Agricultural Adjustment Act
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The Agricultural Adjustment Act (or AAA) (Public law 73-10 of May 12, 1933) restricted production during the New Deal by paying farmers to reduce crop area. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus so as to effectively raise the value of crops, thereby giving farmers relative stability again. The farmers were paid subsidies by the federal government for leaving some. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies.
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[edit] Agricultural Adjustment Administration
By the time the Agricultural Adjustment Administration began its operations, the agricultural season for many crops was already under way. The agency oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing cotton crops and livestock in an attempt to reduce surpluses. No other crops or animals were affected in 1933, but six million piglets and 220,000 pregnant cows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise prices. Many cotton farmers plowed under a quarter of their crop in accordance with the AAA's plans (Brinkley, 1999 "p. 879"). Adlai Stevenson and Telford Taylor worked in the AAA. Farmers benefited from from the AAA policy of reducing surpluses, "Gross farm income increased by 50% during the first three years of the New Deal". (Brinkley, 2005 "p. 404.") The increase in gross income for farmers was largely paid for through government subsidies; despite the reduced production, food price increases between 1933 and 1936 were negligible. (Brinkley, 2005 "p. 404.") Consumers bore the brunt of higher food prices and were "horrified with its policy of enforced scarcity."[1] A Gallup Poll printed in the Washington Post revealed that a majority of the American public opposed the AAA.[2]
The AAA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case United States v. Butler (297 U.S. 1, January 6, 1936) because, among other stated reasons, it taxed one farmer to pay another. Congress then achieved part of the original Act's goals with the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1935 until the enactment of a second AAA (P.L. 75-430) on February 16, 1938. This second AAA was funded from general taxation, and therefore acceptable to the Supreme Court.
[edit] Thomas Amendment
The Thomas Amendment to the AAA contained several provisions concerning coinage and currency.
Under the Thomas Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, approved May 12, 1933, the President was authorized for a period of five months to accept silver on war-debt account, at a maximum price of fifty cents an ounce, the total amount accepted not to exceed a value of $200 million. Silver certificates were to be issued against the silver received to the total value at which the silver was accepted. The law further provided that the silver so accepted should be coined into standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver coin sufficient, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, to meet any demands for redemption of the silver certificates.
A further requirement to mint silver dollars was contained in a Presidential Proclamation related to the purchase of newly-mined domestic silver, issued on December 21, 1933, calling upon the Mints to coin this denomination, in payment for the silver received under the Proclamation.
The quantity of silver dollars minted under the Thomas Amendment and the Proclamation of December 21, 1933, was 7,021,528 pieces.
The impact of this amendment was to reduce the amount of silver that was being held by private citizens (presumably as a hedge against inflation or collapse of the financial system) and increase the amount of circulating currency.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Brinkley, Alan (1999). American History: A Survey, 10th Ed., Tim McGraw-Hill College. ISBN 0-07-303390-1.
- Volanto, Keith J. (2006). Texas, Cotton, and the New Deal, Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1-58544-402-2.
