Solutions, Anyone?

A White House limousine sped up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol one day fortnight ago, carrying two presidential aides to a secret meeting in the office of North Dakota's Republican Senator Milton R. Young. Gathered for the meeting were G.O.P. wheat-state Senators, all of them unhappy about the farm message that President Eisenhower was scheduled to send to Congress that very day. The Senators had found in the advance text a lingering echo of Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson's crusading spirit, and they felt that, considering Benson's unpopularity in the farm belt, a gentler tone was indicated in an election year.

When the President finally sent his farm message to Congress last week, five days behind the original schedule, its mild tone buttressed rumors that the text had been drastically rewritten at the request of G.O.P. members of Congress, backed up by Vice President Nixon. At the President's press conference, a newsman asked about "the Vice President's role in reshaping the farm message." Replied Ike: "Well, this is the first time I have heard about him reshaping it."

$1,000 a Minute. The farm message had not been reshaped, but it had been restyled to make it softer. The President made only two specific recommendations: 1) expansion of the long-term soil bank "conservation reserve" to 60 million acres from the present 28 million, and 2) a new wheat program that would combine repeal of all wheat production controls with a lower support price, based on market prices rather than on the outdated "parity" formula. A new wheat program was "imperatively needed," said Ike--the present program is costing the Federal Government $1,000 a minute, $1.5 million a day.

But the President did not insist on his own wheat program. He would, he said, "approve any constructive solution that the Congress wishes to develop," whether leading to "greater freedom or more regimentation," and whether based on market prices or parity--a wide departure from Secretary Benson's old down-with-controls, parity-must-go war cries.

$6 Billion in 7 Years. With its unwar-like invitation to come forward with "any constructive solution," Ike's message--the last farm message of his presidency--had a mood of resignation about it. Behind it lay a disappointing record. Ezra Benson took over as Agriculture Secretary in 1953 with high hopes of cutting back surpluses and trimming the costs of farm programs, but the total of federal funds tied up in stored farm surpluses swelled from $3 billion in 1953 to $9 billion today, and Agriculture Department expenditures soared from $2.9 billion in 1953 to $6.5 billion in 1959 (1960 estimate: $5.7 billion). With that record on the books, it was small wonder that the President heeded the advice of farm-state Republicans: get rid of the hot potato by tossing it to the Democratic Congress.

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