Boondoggle in Wheat

Even the Secretary of Agriculture was last week ready to cry "enough" on wheat.

Plain and simple fact is that the whole 1942 wheat crop is as useless as any boondoggle. It is already costing the U.S. Government some $80,000,000 in benefit payments, may soon take $800,000,000 more for price-propping crop loans. But the country could have gotten along all right if not one bushel had been raised.

Last year's whopping 945,000,000-bu. crop came atop a 385,000,000-bu. surplus. Half of this titanic 1,330,000,000-bu. total is still in storage even as this year's wheat hits the market. Besides this, Canada has a 400,000,000-bu. surplus, Argentina has half as much again waiting hopelessly for ships. To top everything, U.S. farmers this year will raise a bumper 868,000,000 bu. (weather permitting). Result: Western Hemisphere wheat supplies, already huge, will be utterly fantastic.

Months ago the Agriculture Department warned wheat farmers to build storage facilities if they did not want some 400,000,000 bu. of this year's crop to rot for want of storage space. Consequently, some wheat farmers are already shifting family furniture and livestock, are stuffing wheat into spare rooms, pigsties and woodsheds. More prosperous growers rented empty stores. Meanwhile overworked Western railroads are planning a complete embargo on wheat shipments unless a farmer can prove he has arranged for storage space at the terminal. Harvesting this year's wheat will take thousands of workers whose labor is needed in other fields. Besides, much of the wheat acreage would have been far better used for crops like soybeans, flaxseed, alfalfa.

The U.S. knew all this would happen, did practically nothing about it. Reason: the farm bloc. No matter how nonsensical the bloc's demands, few Congressmen have the courage to vote it down--even in wartime.

But last week Secretary Wickard showed his courage, said he wished wheat acreage for next year could be slashed to 21,000,000 acres v. the present 55,000,000-acre legal minimum. Such a cut would require a Congressional O.K., something most Washington dopesters class with a trip to the moon. In 1943, therefore, the U.S. Government is likely to pay for another bumper wheat crop it does not need and cannot store. Meanwhile, Leon Henderson's assurance that wheat rationing is not immediately likely remains the year's greatest understatement.

Only possible out: after the war, Europe may be close to starvation and the U.S. may be able to give its wheat surplus away. Then it can start piling up a subsidized surplus all over again.

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