Not subsidies, no handouts. The tobacco trade was regulated and farmers were given quotas, not cash.
If this is the definition of subsidies, then Hillary is right and giving back tax money rightfully and lawfully earned by the taxpayer is subsidizing the rich.
Didya catch the part about the farmer "renting" a tobacco quota? That quota, a government license to grow a crop, rapidly turned into a cash subsidy, it was just paid directly by the grower whose Grandpappy didn't get a quota back in the '30s, to the guy whose Grandpappy did get a tobacco quota back in the '30s.
That is more efficient than having the cash pass through 10 layers of government on its way to and from Washington, but otherwise bad. It means you pay, or receive, a subsidy based on what your ancestors did for a living.
Why wasn't they guy who "rented" out the quota using it? Probably because he wasn't a tobacco famer. He was just a dentist or cop or something who lived in the City, but who had title to the family farm, and who kept filling out the papers to keep his tobacco quota active. Why not? My granddad sheared sheep and goats back during the Depression. I'd fill out a few papers if gave me a Federal quota, that active sheep and goat raisers had to buy from me, before they could shear their own flocks.
The Feds used the same, or a very similar, scheme for peanuts.