Work Relief Administration Press Conferences
Index  |  Publishing Information

Press Conference
Harry Hopkins
June 11, 1934
4:00 P.M.

Query:	I see you have a new drought map. What are the yellow pins?
Mr. Hopkins:	That is the area in which they are not now purchasing cattle.
Query:	Have you noticed any tendency towards overcharging for processing?
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes.
Query:	But they jumped a little.
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, a little, but I think that is because the price of hides is lower.
Query:	Was there any tendency of farmers to gang up on you?
Mr. Hopkins:	No. Of course, I am not buying the cattle, but there is no evidence that I have that they do not want to sell.
Query:	I heard of a meeting in Minnesota, though, where farmers got together and said they did not want to sell at those figures but would rather let the cattle die.
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, they would get some cash out of it and otherwise they would get nothing. However, as I have said, I am not buying the cattle. I am not doing it.
Query:	Are the mortgage holders on livestock giving full cooperation?
Mr. Hopkins:	So far as I know they are.
Query:	Did the farm administration extend their mortgages?
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, if the cattle is bought the collateral is gone.
Query:	That is true, but they were in much the same position that a private lender would be. So, did they extend the mortgages or take over the cattle and sell them themselves or what?
Mr. Hopkins:	I do not know whether they agreed to feed any of the cattle on which there was a mortgage rather than have them sold, or not, but if they are sold they get their mortgage or one half of the money if the cattle are diseased.
Query:	Are they going to move farmers out of those arid lands?
Mr. Hopkins:	Only when it is done on a cooperative basis with the families. It is a device to really help them rather than to move them in any compulsory manner. It is to help them to get a better economy for themselves and a great many farm families are indicating a strong desire to receive our cooperation.
Query:	In such cases as where they are moving to state-owned farms in South Dakota, is the state taking over the land they leave?
Mr. Hopkins:	No, we would buy that ourselves or else they would simply leave the land. Most of them have no equity in it anyhow or if they did we would simply buy that submarginal land, or else they would merely move off it.
Query:	How many families do you think you would move?
Mr. Hopkins:	In South Dakota, I would say five thousand. It is fairly simple there because there are about that number of farms which are now owned by the State and in a section where they have had a reasonable rainfall, and which can be had.
Query:	Was that land taken over on foreclosure for taxes?
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, and there is land like that in the other areas, though not so much, which can be used. In these cases the families will probably lease for the first year or two, with an option to buy.
Query:	How about the tax arrears?
Mr. Hopkins:	As long as they do not own the land, they will not pay any taxes and, of course, no taxes are being paid now on it anyhow. We can make deals with the State on that land, and very good deals.
Query:	In some states that land is sold for from $1 to $5 an acre. What is the price in South Dakota?
Mr. Hopkins:	It is much higher than that because that is the price we pay for submarginal land. We do not want them to get on some more submarginal land. No, there are five thousand farms available in parts of that State that are in no sense submarginal lands. Tenants are living on some of them and we propose to divide the farms in two and make farms of about one hundred acres out of them.
Query:	Is there anything new on housing program?
Mr. Hopkins:	No, I do not think there is. There was a bill reported out to the House and another is to be reported out of the Senate committee.
Query:	Going back to this moving thing, if you give them a hundred acres will that not put them into competitive production?
Mr. Hopkins:	I suppose it would, eventually, although what they need now is subsistence, but they are already raising the surplus limits.
Query:	The principal portion of this drought area is in a section of the country, where there has been dry farming to a great extent, rather than the other types.
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, but there are all kinds of dry farming, of course.
Query:	What about the moving business in other States?
Mr. Hopkins:	We will explore it in all the States, but it will be always on a basis of a cooperative enterprise.
Query:	Have you any idea as to how many people will be moved altogether?
Mr. Hopkins:	No, I have not, but we will move all that should be and who are willing.
Query:	Is this a part of the submarginal land program?
Mr. Hopkins:	It is identified with it to some extent. When you are buying submarginal lands, you must find other places for the people to live and move them there.
Query:	But you are not planning to set them up on a productive, competitive basis, but one of subsistence. That is right, isn't it?
Mr. Hopkins:	That is right.
Query:	What qualifications are necessary in order to be moved this way. Will a man have to have a good record for paying debts, and so on, just as in the subsistence thing?
Mr. Hopkins:	It applies to anyone who is in need and where our local people believe it would be a wise and helpful thing to do. Of course, there are a number of factors to consider and one of them, naturally, is the man's past record.
Query:	How do county commissioners feel about this plan where they lose taxpayers?
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, they are getting nothing now.
Query:	What is the minimum equipment that each farmer would get?
Mr. Hopkins:	It depends on the part of the country he would live in. In the Dakotas we are building them a brand new house and it is paid for out of relief funds. IT is not given to him, however, but is loaned to him and the title is held by the State. If he wants to, he can buy it, on a long time note.
Query:	What is the drought picture today?
Mr. Hopkins:	I would say that in terms of the morale of the people it has been changed a great deal for the better because of the rain, and that has been a great beneficial effect of the rain—the improvement of the morale of these people, some of whom believed it would never rain again there. In terms of crops, such as Spring wheat, in parts of the Dakotas there is no chance for such a crop. In terms of corn, the whole thing depends on the rainfall between now and the middle of July. In the corn-belt, it usually rains about 3.8 inches in July, but with such a small amount of rain all this Spring and a dry sub-soil, we may need more than that to get a normal corn crop. We know now that the hay crop, and oats, rye, pasture, in these a fifty percent break is the best we can get. You must bear in mind that a drought, like sickness, hits particular families and farmers and it is not the same with all of them. It strikes particular people, just as sickness hits certain individuals in a family, but when you talk about percentages of people who are going to do this or that, you are talking about a whole agricultural area.
Query:	Don't you think that if they do not have a cash crop they will feel worse?
Mr. Hopkins:	I think we will have a serious problem in certain of these areas for the next eighteen months, no matter how much rain we have and one of the dangers will be next winter. If they eat up the hay now, it is a question of whether there would be enough next winter. Incidentally, one of the drought factors has been the small snowfall in the mountain ranges last winter and the full effect of that is felt later. However, the question of when rain falls is very important so far as hay and forage crops are concerned.
Query:	Does the $500,000,000 also provide for any Fall situation there?
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes.
Query:	In what other States will families be moved?
Mr. Hopkins:	In any State where conditions warrant it and where the farm families believe they can be benefited by it and where their belief agrees with that of our own technical judgment.
Query:	How much money has been spent on the drought altogether?
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, no one talked about the drought until about three or four weeks ago, but we have been spending money in the Dakotas for six or eight months. They have a drought there since 1930. We have probably appropriated $12,000,000 for the month of June, with two or three more appropriations under advisement, and I suppose we have spent twenty or twenty-five millions prior to the first of June, so you might say that we have spent approximately $35,000,000 altogether up to the present in the drought area.
Query:	Do the families make application to the county relief administrator to be moved?
Mr. Hopkins:	It is not as formal as that. These people are on the relief rolls and have been on them for months and months, and now we offer them an opportunity to sit down and discuss it and see what ideas they have themselves. Many of them often have ideas which are feasible and then we join with them. To other we might suggest a plan. It is handled through the county relief committees and these committees in the drought areas are identical with our rural rehabilitation committees so that we do not build up a lot of duplicate machinery.
Query:	Are you going to move 5,000 families to South Dakota farms and do you just have land for that many available there?
Mr. Hopkins:	Both statements are correct. We are now in process of adjusting 5,000 families on these State farms.
Query:	How about in North Dakota and Montana? Are you doing anything with families there? Is the situation there different?
Mr. Hopkins:	The situation is not different anywhere.
Query:	Well, how many families are going to be moved in North Dakota and Montana?
Mr. Hopkins:	I do not know.
Query:	Of the relief money that you are spending now, and have spent, how much do you expect to get back?
Mr. Hopkins:	I think that in the drought area we will get back all of the money loaned to cattle men, and I would think that we would get back 75 per cent of all the money loaned in our rural rehabilitation program. It will probably take a long time, but I think we will get back 75 per cent of what we put into that.
Query:	How much will you put into it, about, before the year is out? One hundred millions?
Mr. Hopkins:	I would think that. Before the drought got under way, we had been thinking of about $5,000,000 times twelve months is $60,000,000 and before we get out of the drought business I would say something between $75,000,000 and $100,000,000, including the drought.
Query:	When you say by the end of the year, do you mean the fiscal year?
Mr. Hopkins:	I mean twelve months.
Query:	Are you planning for more than twelve months?
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, you can read the President's speech.
Query:	If the Senate passes the House deficiency Bill, you will not have to worry about funds for the next year or so.
Mr. Hopkins:	It is not a question of my worrying, but whether the unemployed will worry.
Query:	Well, will the Bill, if passed, make it possible for them not to worry?
Mr. Hopkins:	I think so. I think Congress will provide for the unemployed and for the drought problem.
Query:	How many did you find were on relief?
Mr. Hopkins:	We had fewer than I thought. If you eliminate the drought, I do not think we had more than 4,000,000 families on relief at the end of April, including everything, and I thought it might have been 4,700,000 families. At that time, I included what we thought was the drought area numbers. In May, I don't know, but I have no reason to believe that, apart from the drought, it is going to jump.
Query:	Do you think you will have to call on that flexible FRC idea to help you out any time?
Mr. Hopkins:	Not necessarily. At this point the conference adjourned. F. J. Hartnett