McNary‐Haugen Bill

McNary‐Haugen Bill (1924).In the years following World War I, farmers received prices for their products that represented a purchasing power far below prewar levels. This resulted in an effort by the farm bloc in Congress to secure a larger share for these producers, in part by making the protective tariff as effective for agricultural products as it was for manufactured goods. In 1924, Senator Charles McNary of Oregon and Representative Gilbert Haugen of Iowa introduced a bill designed to assist farmers by requiring the federal government to sell surplus crops abroad at whatever price the commodities could command, thereby allowing domestic prices to rise. The cost of the program would be met by an equalization fee levied on farmers. Congress passed two versions of McNary‐Haugen only to have President Calvin Coolidge veto both because, in his view, they fixed prices and abused the power to tax. Although unable to override the president's vetoes, congressional supporters did succeed in bringing the plight of agriculture to national attention. Both political parties included planks in their 1928 platforms calling for legislation to give equality to agriculture.

The goal of the McNary‐Haugen bills was to achieve parity, a fair exchange value between agricultural prices and the general price index. It is doubtful if the law could have succeeded during the 1920s owing to the huge agricultural surpluses that kept prices low. During the Coolidge presidency, moreover, the government lacked the administrative ability and facilities to manage complex agricultural production and storage programs. But the campaign for the McNary‐Haugen bills laid the foundation for some of the agricultural reforms of the New Deal Era and for the federal agricultural programs in place from the 1940s into the 1990s.
See also Agriculture: Since 1920; Economic Development; Laissez‐faire; Republican Party; Tariffs; Taxation; Twenties, The.

Bibliography

Theodore Saloutos and and John D. Hicks , Twentieth Century Populism: Agricultural Dissent in the Middle West 1900–1939, 1951.
Gilbert Fite , George N. Peek and the Fight for Farm Parity, 1954.

Richard Lowitt