Speech #750099708

Add to this the items for fuel. bags. freight. other supplies. equipment and installations. taxes. brokerage. insurance. and so forth. which amount usually to about 150 percent of the bare cost of beets. amounting to approximately $17.000.000. Thus. the total cash turnover in the industry of sugarbeet growing and processing for California alone in the 1936 crop would amount to more than $28.000.000. Our beet producers need the protection of the quota system to keep their industry alive and effective. The quota system. plus a reasonable conditional payment raised. as provided in this bill. from the industry itself and not from the Federal Treasury. can place us on a parity with other industries which are protected by high tariffs. on a parity with labor which is protected by immigration restrictions. and so on. Unless this quota system is continued. together with the payments and continued on approximately the basis of the JonesCostigan Act. the sugarbeet industry faces disaster. The amendments proposed by Chairman Jones go to the heart of the situation. and in effect. if adopted. will destroy that which he and I and the other members of the Committee on Agriculture labored so hard and earnestly to bring about in 1934. For that reason. much to my regret. I must oppose my former chairman and ask that these amendments be rejected. Let me say one more word: The beetproducing farmers. when added to the men who are employed in the sugar refineries. from not the insignificant number. if it be such. of 12.000 or 16.000. which you heard ridiculed this afternoon. but a very. very large and important portion of the population of the United States. But it is not so much a question of how many workers or farmers are involved. or what acreage they farm. or of capital invested. as it is a question of preserving the buying power of both laborer and farmer. of continuing the right of our continental Americans to work and farm in an industry that does not deserve to be outlawed or wrecked. of maintaining undisturbed an arrangement that has brought prosperity even to those who now want to scrap the quota system. No one can deny our sugar industry. including that of Hawaii. is in a favorable condition. The only question is.