Agricultural Adjustment Act
Pub. L.73–10 | |
Statutes at Large | 48 Stat. 31 |
---|---|
Codification | |
Titles amended | 7 U.S.C.: Agriculture |
U.S.C. sections created | 7 U.S.C. ch. 26 § 601 et seq. |
Legislative history | |
| |
United States Supreme Court cases | |
United States v. Butler |
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a
Background
When
- Changes in the prices of these commodities had a strong effect on the prices of other important commodities.
- These commodities were already running a surplus at the time.
- These items each required some amount of processing before they could be consumed by humans.[4]
Goals and implementations
"The goal of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, restoring farm purchasing power of agricultural commodities or the fair exchange value of a commodity based upon price relative to the prewar 1909–14 level, was to be accomplished through a number of methods. These included the authorization by the
"Congress declared its intent, at the same time, to protect the consumers interest. This was to be done by readjusting farm production at a level that would not increase the percentage of consumers' retail expenditures above the percentage returned to the farmer in the prewar base period."[1]
The juxtaposition of huge agricultural surpluses and the many deaths due to insufficient food shocked many, as well as some of the administrative decisions that happened under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.[10] For example, in an effort to reduce agricultural surpluses, the government paid farmers to reduce crop production[11] and to sell pregnant sows as well as young pigs.[12] Oranges were being soaked with kerosene to prevent their consumption and corn was being burned as fuel because it was so cheap.[10] There were many people, however, as well as livestock in different places starving to death.[10] Farmers slaughtered livestock because feed prices were rising, and they could not afford to feed their own animals.[10] Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, "plowing under" of pigs was also common to prevent them reaching a reproductive age, as well as donating pigs to the Red Cross.[10]
In 1935, the income generated by farms was 50 percent higher than it was in 1932, which was partly due to farm programs such as the AAA.[13]
The Agricultural Adjustment Act affected around 99% of farmers in this time period.[citation needed]
Tenant farming
To accomplish its goal of parity (raising crop prices to where they were in the golden years of 1909–1914), the Act reduced crop production.[15] The Act accomplished this by offering landowners acreage reduction contracts, by which they agreed not to grow cotton on a portion of their land. By law, they were required to pay the tenant farmers and sharecroppers on their land a portion of the money; but after Southern Democrats in Congress complained, the Secretary of Agriculture surrendered and reinterpreted section 7 to no longer send checks to sharecroppers directly, hurting the tenants. The farm wage workers who worked directly for the landowner suffered the greatest unemployment as a result of the Act. There are few people gullible enough to believe that the acreage devoted to cotton can be reduced one-third without an accompanying decrease in the laborers engaged in its production.[16] Researchers concluded that the statistics after the Act took effect "indicate a consistent and widespread tendency for cotton croppers and, to a considerable extent, tenants to decrease in numbers between 1930 and 1935. The decreases among Negroes were consistently greater than those among whites." Another consequence was that the historic high levels of mobility from year to year declined sharply, as tenants and croppers tended to stay longer with the same landowner.[17]
According to researchers Frey and Smith, "To the extent that the AAA control-program has been responsible for the increased price [of cotton], we conclude that it has increased the amount of goods and services consumed by the cotton tenants and croppers area." Furthermore, the landowners typically let the tenants and croppers use the land taken out of cotton production for their own personal use in growing food and feed crops, which further increased their standard of living. Another consequence was that the historic high levels of turnover from year to year declined sharply, as tenants and croppers tend to stay with the same landowner. These researchers concluded, "As a rule, planters seem to prefer Negroes to whites as tenants and croppers."[17]
However, according to researcher Harold C. Hoffsommer, many landlords were concerned that aid given directly to tenant farmers would have a "demoralizing effect." An article appearing in the St. Louis Dispatch in 1935, quoted Hoffsommer's survey conducted for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
Tenant demoralization from relief had either one or both of two meanings to the landlord. In the first place, it might have been a fear that the tenant would escape from under his influence. It is probably not too much to say that the cropper system can only be maintained by the subordination of the tenant group. If the cropper were to become self-directing and take over his own affairs, the system would necessarily crumble. Hence anything that disrupts dependence is demoralizing. In the second place, the landlords were influenced by the belief that when members of any group are given privileges to which they are unaccustomed, they are likely in their inexperience to abuse them for a time. There can be no question that a considerable number of the sharecroppers reacted in this fashion, when under the Civil Works Administration, for example, they received more cash in a single week than they had been accustomed to receiving in an entire year. In their inexperience the money was spent foolishly and from this standpoint the outcome was demoralizing.[18][failed verification]
Delta and Providence Cooperative Farms in Mississippi and the Southern Tenant Farmers Union were organized in the 1930s principally as a response to the hardships imposed on sharecroppers and tenant farmers.[19]
Although the Act stimulated American agriculture, it was not without its faults. For example, it disproportionately benefited large farmers and food processors, with lesser benefits to small farmers and sharecroppers.[20] With the spread of cotton-picking machinery after 1945, there was an exodus of small farmers and croppers to the city.
Thomas Amendment
Attached as Title III to the Act, the Thomas Amendment became the 'third horse' in the New Deal's farm relief bill. Drafted by Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma, the amendment blended populist easy-money views with the theories of the New Economics. Thomas wanted a stabilized "honest dollar," one that would be fair to debtor and creditor alike.[21]
The Amendment said that whenever the President desired currency expansion, he must first authorize the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve to purchase up to $3 billion of federal obligations. Should open market operations prove insufficient, the President had several options. He could have the U.S. Treasury issue up to $3 billion in greenbacks, reduce the gold content of the dollar by as much as 50 percent, or accept 100 million dollars in silver at a price not to exceed fifty cents per ounce in payment of World War I debts owed by European nations.[21]
The Thomas Amendment was used sparingly. The treasury received limited amounts of silver in payment for war debts from World War I.
The impact of this amendment was to reduce the amount of silver that was being held by private citizens (presumably as a hedge against inflation or collapse of the financial system) and increase the amount of circulating currency.
Ruled unconstitutional
On January 6, 1936, the
Ware Group
The following employees of the AAA were also alleged members of the
See also
- Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935
- Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938
- Federal Emergency Relief Administration, May 1933
- Federal Surplus Relief Corporation
- Commodity Credit Corporation
- Jones–Costigan amendment
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d Rasmussen, Wayne D.; Baker, Gladys L.; Ward, James S. (March 1976). "A Short History of Agricultural Adjustment, 1933-75". Agriculture Information Bulletin, No. 391. Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture: 2. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
- , enacted May 12, 1933.
- ^ Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Statement on Signing the Farm Relief Bill" May 12, 1933". The American Presidency Project. University of California – Santa Barbara. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
- ^ a b Hurt, R. Douglas, Problems of Plenty: The American Farmer in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 69.
- ^ Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 175.
- ^ "The New Deal Farm Program". The Depression Begins: President Hoover Takes Command. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- ^ Gates, Staci L. 2006. "Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933." Federalism in American: An Encyclopedia.
- ^ a b Hurt, R. Douglas, Problems of Plenty: The American Farmer in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 67.
- ^ a b c Hurt, R. Douglas, Problems of Plenty: The American Farmer in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 68.
- ^ OCLC 12132710.
- ISBN 978-0761501657.
- ^ Fleetwood, Jonathan (May 1993). "The Hog Reduction Program of the AAA". Illinois History. Archived from the original on 2015-01-03. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b Rasmussen, Wayne D., Gladys L. Baker, and James S. Ward, "A Short History of Agricultural Adjustment, 1933-75." Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 391 (March 1976), pg. 4.
- ASIN B00B8TO1SY.
- ^ Folsom Jr., Burton (2008). New Deal or Raw Deal?. Simon and Schuster. p. 62.
- ^ Fred C. Frey and T. Lynn Smith, "The Influence of the AAA Cotton Program Upon the Tenant, Cropper, and Laborer," Rural Sociology (1936) 1#4 pp. 483–505 at p 489 online
- ^ a b Fred C. Frey and T. Lynn Smith, "The Influence of the AAA Cotton Program Upon the Tenant, Cropper, and Laborer," Rural Sociology (1936) 1#4 pp. 483–505 at pp. 501–3 online
- ^ Childs, Marquis W. (22 Nov 1935). "The St. Louis Dispatch". The St. Louis Dispatch. p. 16. Retrieved 6 Jan 2022.
- ^ Smith, Fred C. (2004). "Cooperative Farming in Mississippi." Archived 2012-02-15 at the Wayback Machine Mississippi Historical Society.
- ^ Hamilton, David. Agricultural Adjustment Act: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. s.v. "Sharecroppers". Vol. 1. Macmillan Reference USA.
- ^ a b c d e David Webb, "The Thomas Amendment: A Rural Oklahoma Response to the Great Depression," in Rural Oklahoma, ed. Donald E. Green (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society Archived November 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, 1977).
- ^ Roosevelt, Franklin D. (December 21, 1933). "Statement and Proclamation Ratifying the London Agreement on Silver - December 21, 1933". Internet Archive. National Archives and Records Administration. pp. 534–535.
- ^ Roosevelt, Franklin D. (December 21, 1933). "Proclamation No. 2067: Accompanying the Preceding Statement - December 21, 1933". Internet Archive. National Archives and Records Administration. pp. 535–539.
- ^ Roosevelt, Franklin D. (January 31, 1934). "White House Statement on Presidential Proclamation No. 2072: Fixing the Weight of the Gold Dollar - January 31, 1934". Internet Archive. National Archives and Records Administration. pp. 64–66.
- ^ Roosevelt, Franklin D. (January 31, 1934). "Presidential Proclamation No. 2072: Fixing the Weight of the Gold Dollar - January 31, 1934". Internet Archive. National Archives and Records Administration. pp. 67–76.
Further reading
- Folino, Ann Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015.
- Frey, Fred C. and Smith, T. Lynn. "The Influence of the AAA Cotton Program Upon the Tenant, Cropper, and Laborer," Rural Sociology (1936) 1#4 pp. 483–505.
- Gilbert, Jess. Planning Democracy: Agrarian Intellectuals and the Intended New Deal. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.
- Robert Gulotty (2024), "The Multiplant Origins of the National Market", Journal of Historical Political Economy 3(4): 577–606.
- Monmonier, Mark. Aerial Photography at the Agricultural Adjustment Administration: Acreage Controls, Conservation Benefits, and Overhead Surveillance in the 1930s, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing Vol. 68, No.12, December 2002, pp. 1257–1261.
External links
- As codified in 7 U.S.C. chapter 26 of the United States Code from LII
- As codified in 7 U.S.C. chapter 26 of the United States Code from the US House of Representatives
- Agricultural Adjustment Act as amended (PDF/details) in the GPO Statute Compilations collection
- Agricultural Adjustment Act as enacted from the St. Louis Fed
- http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1639.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080409194401/http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/browse.cfm?MainCatID=34
- A Message from FDR to Congress on the AAA
- Roosevelt, Franklin D. (March 16, 1933). ""New Means to Rescue Agriculture" — The Agricultural Adjustment Act - March 16, 1933". Internet Archive. National Archives and Records Administration. pp. 74–79.
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- National Archives
- New Georgia Encyclopedia
- North Carolina History Project
- Texas State Historical Association
- Encyclopedia of Arkansas
- Cato Institute
- The Living New Deal
- Encyclopedia of the Great Depression