Conflict of Interests

Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman, current custodian of the Government's scandalous farm subsidy program, appeared last week before the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farm organization, holding its annual convention in Chicago. There Freeman, an outspoken fellow, ran up against the federation's equally outspoken President Charles Shuman. The result: Freeman and Shuman found themselves in complete agreement on one important subject--and in complete disagreement on another.

Speaking on the issue of liberalized foreign trade, Freeman continued the Administration's mounting offensive aimed at persuading Congress to slash U.S. tariffs next year. Said Freeman: "It is imperative that the U.S. adopt policies that will help to expand and liberalise trade if we are to maintain our position of leadership and our share of the markets of the world. And there are few segments of the American economy to which this position is as important as it is to agriculture." Replied Shuman: "We're in favor of the reciprocal trade agreements, and we would favor the extension of that act with broadened authority. One-sixth of our production has to be sold abroad. The farmer knows he can't sell this much unless we buy from other countries."

Then Shuman went on to level a withering criticism at Freeman's domestic farm subsidy plans. "Government planning inevitably fails," he said, "because decisions on what is to be produced must be made on a political basis--to please the largest number of voters." In contrast, said Shuman, a competitive market "eliminates the inefficient and rewards those who produce things that are needed. When we turn to Government to negate economic truth and to avoid adjustments that are demanded by changing conditions, we are in reality rejecting God's law in favor of man's law."

Shuman's argument was anathema to Freeman. The scrapping of federal farm supports and controls, he said, would be "disastrously destructive of our farm economy and our small-town businesses all over America. Millions of farmers would be forced to quit. The principal survivors would be corporations that could buy up bankrupt farms and stay in business only because they would be few enough to enforce a managed scarcity and could limit supply to quantities that would bring a profit."

The Farm Bureau and its president remained unmoved. At week's end the convention passed a resolution flatly declaring that "Government programs for agriculture should be consistent with the law of supply and demand."

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