And so he got caught in a paradigm shift. Earl Butz. Providing a grand example of how his vision might work, Butz engineered a massive grain sale to the Soviets in 1972. Butz drastically changed federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Deal-era farm support . There are those who regard him as the leader of the Great American Farm Revolution, those who regard him as Gerald Ford's greatest political asset, and there are political experts who can't decide whether Jimmy Carter is being smart or being dumb when he says he would dump Butz if he were elected President. In Iowa, bin-busting harvests gave rise to an explosion of massive concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs). At his death, Butz was the oldest living former Cabinet member from any administration.[30][31]. (See Henry Wallace's "Ever-Normal Granary".) Myth: Earl Butz was a pivotal figure. During his leadership from 1964 to 1982, Premier Leonid Brezhnev made it official Soviet policy to maintain steady growth in the livestock industry. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/bdsdcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(bdsdcc, Dimitri, Carolyn, Anne Effland, and Neilson Conklin. The program went from limited and controlled by the government to expansion, so more food could be produced. 0000049217 00000 n 0000046815 00000 n He is blamed for high food prices, accused of hurting small farmers and of playing politics with malnutrition and hunger and he is charged with disrupting the nation's foreign policy. D. in agricultural economics (1937) from Purdue University. From there, he went on to study agricultural economics, and eventually used his knowledge, along with his knack for political maneuvering and his quick wit, to forge a career that, in leading to his current post in the President's Cabinet, included serving in positions as Assistant Agriculture Secretary in the Eisenhower Administration, dean of agriculture at Purdue University and muchsoughtafter public speaker. First published in 2009. 3By the end of the nineteenth century, agricultural policy contributed to the settlement of 80 million acres of farmland. As intended, Nixons agricultural policy lowered food prices, but the imbalance of supply and demand manifested in long-term problems. Blustering, boisterous, and often vulgar, Butz lorded over the U.S. farm scene at a key period. Then, in the 1980s, the bubble burst. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead.html, The Library of Congress. 0000041388 00000 n Others bowdlerized the quote, in some cases replacing the female genital reference with "a tight [obscenity]" and the scatological reference with "a warm place to [vulgarism]" or "warm toilet seats". 0000063693 00000 n Going back to the dust bowl of the 1930s and President Roosevelt's New Deal that followed, the United States controlled commodity prices by paying farmers to limit production. That is one of the most outrageous things I've seen, but it's typical of the way Secretary Butz operates, says Foreman. Facebook, Follow us on Farm income stayed high for most of the decade. 0000053719 00000 n - Secretary Earl Butz was Presidents Richard Nixon's secretary of agriculture. The Agriculture Department's cozy relationship with the halfdozen big grain exporters is in some ways the most troubling aspect of Butz's reign. [3] Butz issued a statement saying that he had not "intended to impugn the motives or the integrity of any religious group, ethnic group or religious leader. 0000009251 00000 n Earl L. BUTZ et al., Petitioners, v. Arthur N. ECONOMOU et al. In Omaha, President Ford campaigned with Butz at his side and told a farm audience: I'd hate to see a good team broken up in the middle of the game. Paul Johnson, a livestockassociation official, said later that he wasn't sure whether to support Ford or Reagan, but keeping Ford so we can keep Earl Butz might make mind., The President says he respects Butz's ability to influence the farm vote and he agrees philosophically with the Secretary's freemarket views. 0000067623 00000 n After forty years of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international circumstances compelled President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural policy. On June 19, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Butz attempted to end. 0000057477 00000 n Days after Butz died, the Wall Street Journal reported, In the U.S., farmers are razing old barns, ripping up sod and grassland, and uprooting fences some in a routine attempt to improve land, others in an effort to make room for the grain boom.. 0000044297 00000 n 0000049595 00000 n 2President Abraham Lincoln promoted expansion when he passed the Homestead Act in 1862. 0000043465 00000 n This became evident during the Great Depression through the need to move away from expansion policy, and later in the 1970s when Nixon and Butz sought to reduce food prices. " Earl Butz 3. At the time, Butz served as a board member for several agribiz firms, including Ralston Purina, then a sprawling food conglomerate. I mustadmit that this interpretation, which eluded me for 34 years, is much more in keeping with a sense of humor animated by the loose-shoes joke and by a sculpture of two copulating elephants. [2] He attended a one-room country school through eighth grade and graduated from high school in a class of seven. Though many experts say he's whistling in the dark, he is predicting that bumper crops will be absorbed. Twitter, Follow us on 0000029154 00000 n 0000057943 00000 n Perhaps the most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of the food shoppers, over the skyrocketing prices of food. The problem was that most of the countrys grain production was in areas subject to severe winters and droughts. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. 0000007619 00000 n A Des Moines Register poll indicated last year that less than half of Iowa farmers thought Butz was doing a good job, and some farm leaders regard Iowa as a bellwether. 0000046259 00000 n In the 1920s, agricultural policies destabilized supply and demand and sunk the nation into its lowest state of economic despair during the Great Depression. You Are What You Grow.. He emphasizes that the flight from the farms to the cities has slowed down during his reign; that the decrease of 11,000 farm units in 1975 is well below the annual decrease of more than 95,000 before 1969. He graduated from Purdue University in West Lafayette in 1932. 0000017516 00000 n He's a spokesman for the big corporate farmers, for the food processors and for the grocery people. Grain farmers are planting fence row to fence row, and the payments to them have nearly stopped. His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs. 0000070129 00000 n As it turned out, nearly all the corn was bought by giants of the trade. Earl L. Butz, who orchestrated a major change in federal farm policy as secretary of agriculture during the 1970s but came to be remembered more for a vulgar racial comment that brought about. 0000066862 00000 n In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered many New Deal era farm support programs. Today, expansion-based policy characteristic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has returned. Jesse Jackson learned the latter lesson in 1984 when a black reporter for the Washington Post passed along to another reporter the news that hed heard Jackson refer to Jews in private as Hymie, and refer to New York City as Hymietown.. Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race. He first came out for abolishing private inspection agencies and turning over all inspection to a new Federalstate system. 0000070488 00000 n 0000050911 00000 n 0000055062 00000 n 2. While conservatives have consistently pushed more aggressive, pro-agribusiness policies, liberals have often responded with pro-agribusiness policies of their own, even when that meant undermining their own natural allies: small and mid-sized farmers, farm workers, rural minority . 0000016123 00000 n Butz was not one of the smarter ones. He believed that a free, global market would bring higher prices, and for the few years that Russian agriculture struggled, he was right. Policy makes politics. 0000047891 00000 n 7. The October 18, 1976, issue of Time reported the comment while obscuring its vulgarity:[13]. Ford discusses many of the painful decisions he had to make during his presidencyincluding the firing of Earl Butz. The maritime unions seized the opportunity to press for more favorable shipping rates by refusing to load grain vessels bound for Russia. 0000011887 00000 n They went heavily into debt to finance their expanded operations. 2023 U.S. History Scene, all rights reserved. The Land Ordinance of 1785 required states and Native Americans to cede land west of the Appalachian Mountains to Congress, who parceled it into townships of six miles square, and proceed to sell the townships, or fractional parts of townships at public venue. 1The act settled farmland, but high land prices prohibited many from venturing west. 0000042932 00000 n He surely loved the way the biofuel boom has farmers worldwide scrambling to plant corn and soy and drench the earth with agrichemicals. By artificially increasing demand for food, food production became more efficient and drove down the cost of food for everyone. All but 30 days of the term were suspended. What did Ian and Curtis purchase to inject into the soil? Throughout the Grain Belt, abandoned farmhouses were burned to the ground, cleared, and incorporated into ever-larger corn and soy fields. 0000065934 00000 n 0000071399 00000 n Five years later, he received Purdue's first doctorate in . Some world food organizations are concerned, not only because of American fuzziness at Rome but also because of the tendency of the United States to sign longterm supply agreements with people who pay cash for grain. " He no playa the game, he no maka the rules. Reader support helps sustain our work. He has antagonized or alienated food shoppers, environmentalists, labor leaders, social reformers and religious and ethnic groups. He was a bigot and, even then, at 66, not a young man. 5In 1832, under Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court promoted tribal sovereignty, which recognized Native American tribes as domestic dependent nations. The court asserted in Worcester v. Georgia, Indian Nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original and natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil. 6The Marshall Courts opinions were overlooked in nearly all forms of territorial expansion (most notably by the Jackson Administrations Trail of Tears), including future land policy such as Lincolns Homestead Act of 1862 that continued to promote the growth of agriculture. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window). Agricultural policy has supported Americas greatest triumphs. Butz had a similar view, "Get big or get out." Butz believed farm consolidation was inevitable. Anyone can read what you share. 1973 Farm Bill - Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act [As Amended Through P.L. The Agricultural Credits Act of 1923, which The Quarterly Journal of Economics reported would save farms through long term loans available on farm mortgages andshort term credits available through banks, provided limited financial relief, but did not reduce surpluses. 0000067244 00000 n I was speaking the language of food and they understood.. Butzs great policy change had given rise to the deepest rural crisis since the Depression. 0000051120 00000 n One Iowa land excavator told the Journal that farmers are trying to squeeze everything they can out of their land. But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz's identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members. 0000069545 00000 n 0000068371 00000 n He exhorted farmers to ``plant fence row to fence row'' to meet global demand, helping to drive down surging food costs. He does acknowledge, however, that his policy will work only if the United States remains grain exporter to the world. In 1973, he reduced the number of acres set aside or taken out of grain production from 25 million acres in 1972 to 7.4 million acres in 73. Dr. Butz graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. The Soviets essentially bought up the U.S. grain reserve just as a widespread drought hit the Midwest. He was featured in the documentary King Corn, recognized as the person who started the rise of corn production, large commercial farms, and the abundance of corn in American diets. 0000043989 00000 n I was a stubborn cuss, and I made some mistakes. We believe in our ability to come together to shape the future through policy change. But, if you hit the button that adjusts prices for inflation, there is was a huge spike in corn prices after the Russian grain purchase. After the Great Depression which featured the stunning confluence of huge grain surpluses, widespread hunger, and a tide of farm failures the Roosevelt Administration put in place mechanisms to help farmers manage supply.. Earl Butz No, I try not to be a negative thinker. . 0000067068 00000 n 0000009335 00000 n Although Butz publicly emphasizes that the United States cannot and should not use what he, at the same time, frankly calls agripower as a weapon, he is fond of noting that Rumanian Agriculture Minister Miculescu once told him: You've got a weapon more powerful than the atom bomb: you've got soybeans. Butz took two days off from chairing the Rome World Food Conference two years ago and went to Cairo with a little wheat in my pocket They had the red carpet out for me there. 0000071933 00000 n 0000042057 00000 n Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this weekend at 98, leaving a colorfully offensive legacy and, thanks to the political correctness of the mainstream news media, a bit of a mystery as to why he's passed with such ignominy. 0000071060 00000 n 0000042235 00000 n Ulrike Butz, daughter of television presenter Hermann Butz, grew up in the Bavarian district of Miesbach. When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. 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