AGRICULTURE

The fifth major policy has to do with the welfare of our farm population.

Production of food reached record heights in 1946.  Much of our tremendous grain crop can readily be sold abroad and thus will become no threat to our domestic markets.  But in the next few years American agriculture can face the same dangers it did after World War I. In the early twenties the Nation failed to maintain outlets for the new productive capacity of our agricultural plant.  It failed to provide means to protect the farmer while he adjusted his acreage to peacetime demands.

The result we all remember too well.  Farm production stayed up while demand and prices fell, in contrast with industry where prices stayed up and output declined, farm surpluses piled up, and disaster followed.

We must make sure of meeting the problems which we failed to meet after the first World War.  Present laws give considerable stability to farm prices for 1947 and 1948, and these 2 years must be utilized to maintain and develop markets for our great productive power.

The purpose of these laws was to permit an orderly transition from war to peace.  The Government plan of support prices was not designed to absorb, at great cost, the unlimited surpluses of a highly productive agriculture.

We must not wait until the guarantees expire to set the stage for permanent farm welfare.

The farmer is entitled to a fair income.

Ways can be found to utilize his new skills and better practices, to expand his markets at home and abroad, and to carry out the objectives of a balanced pattern of peacetime production without either undue sacrifice by farm people or undue expense to the Government.

HEALTH AND GENERAL WELFARE

Of all our national resources, none is of more basic value than the health of our people.  Over a year ago I presented to the Congress my views on a national health program.  The Congress acted on several of the recommendations in this program-mental health, the health of mothers and children, and hospital construction.  I urge this Congress to complete the work begun last year and to enact the most important recommendation of the program—­to provide adequate medical care to all who need it, not as charity but on the basis of payments made by the beneficiaries of the program.

One administrative change would help greatly to further our national program in the fields of health, education, and welfare.  I again recommend the establishment of a well-integrated Department of Welfare.

VETERANS

Fourteen million World War II servicemen have returned to civil life.  The great majority have found their places as citizens of their communities and their Nation.  It is a tribute to the fiber of our servicemen and to the flexibility of our economy that these adjustments have been made so rapidly and so successfully.