Election Returns

Following a "suggestion" by the 80th Congress, ECAdministrator Paul Hoffman had planned to take the buying and shipping of EGA grain out of the hands of the Commodity Credit Corp. and turn it over after Dec. 1 to private traders. Last week, in the first major reversal of economic policy since the election, President Truman "requested" Hoffman to go on in the old way, let CCC handle the buying and shipping.

The decision to keep the Government in the grain business was a victory for Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan, who does not want to diminish CCC's power to exert control over grain markets. The election, Brannan apparently thought, had given the Administration a mandate to continue the kind of Government trading that Congress had frowned on.

Secretary Brannan had urgent politico-economic reasons for wanting CCC to ship the grain. With the biggest crop in history piling up, much of it was without storage and therefore ineligible for Government loans, a form of price support. If private traders took over EGA buying, they would be likely to buy stored grain, pass over the other grain. On the other hand, CCC may be able to buy the unstored grain and ship it out before farmers have to sell it below support levels or let it rot.

As for traders who have loaded up with futures contracts to supply EGA with grain, the best guess was that CCC would take over the grain the traders had bought.

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