Roscoe Filburn

[Marvin S]

Any one recognize the name? He's a quite important person in today's world, though long deceased .

[BonMallari]

without looking it up on Google...is he the first one to discover diabetes and or one of its cures

hey I took a shot

[M&K's Retrievers]

Well, I do now. He was the first in a long line of government screwings.

[Franco]

Any one recognize the name? He's a quite important person in today's world, though long deceased .

Marvin, you wouldn't be growing any hydroponic wheat, would you?

[Ken Bora]

I think he cuffed and stuffed Bo and Luke

[Jason Glavich]

All i remember without looking it up was he was a farmer during the depression with a major court case. I couldn't remember the details unless I were to look him up. Learned about it in ecomics class.

[Marvin S]

Roscoe was a 5th generation farmer who proudly boasted he had never worked for another person. His 90 acre farm was located near Dayton, OH? Ag Secretary imposed production limits to lower the supply of wheat & boost prices. Roscoe's allotment was 11.1 acres but he chose to plant 23 acres of winter wheat in the fall of 1940 & was fined $117.11 It should be noted that Roscoe was not above accepting government subsidies but apparently felt he could exceed his allotment as it was all used to feed his livestock.

I read this & asked myself "What's going on?" It was well known FDR wanted to consolidate the Federal government's power & had even threatened packing the SCOTUS to accomplish this end. By 1942 when the case was decided the court was probably decidedly Lefty for those times.

But that still doesn't answer the question "Why did this case proceed?" In my mind it was a somewhat flawed argument as the guy was on the dole. Did it proceed because FDR wanted it to so he could further consolidate his power? It would be interesting to see where the farmer's financing to proceed with this case originated.

But the sad thing is "Apparently it will enter into the HC debate".

[Jason Glavich]

I went a read about this to refresh my memory. He also said he grew it because I wasn't going to sell it. I was going to feed it to my chickens so I shouldn't be in any trouble. His argument was the limit only counted if you were selling it, the whole supply and demand argument. The gov said but if you hadn't gorwn it you would have had to buy some to feed your chickens so you reduced the amount people need to buy.


I think it was the attitude that the Gov was helping people by doing these things, unless you were the people being "HELPED".