tenant who is non

Mr. DEANE. Of course, we do not want to get productive, who would be frozen on this land because he has a nice house, and works in town rather than on the farm.

Mr. JONES. He would not be carrying on his obligation if he were doing that.

Mr. RAINS. If he did not live up to the contract, the provision would not hold.

Mr. JONES. That is right.

Mr. DEANE. I have great admiration for Mr. Dillard Lasseter and the Farmers Home Administration which he directs, and I am satisfied that if the same administration is carried on, we can expect a sound approach to this particular problem. I feel that as we give to the farm tenants improved housing; they will correspondingly indicate a greater interest in remaining on the farm.

Mr. JONES. Well, we are seeing a reduction of tenancy all along, since the enactment of the Bankhead-Jones Act, there has been a great impetus toward reducing tenancy. But we have other factors entering the picture as far as agricultural labor is concerned. We are having a reduction of agricultural labor as a whole, because of the transition of population. We have lost a part of our rural population in the last 10 years. But, of course, there are a great many factors that enter into that. One of the reasons we have lost agricultural population is the attractiveness for tenants and farmers to leave these farms, because they do not have the facilities on the farms that they can get in the cities. And if we are going to continue to keep the young people of America on our farms, we have got to give them decent housing, or make available to them means to acquire decent housing. Mr. RAINS. The failure to keep them on the farm is only going to increase the pressure for housing in the cities; is that not a fact? Mr. JONES. Of course.

Mr. BROWN. I wish to say that I am enjoying your intelligent discussion of this bill. What I want to know is when did you find the time to give such a thorough study to this part of the bill.

Thank

Mr. JONES. Well, I wish I knew more about it, Mr. Brown. you for being so kind, but I think it is one of the great problems of America that we must face, and I think we should undertake it with a sympathetic view, and that we should also be realistic enough to make it apply to situations as they exist at the present time, and not run off into the sphere of speculation as to what we wish it could be and be indifferent to the realities.

Mr. BROWN. I think you are doing a splendid job, Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the authorized expenditure for loans and grants under this section of the bill?

Mr. JONES. As I recall, it will be averaged out over the 4-year period, with grants and titles II, III, and IV, to about $71,000,000 a year. Mr. RAINS. That is an average, is it not?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. How much of that would be for grants?

Mr. JONES. The grants provided in 1950 will be $650,000. In 1951, 22 million dollars. In 1952, 4 million dollars. In 1953, 5 million dollars. Or a total, after the fifth year, of $12,150,000.

Mr. RAINS. That is as the bill is now written?

Mr. JONES. That is as now written.

Mr. RAINS. The Langer amendment doubled that amount, did it not?

Mr. JONES. That is right.

Mr. RAINS. What are the authorizations on the loans? The chairman inquired as to that.

Mr. JONES. Those are 25, 75, and 100 million dollars.

Mr. Chairman, there has been some criticism that perhaps we do not appropriate enough money to carry on a comprehensive program. I think perhaps that criticism is valid, but those who point that out. fail to realize that we are here engaging in a new enterprise, a new venture, and we want to insure success of the program and feel our way through, to justify what we are attempting to accomplish under the provisions of this bill.

I think in due time, if the bill is successful, then, maybe we will be able to make larger appropriations for the loans. But, of course,. that is my own personal view, Mr. Chairman, and I do not mean to impose it on you at this time.

Now, of the seven and a half million dwellings in the United States, there are 2,478,343, or 33.9 percent, which need major repair—not minor repair, major repair.

Mr. RAINS. You are talking about farm dwellings now?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir; I am confining myself, Mr. Rains, in my discussion, to farm dwellings entirely.

Mr. RAINS. Whose figures are those: the Department of Agriculture? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir; Bureau of the Census as of 1940. I will make a slight correction of the over-all figures at the conclusion of my

statement.

Running water. Only 17.8 percent of the farm homes have running

water.

Mr. PATMAN. Say that again.

Mr. JONES. Only 17.8 percent of the farm homes in America have running water.

Mr. BROWN. What about electricity?

Mr. JONES. I will get to that in just a minute. That is subject to a correction.

There is a hand pump in the dwelling unit in 11.2 percent of the farms of America.

The supply of water within 50 feet is 4,239,866, and, Mr. Patman, you will understand me when I say that in those farm dwellings you have got to go out to the well and out to the spring, and that represents a percentage figure of 56.1 percent.

There are 1,118,798 farm homes or 14.8 percent which do not have water in the immediate vicinity of the house.

Homes with flush or nonflush toilets within the structure are 2.3 percent.

Mr. PATMAN. That is very low. That includes the farm homes adjacent to towns and cities, too, does it not?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. That represents a total of 887,000 homes. Mr. PATMAN. Yet people wonder why young people refuse to live on the farms.

Mr. JONES. Well, I will give you one that is even better. The number of homes having outside toilets or privies in the United States,. 5,939,828, or 78.9 percent of all the farm homes in America.

Nine and three-tenths percent of the homes in America have no toilet facilities whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the national picture. Are conditions on the average worse in the South than in any other section?

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, let me point out the figures in Alabama. You have 9.3 percent as the national figure. In Alabama, 25 percent, or one-fourth of the farm homes, have no toilet facilities whatever. Georgia is somewhat better.

Texas and Virginia have the best rural housing of any States in the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Give us the statistics on Kentucky. I would like to know what the situation is there.

Mr. JONES. In 1940, the farm homes in Kentucky had a median or average value of $456.

Mr. PATMAN. What about the outside toilet facilities with respect to Kentucky and Texas?

Mr. JONES. I do not have those here. In Texas, in 1940, the average farm dwelling was worth $972.

Mr. PATMAN. That is not the information I am inquiring about. Mr. JONES. I do not have the break-down as to the other facilities, Mr. Patman.

Bathing facilities in the farm homes of America; 897,814 homes, or 12 percent of the farm homes of America, have indoor bathing facilities. With no tub or shower, 88 percent of the farm homes in America, that is, without bathing facilities indoors.

Here is another figure I would like to give you before I concludeand, Mr. Brown, you made mention of it a moment ago-and that is the electrict service on the farms-in 1940 there were 4.936,000 or 65 percent of the rural homes of America using kerosene or gasoline for lighting purposes.

Mr. PATMAN. When was that?

Mr. JONES. 1940. That figure has had greater improvement than any other I have given you, because through the Rural Electrification Administration, we have made great strides in providing electricity to rural areas.

As of April of 1947, 83 percent of the urban housing units possessed all designated modern facilities, such as baths, lights, running water, flush toilets, but only 19 percent of the rural homes had these same accommodations as of that date.

Only 19 percent of rural America has what his city cousin has in his home, to the extent of 83 percent.

Mr. PATMAN. What percentage of the farms have electricity now? You gave the figure for 1940.

Mr. JONES. If I recall it correctly, it is about 70 percent. That was as of December of last year.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that today offers the greatest opportunity we ever had for farm income is the most important source of new wealth, and the basis of our national prosperity and standards of living, from which the whole economy stems. It is, therefore, doubly important that we address ourselves to giving strength and happiness to the most stable and sound political segment of our Nation, and the time for that action is now.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PATMAN. I thoroughly agree with you.

The CHAIRMAN. You have made a very clear and convincing statement, and you have been a very fine orator in behalf of your position. Mr. JONES. Thank you.

Mr. PATMAN. I consider the step toward family-sized farms the most essential step in this country, and I would like to see our whole farm program channeled toward that step.

Mr. JONES. This approach is integrated with the whole over-all farm program.

Mr. PATMAN. It helps the landowners all right, but it helps the small landowners and not the large ones.

Mr. RAINS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to my colleague that he did a most able job and the people of Alabama are very proud of him.

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much.

Mr. PATMAN. It is enough to make us all blush with shame and think about what we are going to do about this situation.

Mr. JONES. I think we have waited too long.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones has stated the facts. If the facts are an indictment of the Congress, we cannot help that.

Our next witness is Mr. Orchard.

Proceed, Mr. Orchard.

STATEMENT OF MALCOLM ORCHARD, EDITOR, SOUTHERN
AGRICULTURALIST, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Mr. ORCHARD. I am Malcolm Orchard, executive editor of the Southern Agriculturalist, Nashville, Tenn. We edit a magazine that circulates in 15 Southern States. We have 1,100,000 circulation, most of which is on farms in the South.

I might add this, too, Mr. Spence: a year ago we started distributing house plans to farmers in the South, and we have been distributing over a thousand a month for about the past 13 or 14 months.

Mr. PATMAN. That is in compliance with requests addressed to your office for plans, I presume?

Mr. ORCHARD. Yes, sir; the farmers who order these plans pay a dollar apiece for them.

Mr. RAINS. What you are saying is that the farmer is vitally interested in trying to better his housing accommodations.

Mr. ORCHARD. He is vitally interested in that, yes. In fact, some farmers are, we know, ordering plans that they cannot afford to build by.

This problem of rural housing, Mr. Chairman, is particularly interesting to me because the solution is so easily reconciled to our American way of doing business, and the resulting benefits to the individual, to democracy, and to the world, are so extremely important.

It is enteresting to me also because we have a peculiar problem. We have one where these great benefits can be achieved without permanently removing from the Public Treasury any large outlay of money.

We have a social problem which can be solved on a businesslike basis. I do not need to call your attention to any more statistics on rural housing. In fact, to me the statistics are not any more emphatic than a

ride through rural areas and a visit to certain farms. I have done this, and I do not need a great many figures to tell me when this housing need exists.

Anyone can see the need like a cancer in the flesh of our rural body. Just last week I was in Congressman Jones' State, and I saw farms with new tractors sitting in the front yard, but water being carried from the well. Farmers can justify this, and I can justify it. A farmer can obtain credit for a production item, such as a combine, and make the item pay for itself in dollars and cents, but too often he cannot raise precious cash or credit for bathrooms or central heating or other items which will not make for definite returns in cash.

Do not forget that the farmer still earns less than half as much as a non-farmer, and that with his earnings he must finance his next year's production. That is why the home has always come second, when the farmer has to choose between a production item and an item for better living. The matter of building a new home is even more serious. Those in position to finance farmers have never been able to adjust their lending policies to the peculiar needs of the farmers' income pattern, and that is why I think this bill is so important, because this bill does adjust payment to the farmer's peculiar income pattern. As Mr. Patman states, and as the farmers say, only fools and newcomers can predict the weather.

Mr. RAINS. Do you mean that the loans he makes should be made in the fall of the year?

Mr. ORCHARD. I go even further than that. He cannot obligate himself for regular monthly payments on a house because he does not know whether he is going to have $50 or $5,000 next September. Mr. RAINS. He does not have a regular monthly income. Mr. ORCHARD. Or a regular yearly income, for that matter.

Mr. DEANE. Is it conceived that the repayment of these loans would be tied in with the fall production?

Mr. ORCHARD. As I understand the bill-I have just read it, and I am not supposed to be a specialist on it-but as I read the bill, it does provide that a farmer can delay payments during hard times and pick them up again later, and double up on those payments during periods of good times. I think that is the best thing about the bill. Mr. PATMAN. That is the moratorium provision, page 57 of the bill. Mr. ORCHARD. Yes. Now, there is another angle to the place of cash in modern farming. The days when a farmer can dig in and be self-sufficient are over and, as one farmer said, the days when a farmer can graze through hard times are past. Tractors do not eat grass and a farmer cannot grow gasoline. We all know that. These are days of investment expansion on farms. And, as farmers are called upon for more and more investment in order to compete in modern, dynamic agriculture, he will be more and more inclined to protect this investment, with increased caution necessary in making debt contracts not essential to his farm output.

There is another side to the new trends in farming that cannot be put into dollars and cents. A modern farmer must be something of an engineer. If you gentlemen are farmers, you know what I mean. New machines, chemicals, new economics, new farm programs, even new diseases and insects, demand intelligence on a farm more today than ever before. We are faced, however, with the unfortunate fact

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