CAPPER-VOLSTEAD ACT

CAPPER-VOLSTEAD ACT (18 February 1922), also known as the Cooperative Marketing Act. As a consequence of the depression of agricultural prices following World War I, farm organizations intensified their political activism and managed to get a farm bloc consisting of about twenty-five senators and one hundred representatives established in Congress. The Capper-Volstead Act was a key part of a new, moderate, businesslike farm legislative program, far removed from the agricultural radicalism of the Populist Era. The act exempted some types of voluntary agricultural cooperative associations from the application of antitrust laws. The secretary of agriculture was given the power to regulate these associations to prevent them from achieving and maintaining monopolies. He could hold hearings, determine facts, and issue orders ultimately subject to review by federal district courts. The act is an example of legislative aid to agricultural cooperatives and of the delegation of adjudicative power to an administrative agency.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Guth, James L. "Farmers Monopolies, Cooperation and the Interest of Congress," Agricultural History 56 (January 1982): 67–82.

O'Brien, Patrick G. "A Reexamination of the Senate Farm Bloc, 1921–1933." Agricultural History 47 (July 1973): 248–263.

Saloutos, Theodore, and John D. Hicks. Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West. 1900–1939. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1951.

HarveyPinney/t. m.

See alsoCooperatives, Farmers' ; Farmer-Labor Party of 1920 ; Populism .