaster of 1 mile in circumference to a particular individual may be just as tough on him in comparison to what happened in my area where nine counties are stricken.

To briefly summarize my views, I would say that in my judgment the needs of farm people in these major disaster areas cannot be fully met by present disaster assistance and credit programs alone. It is

my feeling that these programs must in some instances be supplemented by new legislation. Whether that legislation shall encompass the reopening of the acreage reserve is a matter for this committee to determine. I think you have today been made aware of the serious problem, and I feel confident that you will devise a legislative remedy. I would like to leave with you some of my own suggestions as to possible remedies. As I said earlier, credit alone does not provide the entire answer. However, I have great confidence in the Farmers Home Administration and would strongly recommend that consideration be given to the provision of greater authority to that agency to meet these needs. For example, the Administrator might be given wider discretion in the granting of loan moratoriums, in the extension of credit, in the extension of repayments, and I would suggest that he might even be given the authority to forgive or excuse repayment in full or in part in certain extenuating circumstances arising out of such natural disasters as we are faced with today.

Another possibility might be the granting of emergency authority to the Administrator of the Farmers Home Administration to go into disaster areas and provide by outright grant emergency assistance such as the Civil Defense Administration provides in urban areas under the authority of Public Law 875. If it is proper to use Federal funds to repair roads, bridges, utilities, and other public facilities after disaster has struck, I see no reason why such limited assistance should not be made available to farm people in like circumstances.

Finally, I think the committee should give full consideration to the proposals that the acreage reserve be reopened in these disaster areas. If that is to be done, I believe that adequate safeguards should be written into the law to prevent abuses and the benefits to be made available to those most in need. For example, last year a heavy rain washed out part of my corn but it made me a good crop on the rest of the acreage. I do not think any emergency program you approve should provide compensation for cases like that. However, I do feel that the farmer who has lost a substantial portion of his total crops is in need of and entitled to some assistance.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that from these hearings and your study of the problem you can report out a good bill that will meet these needs. I want you to know that any reasonable proposal of this nature will have my unqualified support. I know also that our problem could not be in better hands than those of the members of this committee. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POAGE. Thank you, Mr. Andersen.

It is always difficult to answer or refer to charges or criticisms if the person is not named, but I assume you have in mind those of us who criticized the Secretary of Agriculture in connection with his

soil bank program of last year?

Mr. ANDERSEN. Mr. Chairman, I have made mistakes, and I hope you will forgive them, such as I forgive any you might make.

I had no specific reference to any particular people. I just referred to the problem as a whole.

Mr. POAGE. You must have somebody in mind and I hope you have me in mind among others, because I did criticize the Department. Mr. ANDERSEN. Of course, I want to point out

Mr. POAGE. The point I want to make here is that my criticism of the Department was not because they used the soil bank to try to