Government assistance to keep home-owners and farm-owners from foreclosure

Here should be an objective of Government itself, to provide at least as much assistance to the little fellow as it is now giving to the large banks and corporations.

better financing of farm mortgages through recognized farm bank agencies at low rates of interest on an amortization plan, giving preference to credits for the redemption of farms and homes sold under foreclosure.

Rediscounting of farm mortgages under salutary restrictions must be expanded and should, in the future, be conditioned on the reduction of interest rates. Amortization payments, maturities should likewise in this crisis be extended before rediscount is permitted where the mortgagor is sorely pressed.

I aim to do the same thing, and it can be done, for the small home-owner in our cities and villages. We can lighten his burden and develop his purchasing power.

Specifically, I am prepared to insist that Federal credit be extended to banks, insurance or loan companies, or other corporations or individuals holding farm mortgages among their assets, but that these credits must be made on the condition that every reasonable assistance be given to the mortgagors where the loans are sound, with the purpose of preventing foreclosure.

Lower interest rates and an extension of principal payments will save thousands of farms to their owners. And hand in hand with this we must adopt the definite policy of giving those who have lost the title to their farms, now held by institutions seeking credit from governmental agencies, the preferential opportunity of getting their property back.

All I can do is to promise you that when the authority of administration and recommendation to Congress is placed in my hands I will do everything in my power to bring the relief that is so long overdue. I shall not wait until the end of a campaign, I shall not wait until I have spent four years in the White House.

I propose that these powers of the Federal Farm Board shall be fully exercised to the end that this distressing situation shall be immediately remedied and to the end that the enlightened purposes of the Democratic-created Farm Loan Act shall be fully carried out.

Supervision of Joint Stock Land Banks' foreclosure practices.

As President I shall propose to Congress a definite plan for the refinancing of farm mortgages in line with the principles which I stated in my Topeka speech, and which I repeated here today. I shall recommend legislation to the Congress for the scaling down of amortization installments of Federal Land Bank borrowers when in the judgment of bank directors conditions justify such action, with provision for deferring such unpaid amounts to the end of such amortization periods. And I shall enforce such legislation.

My program is opposed to, and aims to stop, the ruthless foreclosure of farm mortgages.

We agree to the necessity of home loan banks, but, in the administration of these banks, we shall insist that they shall not be subject to the unwise and improper administration that has characterized the Federal and Joint Stock Land Bank Systems under which the bank makes money while the mortgagor goes unaided.

I seek definite action by the Federal Government and I stress the word "action" -- to prevent farmers from losing their homes, to provide lower interest rates for them where, as in many cases, such rates are excessive, and to extend and defer the capital payments due under the original mortgage terms.

Federal farm-credit agencies lent over a billion dollars to save farms from foreclosure.

The Farm Credit Association, another offshoot of the RFC, lent more than a billion dollars to families to save their farms from foreclosure.

The farm program is more liberal and definite than Hoover's, but the tax-relief promise rests on local reorganization and the mortgage position is indefinite.

Equally Mr Roosevelt's position on the refinancing of farm mortgages is indefinite.