partment of Justice as to what he would investigate. If we had found in our studies of the grain market that there were people who had violated the provisions of the law as to the amounts of their long and short holdings, we would naturally have recommended to the Department of Justice.

Representative BENDER. Did you consider the investigation nec

essary?

Secretary ANDERSON. I would not be asked to have an opinion on a question of that nature. The Department of Justice does not take polls among the Cabinet on its investigations and it did not on this. It did not check with us on it.

Representative BENDER. Mr. Secretary, did you state in the press conference on October 16, 1947, the same day as the President's statement, that your Department has no evidence of illegal operations in the grain exchanges?

Secretary ANDERSON. The dates are hard to remember, but if that is the press conference in which a newspaper story went out that I was in sharp opposition to the President's press conference of that afternoon, that would help to identify it for me, and if you wish to have that press conference reviewed, I would be glad to try to review it.

The question, as I recall it, and I would have to go back and consult the notes to get the exact wording, but the word that you have used there was unquestionably used in the news story.

The difficulty was that the question was asked me whether we had, that is, were holding in our Department, evidences of law violations, and I said no, we would not hold in our Department evidence of law violations; if we did come across evidences of law violations, we would turn them over to the Department of Justice, and the news story said there were no evidences in our Department.

I think that is quite different from the answer. I tried subsequently to say that we would develop information but that it was my understanding that clearly provable evidence was something other than information; that we had developed in the past information as to what we regarded as improper usage of the grain exchanges and on the basis of that, we had tried to bring about prosecutions in cases which were pending not too very long ago in Chicago and elsewhere, and I tried to point out that we would make use of information, but the development of evidence, in our opinion, would be a responsibility of the proper law officials.

I feel it was somewhat unfortunate to say that because I used that language that the Department was insisting there was no evidence in the Department.

If the question had been phrased was there ever information in the Department, then I could have easily answered that, and said at times we had had information. If it meant that was there then pending information which we had not turned over to the Department, the answer would be there was none because if we had had information, it would have been turned over to the Department of Justice.

Representative BENDER. Then you claim the newspapers lied about your position.

Secretary ANDERSON. Well, that is an easy way to put it. I tried to say that I felt, and I still maintain, and I have told some of the people who wrote the news stories that I did not think it was quite fair to pick it up in that fashion.

May I go one step further and illustrate it for you: I was asked if speculation had disappeared from the market since something had been said at the press conference of the President about speculation.

I replied that our records showed that from the time when the margins had been low, until the present day of that conference, October 16, if that was the date, the 53 percent of the speculation had dropped out of the market, and I said to that extent speculation has been driven out of the market.

I saw a newspaper story that said that I had sharply clashed with the President by saying that speculation had been driven out of the market.

Now, it is quite different to say speculation has been driven out of the market and to say to that extent speculation has been driven out of the market. That is all. I maintain that they left out what I regard as the significant words "to that extent."

Representative BENDER. Mr. Secretary, did you advise the President prior to the press conference of October 16 that this country has always exported one-third of all of its grain crop?

Secretary ANDERSON. No, I did not; but I did this: I advised the President prior to that press conference that this country shortly after wars generally exports about 30 percent of its wheat for several years thereafter, and I imagine that was the basis of that information.

After the last war we could give it to you year by year, when the export of wheat was running 30 percent or more. Then countries recovered, and the export of wheat dropped off.

We are exporting very substantial quantities now, but as these countries recover, that export will die down again.

Representative BENDER. What are the facts concerning exports, say, in the thirties, the early forties?

Secretary ANDERSON. I will be glad to get them for you later, the official figures, if you wish, but I believe I can give it sufficiently accurately from memory. For the years 1934 to 1938, there was a total movement of grain in world trade from surplus producing countries to deficit countries running about 28,350,000 tons. That may be off ten or fifteen thousand tons one way or the other.

Representative BENDER. Less than 10 percent, you would say? Secretary ANDERSON. No; I say it will be off ten or fifteen thousand tons, which is a whole lot less than 10 percent of 28,000,000; about one- or two-tenths of 1 percent, perhaps. It is less than that, even. However, of that amount, the United States moved to world trade about 4.6 percent; 1,300,000 tons, approximately.

The CHAIRMAN. About 4.6 percent of what?

Secretary ANDERSON. Of the total amount of grain that moved in world trade from surplus to deficit areas.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought the question related to this country's export.

Secretary ANDERSON. It does; 1,300,000 tons approximately we shipped. Last year we shipped about 15,000,000 tons.

Representative BENDER. Is it not a fact-and I would like to get this in the record that during the late thirties and early forties, exports averaged less than 10 percent of the production, and in 1934 to 1936, we had to import wheat?

Secretary ANDERSON. Yes; we had a crop that ran between 500 and 600 million bushels. I can give it to you exactly if you wish, and we did have a period when we imported grain, and we imported wheat.

And through all of those years from 1933 to 1940, it would have averaged 10 percent or less.

Representative BENDER. Mr. Chairman, I wish the Secretary would supply that information for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you want a table showing the production each year and the exports and imports, net for both?

Representative BENDER. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. That is easy to provide, I presume.

Secretary ANDERSON. That is very easy to provide, and we will do it. (The information referred to is as follows:)

Wheat-Production, imports, and exports, United States, 1914–46

1 Compiled from reports, of the Department of Commerce. Imports include full-duty wheat, wheat imported for feed, and dutiable flour in terms of wheat. From 1923 to date both imports and exports exclude wheat imported for milling in bond and exported as flour, also flour in terms of wheat. Exports 1940 to date include military exports to Europe for relief and exports handled by War Food Administration.

'Preliminary.

Source: Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

Corn-Production, imports, and exports, United States, 1914-46

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed.

Representative BENDER. I would like to ask a question on the statement or the question of the chairman regarding the Attorney General's speech.

Did the Attorney General consult you prior to the delivery of the speech of October 8?

Secretary ANDERSON. No; I am sure he is well qualified.

Representative BENDER. In which he described the "greedy men blind with lust for money, trafficking in human misery"; that is the way he described it.

Secretary ANDERSON. I think I answered Senator Taft, and I do not believe I would change my testimony.

Representative BENDER. Is this in accordance with your views, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary ANDERSON. If I had had views of that nature, I might have expressed them. I have not expressed those views at all.

Representative BENDER. Then those sentiments are in accord with your views?

Secretary ANDERSON. I did not say that. I said I had no occasion to comment on that, because I do not make investigations of that nature. The Department of Justice investigates a great many things, and it might have information that I do not have. I just never have said anything of that nature because I have not had information of that character.

Representative BENDER. Mr. Secretary, at any Cabinet meeting that you have attended, was the question of speculation in grain discussed?

Secretary ANDERSON. That is a hard question, over the last 2 years. I would not answer that, except to say that it probably was but I would not be able to particularize and specify.

Representative BENDER. Was Mr. Clark's statement discussed at the Cabinet meeting—the statement he made?

Secretary ANDERSON. He would be the best witness on that. Representative BENDER. Was the inconsistency of your position and that of the President discussed in the Cabinet meeting?

Secretary ANDERSON. So far as I know there was no inconsistency of the position of the President and myself. I think that the statement that the President had to do with the shipment of wheat after the war years, and if you will take the record year after year, you will find that that has happened. You take 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, and then pick up the figures for 1939, and follow through the war years, and then pick up the years after, you will find that we do export large quantities of grain immediately following a war.

Representative BENDER. Mr. Secretary, what has been the effect of raising marginal requirements so far as holding prices down is concerned?

Secretary ANDERSON. I could not answer that because you do not know where prices might have gone if they had not been put down. Representative BENDER. As a matter of fact, they went up, there was no reduction.

Secretary ANDERSON. There is no telling how far they might have gone up if those requirements had not been altered.

Representative BENDER. What has been the effect of raising marginal requirements upon the volume of trading?

Secretary ANDERSON. It has reduced it.

Representative BENDER. It has fallen very sharply, in fact, has

it not?

Secretary ANDERSON. Yes, it has. It has indicated that something happened.

Representative BENDER. A thin market is sensitive, is it not?
Secretary ANDERSON. A which kind?

Representative BENDER. A thin market.

Secretary ANDERSON. I do not know what a thin market is.
Representative BENDER. I am sure you do.

Secretary ANDERSON. A thin market?

Representative BENDER. Yes.

Secretary ANDERSON. No, I do not. I have explained I have never bought or sold a bushel of any kind of grain on the exchange.

Representative BENDER. What discussions have you had, Mr. Secretary-if you care to go into it, I would like to know, and I am sure the country would like to know, what discussion you had with the President on the grain gambling statements, and on your conflicting statements.

Secretary ANDERSON. If you will point out the conflicting statements, then I will be glad to answer the question.

Representative BENDER. You say there were no conflicting statements, you claim?

Secretary ANDERSON. No, I do not. You said conflicting statements. It would be much easier if you would tell me what they are. It is hard to deny the negative.

Representative BENDER. I only know what I read in the newspapers, and the headlines were pretty big on page 1, and I recognized your picture without even looking for your name on the front page of the paper that day.

Secretary ANDERSON. Well, if you are referring again to October 16. Representative BENDER. That is right.

Secretary ANDERSON. One news agency did carry a story that said there was a conflict. I immediately supplied that news agency with a letter stating what my understanding was of what had taken place at the press conference and calling their attention to the fact that reporters who had been covering the Department of Agriculture with some regularity, representatives of other wire services and so forth, had not made the same error, from which I concluded that perhaps the statement was somewhat mistaken in the paper.

I recognize that the reporter could have misunderstood what I said, but I did point out to them that John Ball, for example, of the Washington Post, who had been covering the office regularly, had no difficulty understanding what took place; that Bess Thurman of the New York Times had no trouble, and Markham, a long-time representative of the Associated Press, had no difficulty whatsoever. He did not see the conflict and probably the conflict was not there.

Representative BENDER. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Representative RICH. Mr. Secretary, you made the statement, I believe, a few moments ago that there was a 33 percent margin; that it does cut out a portion of the gambling.

Secretary ANDERSON. Commodity speculation is what I believe I said.