Roosevelt’S Farmer: Claude R. Wickard in the New Deal 9780231889926

Citation preview

ROOSEVELTS

FARMER

US DA photograph

by Peter

Killian

ROOSEVELT'S FARMER CLAUDE

R. WICKARD

IN THE NEW

DEAL

BY DEAN ALBERTSON

1961

NEW YORK AND COLUMBIA

LONDON

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Copyright © 1955 Columbia University Press First published in book form in 1961 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-8804 Manufactured in the United States of America

To Johnnie

Preface The Farm Problem is no older than the Industrial Revolution, no younger than the Treaty of Versailles—and no closer to solution than it was when the redoubtable Mary Lease screamed at an angry audience of overalled fanners, "Let's raise less corn and more hell!" To the American farmer of the 1920s fell no more than crumbs from the best laid table on earth. Dirt farmer Claude Raymond Wickard's efforts to solve the riddle of the land led him uncertainly away from a Hoosier back forty to the heavy responsibilities of Franklin D. Roosevelt's wartime Secretary of Agriculture. The chronicle of Wickard is one which reveals the profoundly personal roots of national policy decisions, and which delineates the human relationships joined or smashed in furtherance or subvention of goals agreed upon. As a New Dealer, Wickard fought the hated surplus for farm parity. As Secretary, he raised the needed surplus to feed the forces of freedom. As "Roosevelt's farmer" he was at times paralyzed by fears he scarcely knew how to overcome. But, like his fellow Americans whose mettle was tested in time of war, he rose to heights of courage and determination he was little aware he possessed. While our story ends there, Wickard's does not. After eight years as Rural Electrification Administrator under President Harry Truman, Wickard could look back and note with satisfaction that almost every American farm now had electricity. Driven from office in "The Great Crusade" of 1953, he retired to his Indiana farm, only to reenter politics three years later in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Homer Capehart from the United States Senate. Returned finally to

viii

Preface

the back forty from whence he came, Claude Wickard reviewed the past in his diary with a curious mixture of sadness and hope which characterized that displaced person of the 1950s, the New Deal liberal of the 1930s:

During my official career there were many mistakes, bitter disappointments, and genuine sorrow. But all of these were overshadowed by the rich experience of association with sincere people who, as I, were sincerely trying to make not only America but the entire world a better place for the great masses of the common people. Twelve years ago, Professor Allan Nevins and I called upon Mr. George McAneny to record for posterity the personal reminiscences of a man who had played a major role in the history of New York. This was the inception of the Oral History Project of Columbia University. Since May, 1948, Oral History techniques of research, interviewing, recording, transcribing and documentation have demonstrated the usefulness of a revitalized historical tool—the personal interview. The present volume is my attempt to combine the knowledge gained from seven years' labor as assistant director of this project with the time-tested historical methodology of the past. Had it not been for the aid of Professor Nevins and the Oral History staff, this task would not have been possible. Suspecting that few people have any interest whatsoever in footnotes and bibliographies, I have kept them as brief as possible, citing only those sources upon which the work is based—the books, diaries, personal papers, and tape-recorded interviews with Mr. Wickard, his family, friends, and associates. Many of these interview transcripts may be found in the Columbia University Library. Throughout the period of writing, I was in constant communication, personally or by telephone, with most of the men who knew the Farm Problem best. These "interviews" are unrecorded. Large parts of the manuscript have been checked for accuracy by Samuel B.

Preface

ix

Bledsoe, John B. Hutson, Gardner Jackson, Robert H. Shields, Howard R. Tolley, Henry A. Wallace, Oris V. Wells, and M. L. Wilson, to each of whom I am deeply indebted. If I could offer my thanks to each member of that dedicated corps of trained archivists, without whose aid no historian could begin to function, I would assuredly do so. The space allotted here, unfortunately, will not permit it. A special word of gratitude, however, to Sidney Willner, Charles B. Feibleman, and Gene Wilkins. They know why. The cartoons by C. K. Berryman and James T. Berryman are reproduced with the latter's permission from the Washington, D.C., Star. While the serious writing of contemporary history has many advantages, certain drawbacks must also be recognized. There exists a line of tact and personal privacy which must not be crossed, even in pursuit of truth. And there were other limitations on my ability to cite a source for every single fact or quotation which I knew to be valid. This book is in no sense an autobiography. Claude Wickard made his papers available to me, but he insisted that it should be an independent study. The book is, therefore, neither "official" nor "authorized" nor a collaboration, but an independent biography for which I am solely responsible. The interpretations and presentation of facts are mine, not Mr. Wickard's. At one point in our relationship Mr. Wickard wrote the following: "I am fully aware that a historian in writing a book must present the facts divorced from any sentimental or personal influence. I also would like to have the book written that way for many reasons, and I believe you will be as fair to me as anyone would be or could be." I did, and I think I have been. DEAN ALBERTSON

Brooklyn, New York February 14, 1961

CONTENTS Preface

vii

Inventory (From Claude Wickard's Diary) 1

The Back Forty

2

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

3

Corn Belt Democrat

4

The Little Pigs

5

Triple-A

6

Seven-League

7

The Great Honor

8

Wallace s Chair

9

"I Have Arrived at Some Decisions"

6 19

40

65

85 Straddle

105

129 160 180

10

"Awfully Close to Parity"

11

Too Much or Too Little?

12

The Wickard Rebellion

13

Public Law No. 674

14

"But Mr. President ..."

15

Food Czar

16

The Secretary Is Jittery

17

Full Production

18

The Instincts and Objectives of a Liberal Index

1

401

209 231 249

271 290

310 333

358 384

ROOSEVELT'S

FARMER

Inventory ( From Claude R. Wickard's Diary ) Sunday, January 1, 1940 I have regretted many times that I did not start to keep a Diary many years ago. Perhaps the reason I didn't was first because I doubted the value of my diary and second if I would succeed in keeping it going. At the start of 1940 I feel that I have many things to be thankful for and that I am fortunately situated in about every important respect. I am happily married. My wife is kind, faithful and understanding. As time goes on I realize how fortunate I was in having her as a mate. We have two fine daughters. They are intelligent, energetic, and have good personalities. They have gotten along well in School both as to grades and as to school activities. Betty who is a senior in Science at Purdue University, has been on the honor roll since she entered. She is a member of the Mortar Board and about all the other honorary societies it is possible for her to [be] admitted to. Ann is a senior at Central High School in Washington. She makes good grades, is a member of the National Honor Society and is this year's editor of the weekly high school paper which is one of the best in the US. The health of the entire family is very good with the exception of injuries which Louise and I suffered in an automobile accident in July 1939. Louise's fractured ribs still bother and my broken kneecap is the cause of a weak knee and a limp. My father and mother are enjoying very good health for their respective ages. My mother's high blood pressure is not bothering her as much as it did.

2

Inventory

I am not wealthy by any means but I am in such financial position that I should not want for life's essentials in old age. I have a farm of 100 acres in Carroll County Indiana which is paid for and in good state of fertility and repair. My father's farm of 280 acres which I have farmed since I graduated from Purdue in 1915 is in a good state of fertility and repair also. I have good equipment and stock for the entire 380 acres which I farm as one unit. I have a position in the US Department of Agriculture as Director of the North Central Region of the Agricultural Ad justment Administration. This region is comprised of the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. In the Washington office there are over 100 employees and about twice that many in each state office. I consider the entire organization one of the most efficient and loyal in the entire government and I am quite proud of it because it has been built during the past 7 years when I have held positions similar to one I now occupy. I believe this organization, which has a county unit in even' county in the ten states, has been and will be a very important fyctor in the security and welfare of midwestern agriculture. During 1939 I took up photography as a hobby. I enjoy it and hope that I will continue to become even more interested as well as efficient in this entertaining but somewhat expensive diversion. My experiences as a farmer during difficult times, my short time as a member of the Indiana Senate, my opportunities in a rather responsible federal position and my chance to see life in the country and in the city should give me a viewpoint and outlook which will enable me to get much from life in the future. I should have as a result of these opportunities a better sense of values and a much more tolerant attitude toward all with whom I am associated.

Inventory

3

Monday, January 29, 1940 About 10:30 this morning I was asked to go to see Secretary Wallace. When I sat down he asked me how I would like to be one of the generals in the Dept of Agri. and then told me he would like for me to be Under Secretary of Agriculture. He said that he had presented the matter to President Roosevelt and that the President had approved the appointment. He raised the question as to whether I was a member of Indiana's two percent club. I told the Secretary that I had not contributed to club and as a matter of fact I had not been requested to do so. I was very much surprised at the offering of such an honor to me. Of course I could only accept and thank the Secretary for his kindness.

Tuesday, January 30, 1940 I am still pinching myself to see if yesterday's events are just a dream. I have tried to recall all that was said yesterday. I was so astonished that I am sure I asked and said some rather trivial things. The Sec told me that three persons were considered for the position. I haven't any idea who they were or why they were not chosen. His inference was that the President made the decision. One thing seems to be clear, that was that my being a farmer was an aid. Another thing in my favor was of course that I am a born democrat. I suspect that I will be taking quite an active part in this years political campaign. I am not subject to the Hatch Act. What does 1940 hold for me, a dirt farmer.

Thursday, February 1, 1940 The ticker service announced at noon today that the President had sent my nomination for Under Secretary of Agriculture to the U. S. Senate for confirmation. Thus the news of my appoint-

4

Inventory

ment spread rapidly and everyone whom I met congratulated me. Quite a few of the North Central Region AAA employees came in just before I left the office and extended congratulations and good wishes in a manner expressive of their loyalty to me. It is not difficult to distinguish between sincere expressions of this kind and between those which are mere carrying out a formality. I am very happy to know that there are so many of those with whom I have been closely associated [who] think I deserve my appointment.

Friday, February 2, 1940 I spent most of the day on the train enroute from WashingtonChicago and had for the first time the opportunity to really think about my new duties and what it means. Of course I cannot help speculate on identity of the others who were considered and on the reasons why I was chosen. How active I am supposed to be in the 1940 political campaign is giving me some concern. I talked [to] M L Wilson yesterday about Secy Wallace's candidacy for President. Mr. Wilson believes that the Secy may have a chance as a dark horse. He said that it was impossible to promote Henry as politicians ideal but did think that it was possible and advisable to present him as one of the greatest thinkers in the Nation.

Tuesday, February 6, 1940 Before I knew about my new position I accepted an invitation to speak to a farmer-business mens banquet at Flora, Ind. on the evening of Feb 5th. The committee asked my father and mother to sit at the speakers table and despite a very bad night there was a very large crowd in attendance. Although I realized that it was a case of the home boy coming back for a visit after receiving national recognition I was not prepared for the whole hearted welcome of my old friends and neigh-

Inventory

5

bors. It was stated that I now occupied the most prominent position in government ever held by a Carroll County Citizen. It was most gratifying to find myself held in such high esteem by m y old neighbors. I shall not forget their warm greetings. 1 1 Claude R. Wickard, Diary, January 1-February 6, 1940. Mr. Wickard kept a handwritten, daily entry diary from the beginning of 1940 to the spring of 1953. The manuscripts are in his possession, at Camden, Indiana. For publication purposes the obvious misspellings and omissions of punctuation, which so frequently characterize personal journals, have been corrected.

1: The Back Forty To some, the back forty may be a figurative place; to me, Claude Wickard, it was a very definite body of land symbolic of many things. It was the farthest forty away from the farmstead where I was born. It was the last piece of land on the old home place to be brought under cultivation.1 Nature alone farmed the back forty before it became part of CarrolJton Township, Carroll County, State of Indiana. Then out of the east from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, men came on horseback with a Bible in the saddlebag; came with long rifles and powder horns; came with their women in wagons and a few pecks of good seed in a leather pouch. Driving west over the Miami, the Maumee, the Wabash, they came to Indiana for land. And among them on a one-eyed mare rode Andrew Jackson Wickard. Apparently neither frontiersman nor farmer, Andrew Wickard was, as his Carrollton neighbors soon learned, an "educated" man with one whole year of college to his credit. And not even the educated man could resist the lure of the land. He soon held as wife a lately widowed Tennessee pioneer girl, held as avocation the schoolmaster's rod in the county schoolhouse, and held in fee simple a rolling Indiana farm—Martin Van Buren's name was on the old parchment deed. In the years following the Civil War, Wickard amassed a little more than his share of the community's land and wealth. 1 Unpublished manuscript in Wickard Papers. This manuscript was written in 1941, intended to be the opening chapter in an autobiography. Only the first chapter was completed. Mr. Wickard's papers include hundreds of letters (both personal and governmental), copies of speeches, memoranda, and memorabilia dating from about 1905 to 1953. They are in his possession, at Fairacre Farms, Camden, Indiana.

The Back Forty

7

His 720-acre farm boasted 360 acres cleared and ditched, and compared favorably with the best properties in the county. By 1872 he had served five terms as Trustee of Carrollton Township, and in that year was elected on the Democratic ticket as a member of the Board of County Commissioners. Wickard's political prowess, however, belied the fact that his social acceptance in the community had never been complete. Unconstrained by majority opinion on any subject, his independent nature relished a courageous individualism

which

annoyed his neighbors. He and his wife refused to consider themselves farm peasantry tied irrevocably to plow and stove. They dropped their membership in the local church, earning a reputation for "free thought and progressive liberalism." Carrollton Township was alternately impressed by their dignity and enraged by their flaunting of local custom. 2 To Andrew Wickard's wife were born six children, the fifth of whom she named Andrew Jackson Wickard—called simply "Jack." His physical features were inherited from his mother's Cumberland background: tall, lean, Tennessee-mountain angularity; a straight, thin nose; jutting, pointed chin; and a mouth drawn in to a slashed, tight-lipped line. His temperament had been thrust upon him largely by his Hoosier environment. While Andrew Wickard continued to hold the intellectual leadership of the county, Jack struggled through the first six grades, then quit school with a self-conscious contempt for book learning. If his father was public spirited, Jack was painfully shy and suspicious. While the senior Wickard gave his time mainly to overseeing the marketing of crops, Jack toiled hard on the land, working with his hands and back as he thought a man should work. Jack was twenty-seven, somewhat past the usual "marrying" age, when he met seventeen-year-old Iva Lenora Kirkpatrick, a short, round-faced little girl with a ruddy complexion and a pug nose, full of the complexities of her Scotch-Irish bringa

History of Carroll County, Indiana (Chicago: Kingman, 1882), p. 283.

8

The Back Forty

ing up. Her father had the reputation of never parting with a nickel unless under decidedly advantageous circumstances, and his success as a farmer and saver had been notable. Nora's unhappy mother had devoted herself to Old Testament religion. Nora concealed beneath her taciturn reserve infinite patience and a stubborn, serious obedience to the tenets of her inherited faith. When Jack married Nora in the spring of 1892, Andrew Wickard gave his son one hundred acres—the heart of the farm. Then he moved to town. Jack borrowed a large sum from his father to furnish their home, equip the farm, and purchase an additional 180 acres from his brothers and sisters. Settling down in the big house Andrew had built many years before, Jack and Nora hoped that perseverance and hard work would bring them the fruits of the earth. Within a few months it became apparent that successful fanning was not merely a matter of individual initiative. When Jack's first crops were ready for market, he was faced by the ominous slippage of prices which preceded the panic of 1893. As summer turned into fall, the young Wickards kept themselves fed from Nora's truck garden and warm from the wood of the back forty. The deeper the rural economy sank into depression, the harder Jack worked to clear timber acreage for the planting of increased corn, wheat, and oats—food which would become glut on a dead market. It was in this grim year, on February 28, 1893, that Nora nearly lost her life in the birth of her son and only child, Claude Raymond Wickard. Mercifully the boy remembered nothing of the Panic of 1893, of a hundred rainless days at the height of the growing season, of dry wells and dead stock, of the grinding selfdeprivation of a mother and father who bought their baby canned milk by the case which they could ill-afford. Claude's awareness began with a kindly, exciting old man with whom the child rode out on the seat of a buckboard across the fields to "inspect" the farm. Andrew Jackson Wickard's wife

The Back Forty

9

was gone, and he had returned to the farmstead. Since Jack and Nora were frequently too busy to pay much attention to either of them, boy and grandfather turned to each other for companionship. On Fridays they loaded a few sacks of wheat or corn into a wagon and drove first to the mill, then to the crossroads store in Deer Creek where they got the mail. Grandpa would stand about talking with other farmers in front of the post boxes. Once the talk was excited—a ship called the Maine had been sunk and there was a war, but it seemed far away. Grandfather Wickard was a wonderful storyteller, and many were the nights the boy begged to stay up for just one more tale of pioneer Deer Creek. Over and over he heard the saga of the logrolling, how the town bully had been thrown into a mudhole. Grandfather Kirkpatrick told him how elephants from the first circus had broken through the old Michigan planked road. Such Carroll County lore imbedded itself in Claude's memory to plant his roots firmly in Indiana's soil. Claude gained his initial impressions of the world outside Carrollton Township from hearing his grandfather talk politics with cronies in town. He learned that Grandpa and Father were Democrats. Although of different lineage than President Jackson, Andrew Jackson Wickard lived up to his name completely. Grandfather Kirkpatrick too was an ardent Democrat, and, for him, no man beneath the heavens would ever stand peer to William Jennings Bryan. Without discrimination, the small boy's mind absorbed these doctrines, unconsciously storing away a slowly fermenting ensilage of conviction. As Claude's imagination was being quickened by Grandpa Wickard, Nora's moral abrasive was quietly polishing off the rough edges of his character. Claude would never lose his memories of his stoic mother hobbling about the kitchen or limping across the barn lot to tend her poultry. Early in her marriage a humorless disillusion had overcome Nora. If she anticipated that farm life would be otherwise, all she felt was

10

The Back Forty

an overwhelming oppressiveness of debt, and all she heard was the ring of axe on wood through the frosty air from the back forty. She began to limp with a vague hip ailment which might have been tuberculosis or rheumatism. From that time her health always appeared on the verge of failing completely. Despite extensive treatment later in some of the finest clinics, her lameness continued throughout her life to be an affliction which gave Claude a never-ending solicitude for his mother. Religion, the great reality of Nora Wickard's existence, circumscribed her world with the glowering command "Thou Shalt Not." She was a staunch supporter of the United Brethren Church and obedient to its bans against earthly pleasures. Nevertheless, Nora had learned from her own constant suffering a kind of resigned sympathy for the sinner. She lived her life in honest adherence to the Scriptures as she understood them, determined to make her moral example felt through good works and passive resistance to evil. Inner unrest seldom broke the surface of her bland tranquility. Nora was the disciplinarian, and what little punishment Claude ever received as a child came from her. Except for this, her seeming lack of vigorous influence upon the lives of Claude and her husband was deceptive. She had on her side the unanswerable Word of the Lord and the incombatable cross of her infirmity. I loved my mother. I did everything in the world I could for her. I always felt bad if I did anything to hurt her. I don't think, perhaps, I felt quite that deeply toward my father in a way. If there were differences in the family, I inclined to take my mother's part against my father. And there were differences —differences over religion, over church activities for instance. My sympathies were always unth her.3 " Claude R. Wickard, Interviews, p. 109. Under the auspices of the Oral History Project of Columbia University, the author had numerous interviews with Mr. Wickard from October, 1952, to November, 1953, in Washington and Indiana and spent the fall of 1953 at Fairacre Farms

The Back Forty

11

Jack Wickard saw no virtue in religiosity. Once the preacher fell down a stairway into the cellar and had to be carried out. Jack found the incident uproariously funny, and for months afterward Claude would see his father silently chuckling to himself. To Jack the preacher not only represented an irritating intrusion, but worse, he was one of those "white-collar people" who made a living without working. Any man who failed to do his day's manual labor fell beyond Jack's single-standard evaluation of human worth. Jack Wickard, like most farmers then, knew nothing about innovations in farming techniques. If his hogs suddenly died of cholera—and they did—it could not be helped. If his soil was becoming acid and his clover was withering—and they were—maybe he was just not working hard enough. Clean corn, shocked stalks, mended fences, oiled harness—these made a good farmer because they were the obvious results of hard labor. They increased neither the quality nor quantity of yield, but they made him appear successful. He was producing good crops and he would continue to do so as long as the soil held its fertility, but a day of reckoning was fast coming. In the years of his son's boyhood, however, the illusion of success still held. There was nothing superficial in Jack Wickard's desire to appear successful. It was the only way he knew to ease the rasp of his constant worry. He was a fretter. He worried about everything. Fear was the barrier between Jack Wickard and the world about him. Although he did have a shy geniality in social gatherings, the effort so perturbed him that he usually fled to the back forty as soon as he could. Alone in the woods, he seemed to regather his tenuous self-esteem as he worked, with Mr. and Mrs. Wickard. All interviews were recorded on tapes and then transcribed. The page numbers cited here refer to the first draft of the resultant 4,000-page manuscript. The draft may be found in the Special Collections Department of the Columbia University Libraries.

12

The Back Forty

chopping and sawing down trees. The necessity for having these acres cleared was secondary to his own desire to clear them. Jack's husbandry had become centered, not on growth and maturation, but on the compulsive expenditure of energy. As Claude grew older he began to question the relationship between his father and grandfather. Jack said the old man had not worked hard enough and had wasted too much time 011 such foolishness as politics. But from his grandfather Claude felt the breath of freedom, and he heard good laughter. He was attracted by his kindliness and tolerance; disturbed by Jack's fear and worry. His grandfather had had in earlier years an exciting interest in living and learning, while his father toiled on in colorless hacking at the back forty woods. Jack and Nora gave their son all they were capable of giving, yet neither bent the twig as firmly as Andrew Jackson Wickard. When he was six, Claude started down the road each morning to the Tadpole School House. Similar to a school where, decades before, his grandfather had taught, it looked like any other country school whose mission was to give its students the simple tools of learning and to inculcate them with the sentiments of the Republic. Tennyson, Hawthorne, Long fellow, and Browning were the classics, but local taste regarded James Whitcomb Riley, George Ade, and Horatio Alger as quite their equals. Claude assimilated the Tadpole School's Americanism and Indiana-ism, as well as moral lessons from the Bible and Black Beauty. When he was nine, the fast-growing Rural Free Delivery system reached the Wickard farm, bringing not only Nora's gift of The American Botj magazine but also the rural newspapers and periodicals to which his grandfather subscribed: the Flora Sentinel, the Farmers' Guide, and the ubiquitous Indianapolis Star. The limited education of another Carroll County farmer was moving hard against its prescribed boundaries when Claude

The Back

Forty

13

Wickard perceived the dynamic hum of a changing world beyond the back forty. The traditional friendliness of farm people modified but slightly the fact that farming was a lonely business, disconnected from the rest of American life by vast jolting distances in horse and buggy over washboard roads. Church on Sunday, an occasional visit with friends or relatives, an annual quilting party or sewing circle, meetings in front of the crossroads store to talk crops, weather, and politics—these were nearly all the social contacts long working hours allowed. An annual trip to the city (Logansport, Indiana), while eagerly anticipated, often ended unhappily for a farm boy in his scrubbed best clothes and heavy shoes when town children jeered "country jake!"—a taunt which Claude Wickard never forgot. Farm life seemed on the surface to be unchanging. But where before one looked up and saw only trees and windmills, now a line of poles strung with wire stretched down the main roads. The Wickards' telephone was installed in 1900. While there was no rural electricity for other purposes, farm people told how the telephone had reached the doctor in time to save a life. A recent episode which furnished endless amusement to Carroll County citizens at the 1900 county fair was a race between a horse and a contraption called an automobile. The favored horse won handily and farmers cheered. But a few years later Claude's enthusiasm would move Jack Wickard to buy one of the county's first Model Ts. The farm journals of this, the Progressive Era, revealed further changes outside Deer Creek. Throughout the com belt, a few men were thinking about better farming, better farm life. At Des Moines, Professor P. G. Holden was proclaiming enthusiastically the glories of new yellow dent corn, while a serious young fellow named Henry A. Wallace was laboriously proving him wrong. Such young men from the farms of the midwest and far west as M. L. Wilson soon would be taking advanced college degrees at western universities,

14

The Back Forty

learning from John R. Commons the relationship between fanner and steel-puddler; from Benjamin Hibbard, the economics of free-trade marketing; from Henry C. Taylor, a businesslike system of farm management: from others history, philosophy, anthropology and even Jamesian psychology. Land-grant colleges across the corn belt were promoting extension courses in fanning methods. With Claude's education came his initiation into the world of men and farm work. While still a child, his chief farm chores had been helping Nora with household tasks. As he grew older they were extended to include morning and evening milking, and soon afterward he became responsible for feeding Jack's hogs. He was not more than twelve when his father had him following a heavy Oliver 405 walking plow hitched to three horses. Swinging the plow around each corner, holding it hard into the earth, and controlling the team was difficult work for an adolescent. But his lack of energy drew from his father only criticism that he was not doing enough work and that he failed to "get out and get at it" regularly at sunrise. He'd become so provoked at me. I can hear him say many times, "the boy toill never become a success." He wanted me to hear it too. He wasn't saying it just to tell my mother that He just wanted me to know that he didn't think Td ever become a success because I didn't get up.* It was a life of too much work and not enough play. 1 can't think of anything I did just because I wanted to. 1 lived near a small stream and there were times when I'd want to go fishing, but that was not looked upon unth favor by my father. I can't think of any vacation or any time which I called my own, for my own amusement. I don't think my childhood was particularly happy or carefree. It was a sort of sober period compared to what most young people go through,5 Claude was thirteen when he graduated from Tadpole 'Wickard, Interviews, p. 34. 'Ibid., pp. 100, 117.

The Back Forty

15

School in 1906. Nora had ambitious plans for her son, insisting that he should continue his studies in the college-accredited high school at Flora, a small town nine miles west of the farm. Jack saw no sense to all this fuss about education, but he consented protestingly to have Claude take the horse and buggy to Flora every Monday morning and return on Friday afternoon. In spring and autumn the trip was a pleasant one; in cold weather when snow was on the ground it became an arduous, freezing, two-hour ride. During the week Claude stayed with strangers in town who gave him board and room. Living away from home for the first time did not bother the boy at all, but another old problem arose once more. The one thing which did concern me was the scorn and ridicule in which I was held by my classmates who lived in town. The boys and the girls both were always referring to me as "that green country kid." 1 did everything that I could to try to overcome what to me was a rather serious handicap. I did not seem to belong, so to speak, with the other boys and girls of my age.6 Claude was younger than most of them. He never had associated with children of his own age, and since the death of his grandfather two years before his life had been indeed a solitary one. Claude was heavily awkward, totally lacking in power of retort, and terribly anxious to placate his tormentors. Torn between envy of their sophistication and his despair of the farm's gray familiarity, he allowed their stinging mockery to drive him day after day to his room, and on Fridays back to Carrollton Township. The first year at Flora High School was miserable. Claude struggled through Cicero's orations, Shakespeare, ancient history, and the standard curriculum of rural Indiana schools. Although he continued to receive excellent grades, his accomplishment was largely one of lusterless perseverance. Neither an "average" student nor yet a brilliant one, Claude • Ibid., p. 59.

16

The Back Forty

Wickard wanted to master his subjects in scholarly fashion, but he found that his mind slowly examined each new thought for its utilitarian values, and his meditation strayed inevitably from philosophical generalization to practical application. "Doing" was of utmost importance if the green country kid was to take his place among the elect. Claude's second and third years at Flora, and his final year at Delphi High School, brushed as much of the hay from his clothes as possible. Despite Nora's disapproval, he learned to dance and began to date some of the girls in town. He wound up his secondary schooling losing a tooth in basketball, winning the captaincy of the baseball team, and being named top student in Civics. When his son graduated from high school and returned home, Jack was prepared to go to any lengths to keep him there. He was eager to have Claude assume responsibility for their farm, now debt free, jack's love for his son meant just one thing: he wanted Claude to be a chip off the old block in the fullest sense of the term. He wanted him to farm as he fanned, to work as he worked, to be what he was. To have Claude go to an agricultural college was unthinkable. The boy might never come back to the farm, or, if he did, he would become a different kind of a farmer. While Jack's disdain for education stemmed from his own experience, it was at the same time part of the general thinking in Carroll County. "Book farming" was taboo. College teachers who taught agriculture were considered crackpots. Farm magazines were read with extreme skepticism; more than one local farmer had been misled by questionable advertising. And all this was capped by an inherent rural antagonism to change of any sort. Claude Wickard, however, had a restless yearning for a brighter future:

I wanted to O°o to an agricultural school because I wanted to O he a good farmer and I wanted to be respected and I wanted to associate with people who had wider interests than people ordinarily had. My mother, 1 think, always held that she

The Back Forty

17

wanted me to go to school. My Grandfather Wickard was a man who'd had a little college training. I'd always liked to hear him tell about his experiences in college. I liked to hear him discuss issues of the day. I think perhaps in the back of my mind I always felt this inferiority to people who lived in towns and people who had access to libraries and books. I think it was more of a feeling of that kind which existed in rural areas. I felt that going to college would help me overcome some of the handicaps that rural people had. 1 didn't feel like I wanted to live in a rural area and do just like everybody else did and thought I should do because they did it that way.7 As fall approached, Jack was obdurate as ever, expostulating against the senselessness of taking English, Latin, and government courses in order to milk cows, feed hogs, and plant corn. For a brief period his son's stubbornness and the glacial inexorability of Nora's will prevailed. Claude entered Purdue University in September, 1910. Nine months later, Jack had him back on the land, observing only that Claude was still pretty young to be going to the university, and that it might be a good thing for the boy to work a year on the farm before going back to Purdue. Claude was sick with regret that his education should be interrupted, but, reconciling himself to his disappointment, he turned to the task ahead. He knew he had to reassure his father that he meant to become a farmer, but at the same time he had to make Jack aware of his unalterable determination to return to Purdue. Fall corn-picking had hardly started when Jack contracted a severe illness and the entire work load fell on Claude's shoulders. Most of the time I was out in the field, with the frost hanging on the corn, as quickly as daylight would permit me to see. 1 would be well across the field when the sun would come up, melting this frost, and my hands would become saturated with ice water. My hands would break open after a while and crack 7

Ibid., pp. 166-68.

18

The

Back

Forty

and chafe. The breaking of the heavy ears would numb my hands at night until I could hardly sleep. If you do that day after day, week after week, from the first of October until way after Thanksgiving, you really know what a chore is. If there was anything that ever shook my faith in wanting to be a farmer, I think that was it.s The boy never complained. He realized that if he did his father would take it for granted that his son was too weak to withstand the hardships of farming. All winter he worked, mending equipment, cutting fuel from the woods, and tending the stock. When summer came Jack recovered, and as he walked out on the land he could see the smooth green pastures, straight rows of corn, and large farrows of pigs. Although Jack uttered not one word of praise, he knew it was a job well done. Claude looked down at the grime embedded in his knuckles, and he felt the pride of accomplishment. He had mastered his own back forty. •Ibid., p. 155.

2: Claude R. Wickard, Prop. Claude plodded drearily through his sophomore year at Purdue, uneasy over his father's capitulation (Jack had agreed to finance his schooling, semester by semester) and uncertain of his own ability to fulfill the goals which he had set for himself. Rebuffed by the college newspaper, the Literary Society, and the basketball coach, he devoted himself mostly to his fraternity, the Emanon Club, and to his studies. It was not until his junior year that Claude, with the aid and paternal understanding of gruff, crusty Dean J. H. Skinner, found himself. With Skinner's approval, Wickard chose to assist in carrying out some government-sponsored experiments in hog cholera. Claude's job was a messy one. Day after day he reported to the pens, took rectal temperature readings on his allotment of dying shoats, then ran post-mortem examinations on them to be certain their demise was a result of cholera. Half buried in snow and freezing cold during the winter, the pens with the coming of spring exuded an effluvium of dead hogs sufficient to drive out all but the dedicated. His friends of Emanon, although baffled by his enthusiasm for the pungent preoccupation, were heartened by the changes taking place in Brother Wickard. They had already resumed the use of his high school nickname "Wick" and elected him house manager. That his solemn purposefulness became at times a little pompous was overlooked. Wick was now a man with a "work." His confidence soared. He was elected president of the fraternity, then reelected for his senior year. His awkwardness disappeared beneath a protective patina of town manners and the sense of "mission" which now imbued him.

20

Claude R. Wichard, Prop.

Filled with a zeal on behalf of scientific farming when he graduated from Purdue, Wickard made up his mind that he would return to Carroll County and challenge the die-hards who decried "book farmers." At the same time he had another score to settle with his father, who had said Claude would never amount to a thing. While Claude Wickard's definition of success certainly envisaged a growing bank balance, it also involved imaginative farm production and rural social justice. Wickard had a vision of future farmers being the economic, social, and intellectual equals of the city folks whom they fed. No longer would the threat of farm peasantry hang over the land. No more would rural children fight the "Country Jake" prejudice. Farmers would cease to be merely docile providers with strong backs and weak minds. Jack told Claude: "Here is the farm. You take it and you run it the way you think it ought to be run. It's going to be yours sometime. Whatever you make out of it is going to be yours." Jack was neither ready to retire nor a convert to the radical farming methods his son had learned in college. His gesture was actually motivated by the fear that if he failed to let Claude run the farm he would leave it. Jack stepped down from active management of the land and tacitly agreed to try whatever Claude might want to do. He did not, however, transfer the title of the farm. But this was sufficient for Claude. Of course there was one thing—I'm going to be quite frank about it—that appealed to me about being on a farm. That is that a farmer is his own boss. He can make changes in his plans without having to ask the consent of anyone else. I expected to be mtj own boss on the farm, and I became my own boss. My father turned the farm over to me without question, and gave me all the liberty in the world to go ahead and do things the way I saw fit.1 The year 1915 was not one for Wickard to begin changing his father's pattern of production. European farms were ripped 'Wickard, Interviews, p. 191.

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

21

by trenches. France and England, already heavily in debt to America for munitions, were begging increased shipments of food. As prices rose, American farmers began to plant every acre they owned, even mortgaging their farms to purchase more land for cash-cropping. Fortune seemed to await any fanner endowed with a modicum of skill and blessed with a minimum of luck. Wickard could not have started his agricultural career at a more promising time. Borrowing about $3,000 from his father for the purchase of a 100-acre farm adjoining the Wickard farmstead, he put out com, wheat, and oat crops and began a small herd of feeder pigs, setting aside for the moment most of the fine farm improvement plans he had learned at college. Except for a new team of horses with which Jack had also provided his son, Claude was starting with little more than his own labor. The machinery was decrepit; the land was depleted. But it was his. Claude R. Wickard, Prop., had made a swift ascent of the "farm ladder" to ownership. The modern farmer no longer waited in an agony of anticipation for occasional church picnics and barn raisings to meet the girls of his township. Claude Wickard ranged in his new Buick roadster beyond the confines of Carroll County into the surrounding towns and cities. At one of the Logansport dances in January, 1916, Claude met Louise Eckert. She complemented Claude perfectly. Against his heavy earnestness, Louise was gay, fun-loving, coquettish; her lively imagination endowed the commonplace with magic felicity. Beneath the surface of her vivacious histrionics, however, was a hard core of shrewdly feminine instinct. She quickly fell in love with Claude and was ready to marry him when, on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war against Germany. Claude spent two weeks in a turmoil of irresolution. Dean Skinner suggested that his skill would be worth more to the nation on an Indiana farm than on a French battlefield. Claude felt that he should enlist rather than wait for the draft. Nora

22

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

hoped he would stay home. Louise cried and talked with Claude and cried some more. Jack had nothing to say on the subject. The Wickard fields were ready for planting. A decision could not be postponed. Toward the end of April, Claude drove to Lafayette to enlist, only to find Purdue's draft headquarters thronged with hundreds of his classmates all on the same errand. It was impossible for him to get a physical that day and Claude returned to the farm. The days became weeks as he started planting. Cultivating and chores made the summer pass quickly. It was not until August that a card arrived from the draft board. Claude Wickard had been placed in "Class 4, necessary occupational deferment." In the hours of decision, of course, I suffered quite a little, but when I was out actively engaged in farming, I didn't worry so much about it. I suspect I did the right thing, although I know I, like many other young men, had qualms of conscience at times because I didn't go in. There was, as in all wars, a lot of emotionalism and a lot of talk in the neighborhood as to why I should stay home. I think that some of my own relations, perhaps, felt like I should have kept up the family tradition and volunteered for service. I didn't dc it.2 'America and her Allies," President Wilson told Herbert Hoover in 1917, "are now eating at a common table." Wilson appointed Hoover to stimulate American food production and cut down domestic consumption of scarce meat, wheat, and fats. Hoover, as Food Administrator, called in food buyers, processors, and distributors to help him devise a program. The problem of meat was solved by "meatless Tuesdays" and "porkless Thursdays and Saturdays." The solution to the wheat shortage was almost as simple: "wheatless VIondays and Wednesdays" and the naive order to save every last grain of wheat by placing canvas under the threshers. There were to be no rationing cards, no subsidies, no restraints on processors' profit margins—let consumer prices find their own levels and a

Ibid., pp. 213-14.

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

23

farmers would produce a feast for the Allied table. As it turned out, the farmers did produce all the food needed, and more. As it also turned out, the war ended sixteen months after Hoover's Food Administration began. Farmers of Carroll County responded to the demand for more food. Wickard was gambling everything he had on the fall hog crop. When the Food Administrator in November, 1917, announced a hog price pegged at $19.00 per hundredweight, Claude had visions of a mortgage-burning. But the caprice of nature interfered. His corn never matured. The ears grew longer and larger, kept right on growing, and finally froze into great icicles at the first snow. By the time Wickard had separated the hardest ears from his ruined crop and fed them to his pigs, Hoover had had to withdraw the price announced and Wickard got only $16.00 per hundredweight. He had gained little. Undeterred by either war or mortgage, he and Louise were married on April 17, 1918. After a short honeymoon in Chicago, Claude and Louise returned to live at Fairacre Farms. The arrangements were that Jack and Nora would move to town. But Jack said frankly "It's better to wear out than rust out," and Louise knew that they would never leave the farm. She set about adjusting herself to the use of bucketbath and outhouse, and to overcoming Nora's suspicions of her Catholic daughter-in-law. The two women shared not one element of personality or temperament, background or outlook. In running the household Nora continued as mistress of her own domain, willing to show Louise graciousness and consideration but unable to project a tenderness which she could not feel. 3 Claude was meanwhile attempting to reduce the mortgage. * Louise Wickard, Interviews. Although the author interviewed Mrs. Wickard and many others named in this book for the Oral History Project of Columbia University, the interviews cited herein were recorded and transcribed for use in this volume only. Some of these manuscripts may be found in the Special Collections Department of the Columbia University Libraries.

24

Claude R. Wickard,

Prop.

After his soft corn crop of 1917, he selected his best fields and again planted corn. By early summer the tall stalks presaged another bumper crop. But once more nature intervened. A freak cold wave glazed the earth on June 21 along a thin, twenty-mile strip reaching from central Indiana to the Ohio line, and within that area the crop was an 80 percent loss. Wickard's share of the disaster amounted to over $10,000. Nevertheless, he decided to go ahead with his plans to modernize the farmstead. Bathroom plumbing and electric lights were made possible by the installation of a Delco electric plant. Jack Wickard vowed he would never use the mechanical toilet, but he did. Nora's familiar home disappeared as partitions were ripped out, the stairway straightened, and soon-to-be-needed rooms added. Unfortunately, it was during the worst of the renovation in August that Nora became ill with cystitis and high blood pressure, and she was bedridden for many months. During the fall, and for the weeks following the end of the war, Nora was in and out of bed while her daughter-in-law took over for the first time the burden of a farm wife's work. Louise, whose previous cooking experience was somewhat unrelated to the demands of the working farmer, was suddenly preparing three enormous meals a day for Claude and Jack. The Farmers' Institute was an annual program of entertainment and speeches on farming techniques and farm living. Next to the church outings, it was the major event in the lives of Carroll County people. Sponsored by the Purdue University Extension department, the Institute was conducted in each Indiana community by some local farmer. In December, 1918, a group of neighbors asked Wickard to manage the Institute for Carrollton Township. Claude accepted. Louise offered to help, delighted to have an opportunity to extend their activities and acquaintances beyond the back forty. Over the Christmas season they worked together, making vip a program, employing good speakers and local musical talent, arranging

Claude

R. Wickard,

Prop.

25

for farm wives to provide a luncheon and for others to pool their transportation on the appointed day. Carrollton farmers filled the little Wheeling Church for the occasion. When Claude arose to open the meeting and started to speak, the audience sat up and listened to Jack Wickard's boy. His voice was strong and pleasant as he welcomed them and began to describe the Institute, its program and purpose. He talked about the social and economic needs of the farming community. He discussed democracy and the rural way of life. His points were clear, shorn of useless rhetoric. He was idealistic, but what he said made sense—he was a practical idealist. Sitting in one of the back pews, Louise's eyes glistened with pride for her husband. At home that night her enthusiasm was boundless. "Claude, you can do thatl You canl I know you can! You have leadership. You have sincerity. People believe in what you say. When you get up to give a speech, people look at you!" 4 As he worked in the fields during the spring and summer of 1919, Claude thought many times of what Louise had said, of the farmers' faces as he addressed them, of the applause. It was a pleasant memory. In the early summer of 1919, Claude Wickard began to hear rumors that the organizing drive of the recently created Farm Bureau had reached Indiana. There was nothing new about the idea of a farmers' organization. With the immediate decline of farm prices following the Civil War had come the rise of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. Founded purely as a social-ritualistic society, the Grange swiftly moved into politics, court fights, and producer cooperatives. A few court decisions temporarily remedied railroad abuses. A handful of Grange-elected congressmen held their seats for a session or two and returned home. Beset by good intentions and bad management, their cooperatives were lost as soon as business picked up in 1879-80. Claiming over 850,000 members in 1875, within five years that number fell to less than 125,000 and the 4

Ibid.

26

Claude R. Wickard,

Prop.

Grange never again bestirred itself seriously from its founder's original purpose. The period of Wickard's schooling saw the upsurge of other groups such as the Farmers' Alliances and the Populist Party, the Gleaners of Michigan and the American Society of Equity in Wisconsin, none of which had any great strength in Indiana. Of greater importance outside the corn belt was the National Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union. Brought together at the turn of the century, the Farmers' Union by 1914 was well established in twenty states. Its membership, according to whom one believed, numbered between 125,000 and a half million. Operating under a socialistically inclined program and an eloquent constitution, the Union's stated purpose was ' T o secure equity, establish justice and apply the Golden Rule. . . . To garner the tears of the distressed, the blood of the martyrs, the laughter of innocent children, the sweat of honest labor, and the virtue of a happy home as the brightest jewels known." Stemming directly from the notorious Mary Lease tradition of raising "less corn and more hell!" the Union frightened off nearly all but hardened western wheat growers and, while it had little influence in the corn belt, farmers everywhere certainly knew of it.B If separate protests seemed to fail of attaining their objectives, each had the effect of underscoring the tendency of aggrieved citizens to look for redress first to their own private organizations, then to Washington. Government response to farmer petitions was dishearteningly slow. The United States Department of Agriculture had been created in 1862, remaining no more than a small office under a commissioner until Congress made it into an executive department of the government in 1889. Under the first Secretary of Agriculture the Department's activities were limited to the gathering of statistics on American agriculture and the dissemination of information ' O. M. Kile, The Farm Bureau through Three Decades (Baltimore: Waverly, 1948), p. 19.

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

27

on plant and animal diseases and new farming techniques. Also in 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Act granting public lands to the states, from the proceeds of which the land-grant agricultural colleges were established. The Populist upheaval in 1890 resulted in further allocation of federal educational funds for the creation of agricultural experiment stations. Purdue, Illinois, Cornell, Wisconsin, and the Iowa State College at Ames grew into not only first rate schools of animal husbandry, agronomy, entomology, and horticulture, but also centers of adult education, promoting extension courses and the Farmers' Institute which Wickard had conducted in Carrollton Township. In 1902, an outbreak of boll weevil sent Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the Department of Agriculture to Texas to see what could be done to help. The following year some money was obtained from Congress to keep him in Texas, not only to aid in weevil extermination, but to explain improved farming methods. Within ten years there were more than 800 agricultural experts scattered throughout the country doing "Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work"—showing farmers how to improve their yields in all standard crops, instigating corn clubs, pig clubs, and chicken clubs among the younger people, and generally demonstrating better farming practices. The experts came to be called "county agents," while the group of farmers, county commissioners, and businessmen who actively promoted their work were organized as "Farm Bureaus." The Smith-Lever Act of 1914, while Wickard was still in Purdue, provided for funds to extend the county agent system into every agricultural community in the nation. By mid-1918, individual membership in county farm bureaus had reached 290,000 and the number of county agents exceeded 2,000. Working closely with the land-grant colleges and state extension services, farm bureau presidents saw an opportunity to form a powerful organization which could pry more funds from state legislatures for Extension work, or even promote

28

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

some special pro-farmer legislation on the side. Missouri farm bureaus were organized into a state federation in 1915. Eleven other states soon followed, and in February, 1919, the initial founding meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation was held in Ithaca, New York, to organize the state federations into a nationwide organization. In the spring of 1919 the Farm Bureau came to central Indiana. Purdue University sent men through the state to drum up interest in placing county agents in every county. Farmers talked about greater representation in case any war emergency should recur, and they said it would be a means to get better state road and tax legislation. But there was nothing to protest about. Times were good and prices were at their peak. If Claude Wickard had not forgotten his highly successful Farmers' Institute, neither had his neighbors. And when a Farm Bureau organizer appeared, it was suggested that he ask Claude if he would assume leadership in calling a meeting for the formation of a Carrollton Township Farm Bureau Wickard knew there would be opposition because of a deepgrained suspicion that somebody was organizing the farmers for his own benefit rather than theirs. Moreover, Claude Wickard was still rather young to be telling men twice his age what they ought to do. But he went around and invited farmers to the first meeting. The turnout was disappointingly small.

We had this meeting by lantern light. The lantern smoked and it got dark and people got sleepy. I talked too long trying to explain what I understood to he the purpose of the meeting and what might be accomplished. There were a few comments, and most of the comment was rather favorable. Finally it was agreed that we organize a township unit.6 Claude was elected chairman of the Carrollton Township unit, and a few nights later when the various township chairmen met, he was elected vice-president of the Carroll County ' Wickard, Interviews, p. 290.

Claude R. Wickard,

Prop.

29

Farm Bureau. Wickard warred somewhat within himself over accepting these responsibilities. While it was assuaging to his ego to gain this kind of recognition from his neighbors, it took time which might well have been spent farming or enjoying his family. And Wickard's family was of utmost importance at that moment. On June 19, 1919, Louise gave birth to the first member of the third generation of Indiana Wickards. Named after Louise's mother and the pioneer wife of Andrew Jackson Wickard, the baby girl became Elizabeth Jane (Betty) Wickard. European imports of American agricultural commodities began to fall off slightly in the late summer of 1919. The hog market reached $23.60 per hundredweight during the summer, then started to decline. Wickard sold his pigs just after the peak, ending the season with the mortgage paid off on his own 100-acre farm and considerable money in his pocket. The two ruined corn crops, however, had prevented repayment of the $3,000 debt to his father. As Wickard scanned daily market reports, he tried to guess which way the market was going to go. Should he borrow funds from a bank to clear his debts? Should he put out another year's cash crop? Or might he now start on his long-range program to improve Fairacre Farms? He had grown for war everything his acres would produce, but he was not overexpanded as were so many farmers who had planted clear to the fence posts to recoup lean year losses during the recent fat ones. He asked Jack about repayment of the $3,000, and his father said there was no hurry. Claude's 6 percent interest was as good as he could have gotten in town, and considerably more secure. By planting time in 1920, the American economy was heading for one of the most violent crashes in its history. Corn prices plummeted from $1.34 per bushel to 41 cents, and the prices of all other crops fell with them. In the face of depression, Wickard decided to begin his program for the rebuilding

30

Claude R. Wickard,

Prop.

of the farm—a program which would mean lower income for a while, but which ultimately, if what he had learned at Purdue was not just theory, would provide his children with land far more fertile than it was when Andrew Jackson Wickard first broke it. Wickard's program contained three simple elements. First, he would cease cash-cropping; second, he would increase the fertility of his soil; and finally, he would improve his crop strains. To farmers of later years such a program would be laughably obvious. To Carroll County farmers in 1920, it was pure idealism. Wickard was no dreamer. He figured it cost just as much in time and effort to put out a poor crop as it did to grow a good one, and since fanning contained an inordinate amount of gambling risk, Wickard intended to start with the normal odds in his favor. The fertility of the soil was the farmer's capital. Every crop he raised took capital out of his soil. Every bushel of wheat he sold contained some of the fertility of his soil. Pioneer farmers had known this, and it was in constant quest of fertile soil that they crossed the Appalachians and the Mississippi, driving ever westward into a seemingly inexhaustible supply of nature's rich land. With the closing of the frontier, farmers found that they had to replenish their soil with manure and to rotate nitrogenconsuming grain crops with grasses and legumes, fodder which usually brought little cash return. If times were hard, the fanners could not afford the loss involved in planting soilbuilding crops. Their families had to be fed. If times were good, they still could not afford to refurbish their soil, because they had to gird themselves economically against the lean years. As each farmer's land slowly lost its ability to produce, not only was that farmer destroying his means of livelihood, but the nation was sacrificing its ability to feed itself. Wickard knew that restoring the fertility which his father had mined out of the land was a complex problem. A heavy growth of weeds and poor stands of clover betrayed an acid

Claude R. Wickard, Trap.

31

condition of the soil which could be corrected only by restoring the missing minerals. For phosphorus, Wickard bought acid phosphate from the fertilizer plant. For lime, he shipped in several carloads of dust from Indiana's limestone quarries. The stuff was devilish to handle. As soon as the least moisture got into it, it caked into a rock-like mass which had to be smashed apart, quickly loaded into wagons, and strewn by shovel over 280 acres of land. With amusement Wickard's neighbors watched him struggle through season after season with his mineral fertilizer. Jack scratched his chin and shook his head, but he held to his bargain that Claude should run the farm as he saw fit. With the inauguration of the soil-building program, Wickard ended his father's cash-cropping pattern and turned primarily to the production of corn and hogs. The breeding of fine bacon or lard pigs was only beginning to become a major American industry in 1920. Hogs were generally by-products of dairy farms and city garbage dumps. To Wickard, a hog was a highly efficient processing plant for his corn. He invested part of his $5,000 in a herd of thirty excellent Hampshire brood sows, heavy black pigs banded white across the shoulders. He vaccinated his herd against cholera and constructed sanitary heated hog houses for winter farrowing. Then he installed a seed testing laboratory for determining the germination of his corn stands. Instead of retrenching to wait out the 1920 depression, Wickard began a soil conservation program on Fairacre Farms which would be recognized fifteen years later as national land policy. If proper care of the land and sensible farming practices were essential to Wickard's modern husbandry, responsible farmer citizenship was an equally important component of the Fairacre Farms program. Regardless of long hours on the land, Wickard reserved ample time for conferring with the county agent, assisting in the establishment of children's projects under the 4-H clubs, serving as Democratic precinct committee-

32

Claude

R. Wickard,

Prop.

man, sponsoring various undertakings in the Purdue Agricultural Alumni Association, working with the Parent Teachers Association, and teaching Sunday School. Wickard retained the vice-presidency of the Carroll County Farm Bureau through 1920 and 1921. In 1922 Farm Bureau leaders stronglyurged him to take the county presidency, but he declined it, once more to be with his growing family. In June the Wickard's hoped-for future farmer was bom—only she turned out to be another baby daughter. Their predetermined name for the healthy, sunny dispositioned little girl was feminized from Andrew Jackson Wickard to Ann Louise Wickard. Her father's farming ability and his standing in the community had kept pace with his added responsibilities. But, during the past two years his income had begun to fall behind. When in 1920 European farmers began to resume production, rural people sighed with regret at the end of the boom and prepared to endure the bust. Plagues, droughts, and depressions were considered unavoidable acts of providence. Each was disastrous to rural living standards, but it was merely a matter of cinching up one's belt, as Jack and Nora Wickard had done after the 1893 depression, until times got better. However, the change in American world economic status from a borrowing to a lending nation made this depression different from the others. As the rest of the United States began to recover from the 1921 decline, real farm income lagged behind. Corn went from a low of 41 cents a bushel in 1921 to 97 cents a bushel in 1924; somewhat short of the $1.36 the farmer had received in 1918, nevertheless a fair price on paper. The only difficulty was, as Wickard soon discovered, it would not buy the things he needed. Thus the "Farm Problem" was born. By 1924 Claude Wickard's income was far below what it had been during the war boom, and his purchasing power was only two-thirds that of the average city factory worker. There

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

33

were so many fixed charges on Wickard's income which remained at boom year levels, that his money was spent as soon as he received it. The interest on his note to his father remained the same. His taxes were the same, if not higher. His freight and telephone bills were the same. In comparison with prewar levels, money which Wickard received for his crops lagged more than 20 percent behind prices the Wickards paid for food and clothing, fertilizer, tractor tires and parts, seed, and fence lumber. This price differential worked a doubly difficult burden on the Wickards, for they had been among those farm folk who demanded the same material comforts which magazines advertised for residents of Indianapolis and Chicago. Their standard of living had increased. Their "belt" no longer would cinch up as tightly as had Claude's parents'. In the barn lot stood the basic tools of the modem farmer— tractor, drill, disc, and harrow—as well as a new Ford which had replaced the worn-out Buick. For the farmstead now there was plumbing and a Delco plant to give a minimal amount of wavering electricity for lighting. If good tools, a car, and running water were considered essential in Chicago, so they should be considered also in Carrollton Township. The difficulty was that Chicago laborers' wages would pay for them; the income from Carroll County's crops would not. Industrial prices, protected by the tariff, could be maintained during a depression by letting off a few workers and cutting production to meet demand. Farmers, one competing against another, could not limit production. Their only chance to make the money necessary to feed their families was to work ever harder, to plant more and more. The greater their production in the face of dead foreign markets, the larger grew the surpluses which depressed farm prices. Like the White Queen, farmers were running as hard as they could to stand still. This was the Farm Problem. President Harding had answered the initial farm protest in 1921 by reconstituting the War Finance Corporation to supply

34

Claude R. Wickard,

Prop.

money which rural banks could loan under relatively longterm notes. A few western cattle ranchers found this helpful but corn belt farmers were already mortgaged to the hay lofts. Nevertheless, most farmers viewed Harding's munificence as all that was due them. If the Harding administration was indifferent to troublous symptoms in the corn belt, a plow manufacturer in Moline, Illinois, George N. Peek, was becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of his farm machinery rusting in company lots for lack of buyers. Peek had a plan which he published as a pamphlet in 1921 called "Equality for Agriculture." He illustrated his message graphically by showing how a small pile of wheat would buy a Moline plow before the war, while it took a mountain of wheat to purchase that same plow after the war and depression. This was the difference between what the farmer had to pay for tariff-taxed goods and the prices he received for crops sold without benefit from the tariff. "Therefore," said Peek, "let's make the tariff effective for agriculture." With the tacit approval of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Cantwell Wallace, Peek lobbied for three years before lie goaded the chairmen of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to introduce identical measures embodying Peek's ideas as the McNary-Haugen Bills. Peek's plan was a "two-price" system which called for separating the agricultural surplus from that portion of the American crop expected to be consumed at home. The government would "dump" the surplus abroad, that is. sell it for whatever it would bring. The difference between the foreign price and the American price would be made up by a tax or "equalization fee" on the farmers themselves which would distribute the loss on the "dumped" surplus among all growers. Meanwhile, each of them would benefit from a return on the balance of their crop in line with 1909-14 prices, when prices received by farmers for their produce were thought to be at "fair exchange" value to the prices they paid for the goods they bought. Oppo-

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

35

nents of the plan had no doubt that it would raise farm prices for a while. They objected that European nations would retaliate with tariff barriers on manufactured goods as well as food if cheap American crops began to threaten their own price structures. Furthermore, the McNary-Haugen Bill would so encourage farmers to produce all they could raise that no world market could possibly absorb the glut. Peek's proponents stood stubbornly behind the only plan yet offered which promised "Equality for Agriculture." Harding was dead before the first McNary-Haugen Bill, opposed by President Calvin Coolidge and his Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was defeated in the House of Representatives in June, 1924. If Coolidge thought that would end the matter, he underestimated both Mr. Peek and the extent of farm distress. Foreclosures were becoming a common occurrence in rural areas everywhere. Small town bank failures followed as farm after farm fell into the hands of insurance companies and city banks, the dispossessed farmers moving west or down the economic scale to become tenants. Peek, meanwhile, had learned how to buttonhole Congressmen, how to establish farm pressure groups, and how to prod some backing out of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Claude Wickard and thousands of other corn belt farmers, only generally understanding the terms of a McNary-Haugen Bill and its economic consequences, lined up behind Peek's plan. But, almost two years after the defeat of the first bill, the second one was rejected by Congress in 1926. Soon afterward Wickard was again offered the presidency of the Carroll County Farm Bureau, and in the continually rising stirrings of angry, aggressive farmer partisanship, he accepted it. He felt keenly the indifference of government to his—the farmers'— financial inequality. He suspected that speculators in the Chicago grain pit were skimming off any benefits from price fluctuations. As a hog raiser, he was certain that the meat packing industry was setting pork prices to meet dividend re-

36

Claude

R. Wickard,

Prop.

quirements without the slightest regard for the producer's welfare. Wickard's first move as president of the county Farm Bureau was to set up the Carroll County Farm Bureau Cooperative, a business organization designed primarily to divert the middleman's profits back into the hands of the producers and secondarily to make the producer's voice heard in the marketplace where farm prices were set. The Carroll County Co-op succeeded in most enterprises which it attempted. The Co-op feed and fertilizer stores prospered. Every farmer bought at the same price, strictly cash, and got his rebate at the end of the year. The bulk gasoline stations and the creamery kept themselves out of difficulty by avoiding direct competition and the price wars which most certainly would have followed if the Co-op had tried to buck the big oil and dairy companies. But the Co-op dared not even try. Both gas and butterfat operated at the same wholesale and retail prices as did the private companies, returning a rebate at the end of the year. The attempt at a poultry cooperative in an adjoining county failed miserably in two years, and Wickard and his neighbors lost the money they had in it. On the whole, the Carroll County Cooperative had been successful in that it saved farmers small amounts on what they bought, and paid them slightly more for what they sold. But this did not pay off mortgages and back taxes or materially lower the cost of living. President Coolidge, Secretary of Agriculture Jardine, and Herbert Hoover believed that co-ops were just the thing to save the farmers. Wickard knew it was not so, but at least his Farm Bureau had done something to remedy the situation. It appeared to farmers that no one in government really cared. On February 25, 1927, the third McNaryHaugen Bill passed Congress, only to be vetoed by the President. During the seven years since the postwar price break, Wickard's farm improvement work had shown excellent results. His

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

37

yields were 20 to 25 percent higher than those of neighboring farmers. In one season he surpassed them by as much as 50 percent. Year after year he had won Extension Service awards for his corn fields, which had produced more than one hundred bushels per acre, and for his single hog litters, from which he had raised a ton of pork in six months. He grew both wheat and corn of such quality that his neighbors asked him to withhold part of his crop for seed. Wickard's model barns and pastures were visited annually by Chamber of Commerce tours from nearby towns. Articles began to appear in the Prairie Farmer, one of the most widely read farm papers in Indiana, describing his efficient production, fine crops, and modern farmstead. Wickard had won recognition throughout central Indiana for his work with the Farm Bureau and the co-op. But because of low farm prices, Wickard's debt to his father stood exactly where it had in 1919—totally unpaid. Farming in such a way as to lose as little money as possible had become his chief project. There were certain people who liked to point out every year that they had made some money in farming, but somehow you got the idea that it was just by chance, like the Irish Sweepstakes. You'd hear of a winner someplace in the same township or the same state, but no mention was made of all the people who made investments over a period of years and never had a winner.7 Never before had the dice been so loaded against the farmer. Never before had one part of the country appeared so prosperous while another remained mired on the edge of depression. I was disturbed—genuinely disturbed—by the trend of things, and I think, what was most important of all, my hope began to vanish. I became discouraged with agriculture. We didn't know where we were going. Was it true—was it going to be a national policy that American agriculture approached the level of European agriculture? Oh there was a lot of talk 7

Ibid.,

p. 341.

38

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

about corporation farming as one way to have efficient farming, because the old methods were so obsolete. There were all kinds of suggestions, but by and large, if you read the papers and heard the remarks made, you became convinced that there was a group in this country that thought that the nation would be better off if we had peasantry,8 George Peek had been talking price alone in his "equality" concept. Wickard, and thousands of other farmers, meant much more. They were aware that farming was a highly competitive business. A few realized that it had also become a technical skill. But every single man who ever put out a crop knew that farming was a way of life—the way of the creator who joined his skill and courage with nature to bring life from the soil. The farmer's work was one of immense satisfactions, for he could feel die certaintv • of his existence as a doer and provider more fully than could men in most laboring and white-collar vocations. But this was not enough. A farmer, just as everyone else, needed a feeling of faith and approval from those who lived on his produce, an approval usually demonstrated in capitalist societies by a price covering the cost of production plus a reasonable profit. Yet, in 1927, the farmer was accorded neither price nor profit which would allow rural citizens a standard of living anywhere near equal to that enjoyed in the cities. Against the nebulous forces of apathy, ignorance, and prejudice, the farmer battled for his dignity and self-respect. The Farm Problem was no closer to solution than the equation of man's relation to man. In December, 1927, Claude Wickard received the coveted Master Farmer award. It was a designation made each year to about nine leading farmers from each corn belt state. Sponsored and promoted by the leading farm journals, the nominations for it were made by county agents, the Extension Service, and top professors in agricultural colleges. Selection was based on a point system, heavily weighted on farm s Ihid., pp. 326, 341.

Claude R. Wickard, Prop.

39

management, soil conservation work, and upon the character of the farmer as a husband and father as well as neighbor and good citizen. Receipt of the Master Farmer medal capped many long and distinguished farming careers. The thirty-fouryear-old Wickard, who would have been honored enough by the nomination, was astonished to find himself now publicly acclaimed master of his own back forty. Standing on the night of January 13, 1928, with eight other Master Farmers in the grand ballroom of Lafayette's principal hotel, Claude Wickard was easily the youngest of the group. He would have agreed with Louise, sitting proudly below the stage, watching her husband, that this was another step forward. When the award banquet was eaten and each new Master Farmer was called upon for a short speech, Wickard, for the most part, uttered the sentimental banalities which the occasion demanded. However, he did permit himself one moment of self-revelation when he said: It would be hard for me to describe my gratification of this honor. Perhaps the most pleasing thing about it is that it, in a great measure, establishes me as a success in the eyes of my family. The man who is a failure in the eyes of his wife and children is not in an enviable position.9 * W. Floyd Keepers to Wickard, December 27, 1927, in Wickard Papers; manuscript copy of speech, January 13, 1928, in Wickard Papers.

3: Corn Belt Democrat As American farmers worked alone, depending on their own labor and foresight to supply the wants of their families, they relied more than they realized on their faith that God had His hand on the economic throttle. The Almighty's appalling indifference to their plight in the twenties led them to the inescapable conclusion that His realm was elsewhere, and that their economic destiny must lie within their own grasp. The obvious path to economic control was through political power. And yet the Republican-bred farmers seemed hesitant to force action on their behalf from the GOP. A Democrat in much of the corn belt was as suspect as the village atheist. The older generation had not let their children forget that Rebs and Copperheads were Democrats, that the "Cleveland panic" had occurred under a Democratic administration. But as farm distress deepened, rural people became aware of the vast distance between their land and the halls of government. The gap of party difference closed and farmers began to turn to the only organization which appeared powerful enough to speak for them—the American Farm Bureau Federation. / WAS pretty much the Farm Bureau in Carroll County. 1 had not become a political influence in 1928 in terms of partisan politics. I had in terms of farmer politics. A definite political farm movement had developed, and I was part of it. From the standpoint of farm politics, I was the dominant figure in the county, and Bill Settle recognized me as his lieutenant Short, stocky William Settle was president of the Indiana Farm Bureau and an implacable foe of all who would deprive the farmer of fair prices for his crops. If city folks viewed him 1

Wickard, Interviews, p. 378.

41

Corn Belt Democrat

as a rural rabble-rouser, he yet had a loyal following among the Hoosier yeomanry. In his appearance he caricatured the rustic hayseed. H e was none too careful with his "ain't's" and "them's," and his aim at the spittoon was only so-so. But his energetic table-pounding dramatized rural adversity from the Indianapolis State House to the Washington Capitol. Although his casual dress and errant aim somewhat lessened his effectiveness as a lobbyist, he plowed straight down the only furrow he knew—the McNary-Haugen Bill. Opposed to Settle's single cure-all was the aging figure of Purdue's venerable Dean of Agriculture, J. H. Skinner. Dean Skinner represented the cautious approach of the State Extension Service: that each farmer should work out his own individual economic salvation and not tamper with the Olympian statutes of supply and demand lest freedom and initiative be sacrificed. Purdue's good, gray men of science had discovered through patient research (and their county agents had demonstrated in every township) how two blades of grass could be grown where one grew before. To this Bill Settle would reply that farmers couldn't even sell the first blade and the second was going to b e a drug on the market unless something was done to prop up prices. Claude Wickard supported this thesis. It was apparent among

farm problem tween

to me that there

spokesmen

for farmers

was. Still I maintained

the threat

of loss of liberty,

was real, and some sort of organized economic

situation,

organized

movement.

a conflict.

Most

spoke

farmers.

as

I thought

people

was a lot of

about

what

of

that if I had to choose which

the be-

some people

thought

effort to improve

farmers'

it would

I did not really did

confusion

the source

who spoke

be better believe

to join

that there

as leaders—not

the was who

2

As the 1928 elections neared, Claude Wickard derived considerable satisfaction from President Coolidge's laconic an* Ibid., pp. 386-87.

42

Corn Belt Democrat

nouncement that he did not "choose to run." Early in June, Bill Settle bundled up great stacks of Farm Bureau petitions pledging Hoosier farmers to vote for the party which backed McNary-Haugenism, and took them to Kansas City in hope that the Republican Convention would change its mind about farm relief. But continuance of Prohibition made more political sense to the GOP than a few rural malcontents. Herbert Hoover was nominated for the presidency. The party platform promised great things for nearly everyone, but no liquor for the thirsty and no McNary-Haugen Bill for the fanners. A week later Bill Settle, Claude Wickard, and the Indiana farm delegation, bearing the same piles of petitions, were off to the Democratic Convention at Houston—Wickard with a brand new Gladstone bag, Settle with a genuine com belt Democrat. George Peek and his right-hand man, Chester C. Davis, also came to Houston from the defeat at Kansas City to lead the fight for Democratic endorsement of the McNary-Haugen Bill. Once more liquor outweighed the farm problem in importance, but Peek's insistent harassment of the Resolutions Committee finally gained him a hearing. The result, as Chester Davis exultantly reported it, was that if the Democratic plank was not satisfactory, it was only because Peek and Davis lacked ability to use the English language. With victory almost a certainty, the farmer delegates watched the convention move to its climax. Wickard heard a gaunt, badly crippled former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, nominate Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York for the presidency. Smith, denied the nomination four years earlier, could not be stopped at Houston. The Democrats had rewarded one of the finest men ever to rise in their councils, but the price of their accolade, as Wickard knew with sickening certainty, would be defeat at the November polls. A few hours later, when Smith's message to the convention called for a thoroughly moist equivocation of Prohibition, the farmers saw their triumph reduced to meaningless orator)'. Rural midwesterners might have for-

Corn Belt Democrat

43

saken the Republicans for McNary-Haugen principles, but they would never vote for the repeal of Prohibition—and for a Catholic as well.3 Returning to Indiana, Wickard recognized that his political party had shown little regard for rural problems or sentiments, but his loyalty was as ingrained as his agrarianism. There was no alternative. He believed sincerely that the Democratic Party was the "party of the people" and that the "big interests" played a dominant role among the Republicans. The state Democratic organization placed Wickard on a small agricultural committee, where he would be most effective in the campaign. As he feared, the corn belt effort to elect Al Smith was fought over everything but the party platform. Although rural Democrats did all they could to draw attention from Prohibition and religion back to McNary-Haugenism, it was hopeless. If Al Smith's urban appearance and Tammany Hall following were not enough to defeat him in the midwest, his Roman Catholicism was his undoing. Smith was thoroughly versed on the needs of factory workers and city consumers, but he had not the slightest comprehension of the farm problem. He said what his advisors told him to say. At first he favored surplus control, then he criticized the Equalization Fee, and finally he shuffled off the whole issue by consigning it to a vague group of experts after the election. Hoover, on the other hand, said he would call together a federal farm board to oversee orderly cooperative marketing of crops and to help in "stabilizing" prices. Most farmers believed that while Hoover would never allow Peek's plan to pass, he had an alternative which might work.4 Wherever Wickard went to address groups of farmers he found the same whispered doubts about Smith. His mother returned from a religious conclave to report that a man told * Gilbert C. Fite, George N. Peek and the Fight for Farm Parity (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), p. 207. 'Wickard, Interviews, pp. 411-12.

44

Corn

Belt

Democrat

her he had seen Al Smith drunk on a train in New York. Wickard was responsible for having the rumor traced down, and the man found and questioned. As it turned out, this man had not himself seen Smith drunk, but another man had told him. . . . And so the lies and distortions flew from eastern Ohio to western Nebraska. This whole matter of confusion among the farm people did not tend to increase my optimism about the future of agriculture. I suppose that dotim deep in my heart and mind I was more pessimistic about it than ever before. I remember the night of the election. It was fairly early in the evening that I heard that Mr. Smith was defeated. I remember my wife's tears —openly sobbing—because we didn't have much faith in Mr. Hoover despite his last minute promises. We felt that the organized effort that had been put forth had been lost and that the big corporations were going to continue to dominate the business and the economy of the country Soon after the election several midwestern hog growers, stockmen, and packers organized a pressure group, the National Board on Swine Production Policy, for the purpose of reducing fluctuations in the marketing cf hogs. Wickard arrived in Chicago for the Board's first meeting in April, 1929, and was promptly chosen vice-chairman. His interest in swine policies strayed, however, when he learned he would have the opportunity to meet the famed editorialist of Wallaces' Farmer, Henry Agard Wallace. I was rather surprised to see him so youthful in appearance. He had this heavy shock of sandy hair. 1 was also surprised and somewhat disappointed at his shyness and reticence to speak out plainly. Instead, he said little or nothing at the general meeting. I got the impression that he was a little skeptical of the board either because of its sponsorship or its policies or both. He did indicate to me that he did not think higher tariffs were the answer, and I got the distinct imprcs' Ibid., p. 423.

Corn Belt

Democrat

45

sion that he thought high tariffs were an economic and political evil.9 At the end of the two-day meeting Wallace departed, carrying with him a happy impression of Wickard: "I felt, the first time I met Wickard, that he was going to be a very useful man. He impressed me. I felt that it was really something to have an actual farmer who had a slant of this kind; being able to understand the economic fundamentals of the whole problem and have a liberal attitude that something should be done about it. The typical Republican farmer of Iowa usually didn't think that way." 7 The Swine Board's program came to nothing and Wickard was soon too busy at home to bother with matters outside of Indiana. He was still managing the co-op, keeping up with Extension activities at Purdue, and looking after the farm. From his careful bookkeeping he could see the continued progress in his efforts to reclaim the soil fertility of Fairacre Farms. However, his father's note remained unpaid. Within Wickard's family, the changes were chiefly those brought by time. Jack had given up nearly all farming tasks, spending most of his time running errands for Nora and the family or sitting with his friends in Camden or Flora talking weather and crops. Nora had become "Grandma" to the two little girls who were out playing hide-and-seek in the corn shocks. She baked cookies and knitted sweaters for them, and "baby-sat" on these occasions when Claude and Louise could get off for an evening with friends in Logansport. Louise's adjustment to Fairacre Farms had never been a wholly satisfactory one. Unable to reconcile herself to Nora's disapproval of card-playing, dancing, and those innocuous bangles of enjoyment which she described as "fun," she began to rebel against dreary weekends spent silently in the front room with Jack and Nora. Resolving to restore a little gaiety "Wickard to author, November 21, 1954. ' Henry A. Wallace, Interviews.

46

Corn Belt Democrat

to Claude's life and her own, she enlisted her sister in social conspiracy. Soon thereafter Claude and Louise were spending nearly every Saturday night in Logansport, dining with friends of her sister's, playing bridge, or attending dances. Louise was completely happy with Claude, Betty, and Ann, but behind her excursions to town was the purposefulness of a dutiful wife who visualized a very exciting life far beyond the back forty. As Wickard worked in the fall of 1929, preparing Fairacre Farms for the coming of winter, he thought of the mechanization which had radically altered farm work in the past decade. Loading his hogs into the van of a large Ford truck, he recalled the terrible winters he had spent sledding them over thirteen miles of thin-crusted drifts to Logansport. Corn picking, once a cruel labor which had reduced his hands to bleeding uselessness, now was accomplished by tractor-drawn machines whose whirling cams chewed off an acre of corn ears in less time than it had taken him to strip ten rows. But as Claude Wickard viewed these changes, he viewed them only through the eyes and culture of a midwestern corn-hog farmer Farming was not just farming, nor were farmers all alike. The Texas cowboy, the Georgia cotton chopper, the New Jersey truck gardener, the North Carolina tobacco stripper, the Wisconsin dairy milker, and the freeholder scratching a few acres of hay and potatoes out of New England's hilly moraine were all farmers. But America was too large to breed an average American, much less an average farmer. The farmers' cultural surroundings, the variegated weather and soil in which he labored, and his own competitive economic stake overshadowed a deep-seated spiritual kinship with any but his own particular kind of farmer. Yet all had farms subject in varying degrees to the Farm Problem: their owners and workers could not derive sufficient income from their capital and labor to give them a standard of living comparable to

Corn Belt Democrat

47

that of their fellow countrymen. The Farm Bureau had failed, Peek and Davis had retired from the fight. And, in the winter months of 1929, the men who grew the crops which fed the nation were sitting beside kitchen stoves hopefully reading farm journals and newspapers for word from Washington that President Hoover and his Federal Farm Board would help them. On one of those gray, wintry days Claude Wickard had taken some hogs to the Indianapolis market and was waiting for his check at the stockyards. 1 noticed in the morning paper that Alexander Legge of the Federal Farm. Board was holding a meeting at the Claypool Hotel in downtown Indianapolis that day. I had been rather carefully studying the proposals of the Federal Farm Board, and I was very much interested in the approach that they were going to take.6 American farmers were indeed interested to see what sort of Republican magic could raise farm prices without recourse to the Equalization Fee. Actually, Hoover had not promised to raise prices, only to "stabilize" them, and the passage of the Agricultural Marketing Act in June was the fulfillment of his campaign pledge. The act created the Federal Farm Board, which was to administer the operation of great marketing cooperatives. The cooperatives would be used to purchase and store crop surpluses for the maintenance of farm prices until good times returned to the land. Hoover's Farm Board hoped further to prevent surpluses from piling up by giving farmers "information" on the state of the market, thus "suggesting" that certain crops might be more profitable than others. If a surplus developed despite Hoover's guidance, then his Farm Board cooperatives, in collaboration with processing and distributing corporations, would attend to its "orderly" marketing. Four months after the Board began to function, the Wall Street speculation bubble burst, and farmers, fearing the total • Wickard, Interviews, p. 429.

48

Corn Belt Democrat

collapse of their prices, began selling all their ready produce. At this point, Alexander Legge and his associates started a series of meetings across the country to ascertain means of meeting the changed situation. They had thus arrived in Indianapolis. On this particular morning I got my shoes shined, cleaned my clothes as best I could, parked my truck in the outlying downtown district, and went down to the Claypool Hotel. I found out the meeting was on the top floor of the Hotel. I found that perhaps sixty or seventy people were in the room, in a hall which had a capacity several times that number. I sat down about half-way down the aisle, considerably back of the main body of people. I noticed that several people looked at me rather querulously. Finally a man came up to me whom I did not know and asked me if I were a county agent. 1 said no, I was not a county agent. Then he asked me if I were an employee of the Department of Agriculture, to which I replied that I was just a farmer. He said that I would have to leave the meeting, which I did.6 A month later, in January, 1930, Wickard received a letter from Alexander Legge asking him to meet with the Farm Board group in Chicago. Filing Legge's letter in the waste basket, Wickard thought to himself, "When things were going well, you threw me out. Now that you're in trouble, you send out a call." By then the Farm Board was failing and the farmers were taking it for whatever they could get. In a vain attempt to support grain prices at 90 percent of current levels, the half-billion-dollar Farm Board stabilization fund was poured onto the western prairies with about the same effect as a light summer shower. As prices dropped lower and lower, government bins began to bulge with surplus. President Hoover suddenly found himself, in effect, paying a bonus to farmers for peak production despite the headlong decline of 'Ibid.

Corn Belt

Democrat

49

prices. Within a year the Federal Farm Board ceased support operations—the stabilization funds were exhausted—and the surplus was turned over to the Red Cross for drought and flood relief. With the last hope of government aid gone, farm prices sank to depths unknown in American history. The same hogs Wickard had sold in 1929 for over $9.50 per hundredweight brought him $3.58 by the end of 1931. His corn dropped from 83 cents a bushel to 36 cents. His winter wheat, which in 1929 sold for $1.27, brought in 1931 only 44 cents a bushel. And the bottom was not yet in sight. By the end of 1931 rural distress had become disaster. State and county road bonds defaulted. Bankrupt townships lapsed on teachers' pay and schoolhouses closed. Farm after farm fell into the hands of mortgage and insurance companies, a simple two-line notice in the daily paper footnoting failure and heartbreak: "Closing-out sale. John Jones. On Tuesday, Feb. 24. All my equipment will be sold at auction." President Hoover and his Secretary of Agriculture, Arthur M. Hyde, were not unaware of what was happening to the nation's farmers. In November, 1931, Hyde called a conference on land utilization. Echoing the words of his chief, he cautiously proclaimed a program for the aid of agriculture which, he said, would work "without a raid on our ideas of liberty, property rights and common sense." "The cure for over-production is production balanced to market demand." The means: voluntary control of production through farmerowned and farmer-controlled cooperative associations, and the slow, steady retirement of submarginal lands from use. Wickard agreed with Secretary Hyde in principle. No farmer could hope to make a living from badly eroded, depleted acres. And certainly a reduction of supply to meet demand was the obvious cure for the surplus-diseased farming industry. But no dirt farmer was so ignorant as to assume that removal of farmers from poor lands was any sort of immediate aid to

50

Corn Belt

Democrat

stricken producers, nor that production could be controlled without nationwide planning and direction.10 Unknown to Claude Wickard or millions of other discouraged farmers, the agony of the times was drawing together a new group of men who were searching past experience for bold, aggressive answers to farm distress. John D. Black, a Harvard economics professor, had worked out a system of production controls based on William J. Spillman's little volume called Balancing the Farm Output, in which Spillman suggested that "allotments" of acreage be given to farmers on certain crops. The Farm Board had snorted that the idea was unconstitutional, but Black published his concepts of controlled production in his own book, Agricultural Reform in the United States. Out in Montana a gentle farm economist named M. L. Wilson read Black's book. Thinking primarily in terms of wheat farming, Wilson translated the allotment scheme into a "Domestic Allotment Plan" and came east to promote it. At a meeting of farm economists in Chicago Wilson talked his plan over with many of his old friends and associates from his days in the USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Howard Tolley, Wickard's high school physics teacher, v/as there, as were Mordecai Ezekiel, Louis H. Bean, and young Henry A. Wallace. At Columbia University, Professor Rexford G. Tugwell heard of the deliberations in Chicago and reported them to the "Brain Trust," a small group spearheading the candidacy of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency. At Tugwell's invitation, M. L. Wilson went to Albany and spent several hours explaining his Domestic Allotment Plan to Roosevelt. Wilson told the Governor that it was an emergency measure applicable only to wheat, cotton, hogs, and tobacco. The plan involved a processing tax from which the government would pay each farmer a prorated share on that portion " Ray Lvman Wilbur and Arthur M. Hyde, The Hoover Policies (New York: Scri&ners, 1937), pp. 159-61; Wickard, Interviews, passim.

Corn Belt Democrat

51

of his crops which was headed for the domestic market. Only those farmers were eligible to receive this money who would sign a "production control contract" in which they would agree not to increase production, and if necessary to reduce it. There should be no coercion, and the administration of the plan should be carried on primarily at county and township levels.11 When Wilson returned to Montana, he left in Roosevelt's hands the foundation of American farm policy for the coming two decades. As the Democrats entered the campaign of 1932, the corn belt was in an uncertain political mood. Farm leaders, most of them traditionally Republican, had little taste for a new regime, but they were prepared to shift party allegiance. Whether the farmers themselves were irritated enough to shake their Republican loyalty, none could tell. Certainly Claude Wickard was unsure how Carroll County would vote in 1932. He had been approached two years earlier with the proposal that he run for Congress in the Second Indiana District. Unwilling to undertake what he thought would be a futile contest against William R. Wood, then Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wickard refused. Wood won, but to the astonishment of all, his majority was a scant two hundred votes. Wickard's popularity far surpassed that of the defeated Democratic candidate and he could have beaten Wood. One night in February, 1932, Wickard and a small group of leading Carroll County Democrats met at Delphi, Indiana, in the office of Wayne Coy, editor of the Delphi Citizen. The purpose of the conclave, as Wickard soon discovered, was to entice him once more to run for Congress against Wood, who by this time had gerrymandered the district to prevent a " M. L. Wilson, Interviews; M. L. Wilson, Farm Relief and the Domestic Allotment Plan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1933), pp. 27-28; Russell Lord, The Wallaces of Iowa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), pp. 309-11.

52

Corn

Belt

Democrat

repetition of his last near-defeat. Wickard again refused. He said he knew nothing about politics, and his destitute farmer friends could not be depended on to support his campaign. But he offered Coy an alternative: if the county organization would accept him without a primary fight, he said he would run for State Senator. Within a few days the county leaders agreed. 12 I didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't like politics and never did. I don't like that kind of a game. It gets to be a game. I don't like to be a party to things that you had to be a party to if you're going to be successful in politics. Like all contribution other things, sometimes you've got to make your to your community and to the Democratic Party. It was a positive decision from the standpoint that I had a feeling of responsibility toward my fellow citizens. I felt that I had to do something and I did that. It was a negative decision in that I had to take something and this seemed to be the lesser of all evils that I could see. I could still stay with my farm. I wouldn't get financially involved. Even if I were defeated, the 13 loss wouldn't be great. If Wickard knew little about the political game, he was scon to learn. His candidacy suddenly elevated him to a position where his voice was heard among those fourscore citizens who ran the Indiana Democratic machinery. In April, Paul V. McNutt announced his candidacy for the governorship. His move precipitated a struggle between a patronage-hungry old guard who had kept the flame flickering feebly through twelve lean years and a slightly idealistic younger group which concerned itself more with reform than rewards. McNutt led the youngsters, and Wickard was quick to join them. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the fight for the McNutt slate of state, district, and countv chairmen; and when thev won, he Delphi Citizen, February 18, 1932; Camden News-Record, 18, 1932; Hoosicr Democrat, February 20, 1932. " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 456-57.

February

Corn Belt Democrat

53

betook himself to the state nominating convention with every expectation of being named a delegate to the national convention at Chicago. His enthusiasm for Governor Roosevelt was intense. He was everywhere in the convention talking Roosevelt until he began to discern a coolness to his brash advocacy. Wickard had neglected to ascertain the wishes of "the boss." NlcNutt's opportunism, as much a part of him as his golden voice and vote-winning features, decreed that the Indiana delegation should go to Chicago uninstructed and, furthermore, that the young fellow from Carroll County should not be a delegate. Disappointed but unrepentent, Claude returned to Carroll County to prepare for his senatorial campaign. Another fall arrived; another corn crop matured; but in 1932 the hired men of Fairacre Farms had to see to the task of harvesting. Claude, to Jack Wickard's disgust, was off politicking. Louise, Betty, and Ann had the time of their lives while Claude was running for the state senate. Night after night they climbed into the now old Ford sedan and started out through the chill air to Carroll, Clinton, and White counties. Claude drove and rehearsed his speech, striving to develop originality in presentation, and to deliver a different speech at each stop. Sitting in the back of these frequently gas-lit Masonic halls and country schoolrooms, Betty and Ann would smother their laughter as they learned to mimic the other candidates' addresses. Then they were proud as their own daddy stood up and began to speak. His clipped Hoosier accent was as homey and friendly as the farmer down the road; his weighty earnestness was punctuated by stubby forefinger slapping into outstretched palm, a shy platform smile at the applause.

It was hard work. I didn't relish this thing of trying to go up and talk to people and asking them to vote for me. That was hard work. I didn't ask them to vote for me, but even approaching them—and they knew I was approaching them from a

54

Corn Belt

Democrat

political standpoint—was always a little embarrassing to me, and I was not a very good speaker before a large group.1* On Tuesday night, November 8, 1932, Claude and Louise went to Delphi to wait impatiently as they listened to the election returns. It had been a cold, drizzly day; the rain had turned to light snow by dusk—good Democratic weather. Within two hours of the closing of the polls the Roosevelt landslide was obvious, and the Wiclcards drove to Clinton County to leam of Claude's fate. At Democratic headquarters in Frankfort the party workers swarmed around the Wickards. Shouting and laughing, they seized Claude and bore him on their shoulders to a table. He had run far ahead of both state and national tickets, carrying all three counties. VVickard had won! Roosevelt had won! The Democrats had swept Indiana! Milling about in the marble-columned corridors of the Indiana State House on January 2, 1933, State Senator Wickard found the fifty members he was about to join. Forty-three were Democrats. All but thirteen had served in the Senate before. Few were as inexperienced as Sen. Wickard. Among the first men he met was Frank McHalc, McNutt's campaign manager and the man Wickard considered more responsible than any other for the treachery of sending the Indiana delegation to Chicago without instructions to vote for Roosevelt. A McNutt stalwart made it plain to Wickard that a policy of "playing ball" with the McNutt machine might be wise politically. Wickard failed to understand exactly what was meant by "playing ball," but he responded that, within the bounds of his conscience, he meant to vote with party regularity. McHale and McNutt could receive this as notice that they could not depend completely upon the talents of Claude Wickard. Each day, throughout the two and one-half months' session, Wickard was at his seat in the front row just under the president's dais. And each day brought within his ken new " Ihid., pp. 475-76.

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wonders of the legislative process. He learned that some Senators would "roller skate" on certain bills, that is, be absent when an embarrassing vote was taken. He was aghast to learn that one particularly fine piece of legislation to curb loan shark activities was nothing but a "nuisance bill," designed either to extort money from the bail bond lobby or to create the impression at home that the Senator who introduced it was tilting with his share of windmills. When his party reported "ripper bills" to cleanse the entire executive branch of holdover Republican appointees, Wickard's stomach turned, but he voted for them. Outside the capitol, Wickard found the social atmosphere sometimes a little shocking. Interested in the canning of farm produce, he trustfully accepted an invitation to what he assumed would be an educational meeting put on by the canners' association. I was surprised at the people I found at this place, and I was surprised at the low-brow kind of entertainment. It was wine, women and song, way out at some speakeasy place several miles out of town. I thought it was just going to be an evening, maybe, where we'd have something to eat and there might be some discussion of legislation or something of that kind. Legislation wasn't even suggested!15 Wickard shortly moved his belongings to the Indianapolis Athletic Club, where he discovered much of the real work of the legislature was accomplished. He began associating with older Senators who were interested in passing constructive and progressive legislation. As the session continued, Wickard could be found late each night, alone in his room, rereading bills on subjects about which he knew absolutely nothing and vainly attempting to make sense out of the legal gibberish in which the legislation was written. He was suddenly confronted with the intricacies of taxation, social security, railroad full-crew bills, trucking and railroad rights, and stockholders' 15

Ibid., p. 511.

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liability. Each day the letters poured in—the Marion County Barbers' Association implored him to support a licensing bill, the Frankfort Chamber of Commerce opposed a sales tax, the Nickel Plate Railroad hoped he favored regulation of trucking, and the Izaak Walton League demanded legal restraints on the pitchforking of fish. Wickard had been assigned to important standing committees on Agriculture, Education, and Roads, plus relatively unimportant ones on Congressional Apportionment, Constitutional Revision, Corporations, and Railroads. Agriculture was, of course, his main interest, although much significant farm legislation actually originated in other committees. Wickard was wholly responsible for one bill during the session, and he was co-author of another. The Wickard Bill came out of his work with the Committee on Roads, and it was drawn to reduce loads on trucks using public highways. In Indiana, road construction and maintenance costs were levied on the counties, and Wickard believed that the truckers should either help pay for the roads they were tearing up, or reduce their loads so as to reduce the rapid destruction of Indiana's highway system. It seemed like a fair bill which could not anger anyone. With scarcely any votes against it, the Wickard Bill was reported out of committee and sent to the full senate. Then Wickard arrived back in the State House on Monday morning after a week end on the farm to discover that a dormant trucking lobby had come to life. It seemed as if every truck owner in the state had come to Indianapolis. Indignation meetings were held, money was poured into entertainment for the assemblymen, the mail from the counties reached flood tide. Wickard was not surprised when his bill bogged down in the Assembly, but with his usual bull-headed determination he tried to get it through and went to one of his Senate colleagues for help. His friend took him aside and said, "They weren't voting for the bill. You know that don't you?"

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Wiekard looked at him blankly. "Well, what were they voting for?" "They were voting for you," his friend replied. "These people just admired you and how you'd been helpful and sincere, and when you wanted this, they wanted you to have it. They just voted for you." Suspicion overrode Wickard's acceptance of the compliment. It was beyond him to comprehend that the serious altruism of legislation could hinge on the simple relationships of mortal men. He lost confidence in the passage of his own measure, and soon afterward it died in the lower house. The Veterinary Bill was co-authored by Wiekard. It was drafted to prevent quacks and peddlers in rural areas from gulling farmers into buying "snake-oil" remedies to cure all manner of animal ills from swine abortion to foot rot. In effect, the bill demanded that the vendor of any remedy prove his competency as a diagnostician; i.e., be a veterinarian. The medicine men did not need to come to Indianapolis to protest. Their work in the counties was supremely effective. Farmers from Fort Wayne to Evansville were led to believe that their right to treat their own diseased animals was threatened, and another flood of mail deluged the capitol. I never heard of such an uproar. The people in my three counties protested, called me up, and I was subject to TERRIFIC criticism. The newspapers weren't very kindly disposed because they had a lot of advertisers. So I was just powerless and I couldn't talk fast enough. The bill was defeated, and I was looked upon as a person who had sold out to the veterinarians.18 Wiekard found it extremely difficult to make a decision on the stockholders' liability bill. Promoted by the powerful Frank McHale with the supposed backing of the McNutt machine, the measure provided for the retroactive absolvement from liability of stockholders in banks which had failed. McHale " Ibid., p. 518.

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was the attorney for the First National Bank in Logansport, the bank which had carried away the savings of Wickard's family when it closed its doors in 1931. Having no particular love for stockholders in anything, much less those in the Logansport First National, Wickard wished to vote against the bill. Then he began to fear that people would say he had voted in his own personal interest. McHale called him for conference after conference and subjected him to persuasive pressure. He told him that without such protection people would never again invest in country banks. He said it would take years to unravel bank liability until the stockholders were relieved. Wickard, lacking any knowledge of bank operations and embarrassed by his personal involvement, finally weakened and voted for the bill. His disgust at his own questionable motivation turned into an active dislike of McHale and mistrust of the whole McNutt machine. As invariably happened in state legislative sessions, time ran out before the docket was cleared and the clock had to be turned back. During the final hectic hours, as vote after vote decided the fate of last minute bills, Wickard was surprised when the distinguished old dean of the Senate, Isaac Trent, crossed the aisle and sat down beside him. "Young man," Senator Trent began, "I have something I want to say to you. I've seen a lot of young men come into the Senate, but I've never seen one who had more of my respect than you. I hope you will continue to take an interest in politics because people with your attitude are badly needed." On May 12, 1933, word flashed across the nation that the Agricultural Adjustment Act was law, and curious, uncomprehending groups of fanners began poring over their newspapers and journals to search out meaning from legislative jargon. The preamble of the bill served notice that the government recognized its duty to "relieve the existing national economic

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emergency by increasing agricultural purchasing power." To what level? The word was "parity." Department of Agriculture economists concluded that during the years 1909-14 the prices farmers received for their produce were in balance with the prices farmers paid for what they bought. In those years farmers were receiving their fair share of the national income. This was the parity formula. The act also outlined the means to its end, following closely the model which M. L. Wilson had given to the President many months before. A processing tax would be collected at the factories where raw farm produce became edible food. From the proceeds of the tax each fanner contracting with his government to "adjust" his production would be paid "benefits" on his proportion of the total crop consumed domestically. The new Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, called this the "bait." The Secretary was empowered to license processors and middlemen to prevent unfair business practices, a sort of "club behind the door." Borrowing the best of Hoover's long-range planning, the act allowed the government to use the processing tax money for "renting" crop lands, thus taking them out of production. Secretary Wallace was also given the right to enter into marketing agreements with processors and cooperatives; the same dull instruments with which Hoover's Farm Board so unsuccessfully had attempted to cut down surpluses after their creation. The marketing agreement section of the bill was little stressed by its framers; production control was their chief concern.17 There could be no doubt in any farmer's mind, however confusing the legal qualifications of the act, that "adjusted" production meant adjustment downward. No farmer was overly "Pub. L. No. 10, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. (Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933); Henry A. Wallace, New Frontiers (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1934), pp. 161-78; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 328-34; Kile, The Farm Bureau through Three Decades (Baltimore: Waverlv, 1948), p. 200.

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enthusiastic at the prospect of production control. He had spent thirteen years producing all he could without ever catching up on the mortgage. Now the government asked that he decrease production at a time of even greater uncertainty. Nevertheless, the fanners felt a freshening thrill of hope engendered by the Triple-A. They knew at least that this administration meant to face the horror of the surplus problem, no longer to temporize with it. In June Wickard received a letter inviting him to attend a meeting of farmers and livestock producers in the Claypool Hotel at Indianapolis late that same month. The object of the meeting was to develop a program for Indiana farmers under the new Triple-A act. Arriving on the appointed morning, Wickard found an empty chair half-way back from the stage and eased into his seat just as Chairman Roswell Garst of Iowa rapped on the rostrum for attention. Garst said that his friend, Secretary Wallace, had sent him to Indiana to arouse some interest in the new farm program. He told about the beginnings of other crop programs for controlling the production of cotton, wheat, and tobacco. The Secretary, he added, was disappointed that no one in the corn belt had yet come up with any suggestions for the control of corn and hogs. But a meeting had been planned a week hence in Des Moines, where representatives of all the corn belt states were to gather for the purpose of proposing such a program. He described certain obvious aspects of the corn-hog situation, then he concluded, "Now I think the way to proceed is to see what you want to do, if you want to do anything, and how you want to approach it. The first thing to do is to elect a permanent chairman. I've filled my mission here from Henry Wallace. Now if someone will make a nomination. . . ." There was a voice from the front of the hall: "I nominate Claude Wickard." Another voice: "I move the nominations be closed." There was a second. Garst smiled and called for the vote.

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"It's unanimous then." The deed was done while Wickard was still squirming around in his chair to discover who had nominated him in the first place. As he reached the foot of the stage he glanced at the men sitting in the front row, and there, off to one side, he saw the thin face and mildly twinkling eyes of Dean J. H. Skinner. Climbing up to the platform, Wickard shook hands with Garst and turned toward the audience. "We are glad," said the new chairman, "to have the man from Iowa come to get us interested in this thing. We Hoosiers have always admired the things Iowa has contributed to the nation's welfare. Of course, we aren't willing to admit that they produce any better corn or any better hogs than we do, but we are willing to admit that they produce more and better Secretaries of Agriculture." There were a few smiles and Wickard continued to say that he thought it was time the people of the corn belt asserted themselves and made their contribution toward whatever the administration wanted. Then he opened the meeting for nominations to select the seven men who should attend the sessions at Des Moines. Once more the same voices spoke their seemingly rehearsed lines. Wickard, Dean Skinner, Pete Lux, Marshall Vogler, and Perry Barker were swiftly chosen. The remaining two were nominated haltingly, as though they were not part of the same act. Wickard knew nothing further about Skinner's plans when he and the Dean drove to Iowa on July 17. Early the following morning the Des Moines meeting was opened by its chairman, Dr. A. G. Black, former professor of agricultural economics at Iowa State, presently the chief of the Corn-Hog Section of the Triple-A. After a three-hour discourse by a Department of Agriculture economist on why farming was a sick industry and an hour of fire-eating by a Milo Reno Farmers Union advocate of outright price-fixing to cure those ills, it was nearly noon. As the group started to break up for lunch, someone handed Wickard a note saying that Dr. A. G.

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Black would like to see him. He made his way to the platform to find Dr. Black surrounded by questioners. Black said he could not talk to Wickard at the moment, but that he would get in touch with him during the afternoon session. When the meeting reconvened, the delegates decided that a "National Corn-Hog Committee of Twenty-five" should be selected to devise a corn-hog program. Each state delegation retired to an adjoining room to name their delegates. Indiana had been allotted one member of the Committee. As the sevenman Hoosier group debated over which one of them should serve, it became apparent to Wickard that this was the fight for which Dean Skinner had so carefully chosen the contestants. With Wickard abstaining, Skinner, Barker, Vogler, and Lux outvoted the others and Wickard was elected to speak for all the fanners in the State of Indiana on the Committee of Twenty-five. As soon as the decision was reached, Wickard left the group. He was walking back toward the hall when he met Dr. Black. As they stopped to speak, Black said the reason he could not talk with Mr. Wickard earlier was that he had to see him privately. Since they had a few minutes now, perhaps they could discuss the matter. Wickard agreed. Black said that he had been looking for an assistant to help him in the Corn-Hog Section of the Triple-A and Wickard's name had been suggested. Would Mr. Wickard be interested? "I don't have any idea what the assignment is," replied Wickard. "Does it mean that I have to go to Washington?" "Yes," said Black. "I have too many interests here in Indiana. I can't very well go to Washington. What would the salary be?" "Six thousand dollars." Black watched Wickard's face. "Of course there is an economy cut of 15 percent, so you wouldn't be getting over five thousand." Wickard thought about that for a few seconds. It sounded quite large in terms of salary as well as in terms of position. "What would I have to do?"

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"Help develop a program and explain it to groups of rural people." "Well, I don't know whether I've had too much experience along that line. When would I be expected to take the job?" "Right away. Immediately." "Oh, I can't do it immediately! I would like a few days to talk it over with my wife and think about it." "Well," said Black, "you're coming to the meeting next Saturday in Chicago. Will you have word for me then?" Wickard made a few more protests and consented. The two men shook hands. As Wickard turned to leave, Black stopped him. "By the way, did you ever have ancestors who voted the Democratic ticket?" Wickard smiled. "I've never had any ancestors that didn't, as far as I know. Why?" "It might be helpful if you could somehow identify some of your relations with the Democratic ticket." Suspicion edged Wickard's voice. "What do you mean? Why do you say that?" "Well," said Black hastily, "I didn't know what your politics were and that question might be asked sometime." "You didn't know what my politics were! What ticket do you think I was elected on?" "Elected to what?" "Why," said Wickard, "I'm a member of the Indiana Senate!" Henry Wallace himself had urged Black to hire Wickard, but he had failed to tell Black of Wickard's rank in Indiana. Perhaps Wallace had not known it either. In any case, it was now obvious that Mr. Wickard was possessed of talents which would be remarkably useful in putting over the administration's new farm plan. Black told Wickard he would see him in Chicago, and left. 18 The business of the Des Moines meeting was concluded that afternoon with the organization of the Committee of Twentyfive and the election of Earl C. Smith, president of the Illinois " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 593-95; Wallace, Interviews.

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Agricultural Association (Farm Bureau) as chairman. The members voted for a meeting on July 24 and 25 to propose a program for presentation to the Corn-Hog Section of the Triple-A. The following day Wickard, Perry Barker, and Dean Skinner set out in Wickard's Ford for Indiana. With Barker along, Wickard was hesitant to reveal his conversation with Dr. Black. Seated taciturnly beside him, Dean Skinner watched Claude for some sign which would reveal the result of a letter Skinner had written to Dr. Black several weeks before: On your inquiry of somebodv who might come to Washington to assist you in the administering of a corn-hog program, I would like to suggest Claude Wickard. 1 9 " Wickard, Interviews, p. 597.

4: The Little Pigs The agricultural legacy of the Hoover administration was chaos. Six-cent cotton had prostrated the entire south. Western wheat piled into three times the normal carryover without takers at 32 cents per bushel. Oats had dropped to 15 cents a bushel—less than the final cost of marketing. In Iowa it was cheaper to burn 19-cent corn for fuel than it was to feed it to pigs which brought only $2.92 per hundredweight.1 Relatively fewer people voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election than voted against Hoover's unwillingness to act. This was especially true among farmers. The New Deal was born of a need for action. Only in government remained the power for action on a scale massive enough to overcome the inertia of hopelessness. Roosevelt came to the White House with no panaceas ready for instant operation to cure the evils of the economy or of society. He came prepared only to act— to do something, anything, that would set the machinery going again. The new President understood the acuteness of rural distress. "The economic turn," he said, "means nothing less than the shadow of peasantry over six and one-half million farm families." He knew that "in meeting the immediate problems of distress it is necessary to adopt quick-acting remedies." But he was vague as to the means of doing so beyond his threepoint program to reorganize the Department of Agriculture, reduce farm taxes, and devise an effective land-use policy. 1 Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates, USDA. All other farm price and production statistics in this book are from Agricultural Statistics, which is published annually by the Government Printing Office in Washington.

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Roosevelt saw the surplus problem primarily in relation to the tariff.2 As Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace pointed out, America must choose between economic isolation and economic internationalism—between producing only such food as could be consumed at home, and exporting the agricultural surplus by lowering tariff barriers so that the United States could import a dollar's worth of goods for every dollar's worth it sent abroad. Wallace favored a middle course, and he did all he could to further the Reciprocal Trade Agreements. Meanwhile, he realized better than the President that price-killing farm surpluses had to be reduced.3 Essentially there were only two approaches to the problem of surplus. The first was to prevent a surplus from being grown by controlling production. The second was to buy the surplus and sell it for whatever it would bring. In both cases the federal government was perforce overseer and agent, and the AAA act had empowered the Department of Agriculture to do either. If production control were to be used, a processing tax would be collected; from the proceeds of this the farmer would be paid for not growing as much produce as he had been growing. If marketing agreements were to be used, the government would negotiate a price-fixing agreement between the farmer and the processor oa all produce which could be eaten in America. The government could then undertake to sell the surplus abroad for whatever some foreign importer would pay for it.4 Hoover's ill-starred Farm Board had proved the fallacy of attempting to dispose of surpluses after tley had been created. But farmers, still unaware that greater production did not 'Franklin D. Roosevelt, Looking Forward (Vew York: Day, 1933), pp. 125-36. * Henry A. Wallace, "America Must Choose," World Affairs Pamphlet No. 3, Foreign Policy Association and World Peice Foundation, 1934. 4 Edwin G. Nourse, Marketing Agreements tnder the AAA (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1935), passim; Cris V. Wells, Interviews.

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necessarily mean greater income, hated the whole concept of production control. And worse, the idea of cutting food production at a time when there were ten million unemployed and poorly fed Americans was difficult for most people to understand. Who was there to explain that the American economy was geared to scarcity—that its continued functioning depended on the distribution of all goods produced, not to those who needed them, or to those who simply wanted them, but only to those who could pay for them? Industrial production had long been set to meet the probable demand. The only way to register "demand" in a capitalistic economy was with cash in hand. And the amount of cash necessary to constitute this demand was the amount asked by a manufacturer whose production schedules were devised to supply only that market which could pay his price—a price which he maintained by creating a scarcity of his product. Agriculture had already begun to fashion its own scarcity economy. Claude Wickard met with the National Corn-Hog Committee of Twenty-five in Chicago's staid old Union League Club on July 24, 1933. Before the committee was the problem of raising prices. Behind them were the precedents already set by the Department of Agriculture in other commodities. Many city milk prices had been fixed by marketing agreements. Wheat, largely controlled by nature in a current drought, was to be further controlled by a 20 percent future reduction in acreage. The control of cotton had been more difficult because the crop was by now in the ground, and a three-year supply was stored in southern warehouses. The problem faced by the Committee of Twenty-five was complicated by the interdependence of corn and hogs. Very little corn was popped, roasted, or made into breakfast cereal. Most of it was consumed by hogs and other livestock right on the farm where it was grown. For this reason, to control one they had to control the other. Moreover, the Committee of Twenty-five was confronted with the same dilemma as the

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cotton growers. The crop, so to speak, was already planted. Millions of small pigs, like millions of sprouting cotton plants, would be ready for the fall harvest; but, when fall came, there would be no market for them. Corn had been cheap and almost the total supply was going into hogs. Lard exports had fallen drastically. Destitute Americans in the cities could scarcely afford sowbelly, let alone ham. What should be done? Suddenly, hog raiser John Wilson of Bowling Green, Ohio, interrupted. He said he understood as well as the next hog breeder how difficult it was going to be to solve the question of a long-range corn-hog program. But, he pointed out, something had to be done with the spring pig crop. Wilson's suggestion was that, like cotton, it should be "plowed under." The pigs should be slaughtered now and the meat distributed to the needy through the Red Cross. Wilson's idea made sense to Wickard. At first I could tell that several people were startled by it. It seemed to be a little drastic I guess. It never occurred to me it was drastic. The only thing that was in my mind was, How effective is this in doing what we have been thinking about? I didn't think about killing the pigs. They were going to be killed sometime. You killed them at the most opportune time. Everybody did that. That's what you raised them for. It never occurred to me there was anything wrong about it or that anybody would get emotional about it.5 No tears were shed then in the Union League Club over the plight of the little pigs. The committee of twenty-five practical farm citizens agreed that production should be cut as the initial emergency step in the corn-hog program, and with that they departed for their homes. While in Chicago, Wickard had accepted Black's invitation to work in Washington. Louise had not been surprised. "Oh I knew it was going to come sooner or later," she said. Certainly she thought he should take the job! They had two good e

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 6 0 7 - 8 .

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men to handle farm chores, and Jack was active enough to resume some work. For three hurried days at the end of July VVickard went about the farm with his father, telling him what was being done in each field and something of the idiosyncrasies of the hired men. On Sunday, the 30th, Claude and Louise drove from Fairacre Farms to Indianapolis where Wickard caught the train for Washington. I hated to leave home and I hated to leave my wife and children. Then, after I was on the train, I began to wonder if I had not made a mistake after all, and my spirits were pretty low, and I grieved about it quite a little, wondering why I had made up my mind so hastily and whether it was the proper thing to do. I guess I was thinking about the family and the farm, and 1 was not at all clear about what I was supposed to do when I got to Washington, but I kept saying to myself, Well, it will only be a short time. It won't be too long until I can come back and I should quit worrying about it. But, nevertheless, I was depressed.8 Arriving in Washington early the next morning, Wickard checked into the Harrington Hotel and went at once to meet Dr. Black in the Department of Agriculture. Black took him first to the Secretary's office. Henry Wallace stood cordially behind his desk and offered his hand. "Claude," he said, "do you think the corn belt farmers will be agreeable to reducing their production of corn and hogs?" Wondering which side of the question Wallace favored, Wickard stammered without any conviction that if it were necessary he thought they would be. But before he could say any more the interview had ended and Black led him back to the Corn-Hog Section office. After lunch Black and Wickard called on Chester Davis, Assistant Administrator of the Triple-A. Remembering Davis from the Houston convention, Wickard could not help noticing the toll taken by his years of fighting for McNarv-Haugenism. A man of shrewd mind and enormous administrative ability, •Ibid., pp. 611-12.

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Davis evoked the deepest loyalties of those with whom he worked. And yet, beneath his warm, affable exterior was the contained, explosive quality of a man whose inner tensions could erupt periodically against the goads of their aspiration. His judgments, guided by circumspect practicality and rendered in quick certainty, were usually a tempered mixture of fairness and justice. But before him stood an Indiana farmer who was a Wallace appointee, a Democrat, and a presumed expert on corn and hogs. That this farmer should be given $6,000 a year was out of the question—his salary would be $5,000 less the 15 percent economy cut. Wickard protested. Davis said he was sorry. Wickard replied that he did not believe he could accept the position. Black hastily thanked Davis for the pleasant interview and firmly conducted his charge out the door. For an hour Black soothed the irate Wickard, pointing out that soon the 15 percent cut would be restored, that he would be traveling frequently and could return to his farm about once a month. While the money itself was important to Wickard, he lelt deeply Davis's implied lack of confidence in him, and he dreaded writing Louise of his lowered status. Finally Black's suasions calmed him enough to make the last call of the day to see Julien Friant, Jim Farley's personal Democratic Party representative in the Department of Agriculture. There Wickard learned about the possible efficacy of political endorsements from his state chairman and one of Indiana's senators. This was somewhat embarrassing to Wickard, because the state chairman was at odds with the McNutt machine and old Senator Van Nuys was antagonistic to both. However, Wickard began paving the political way for his appointment to the Department. Four days passed in humid impatience. Washington was hot. The hotel was hot. Time hung heavily on Wickard's hands. He window-shopped in stores carrying the Blue Eagle of the NRA. He rode the Senate subway. He saw a movie and ate in a sea-

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food restaurant. Then, on the 3d of August, he wrote to Louise: Well I guess I am in Washington for some time. At 6 o'clock this evening I was told to report for work in the morning. Mr. Friant and I have gotten to be real friends, and he seems to think I am a real politician.7 Friant was hard to convince that there was such a thing as a corn belt Democrat, and not until he saw Wickard's "star endorsement" did he believe it. Even Governor McNutt had sent in a good word. The astonished Wickard never disabused Friant of his overblown opinion of Wickard's political prowess. It was not long before it was being whispered around the Department that Wickard was a "political appointee." He did not care. Although this job had certainly sought him, for many reasons he had every intention of making good at it. Reporting for work the following morning, Wickard was immediately plunged into a series of conferences with the meat packers who had hastened to Washington after hearing that millions of pigs might be slaughtered. It was heavy going for a Carroll County fanner. Arrayed against the government were such powerful men as Thomas Wilson of Wilson & Co., and W. W. Woods of the American Institute of Meat Packers. For the Department were Black and Wickard, economist Mordecai Ezekiel, and Triple-A Administrator George Peek. I must get to bed soon for I find that 1 have to keep my wits sharp at all times to keep up with this gang and then to battle against various interests such as the packers and their high priced attornies.8 On August 18, Secretary Wallace proclaimed the slaughter of four million pigs and one million piggy sows. Although it was strictly an emergency measure, no one was prepared for the public outcry. Misconstrued by the Republican press and the gullible animism of the American people, what farmers ' Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, August 3, 1933, in Wickard Papers. 'Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, August 6, 1933, in Wickard Papers.

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deemed a simple restriction of output to raise prices became the horrendous murder of porcine mothers and children. That the pork was destined for relief distribution meant nothing. That the livelihood of thousands of hog raisers and their families depended upon the higher prices was overlooked. It was most foul, bloody murder. In the meantime, Wickard had been working night and day to arrange for abbatoirs to handle the slaughter, revising government contracts to pay for it, continuing to chair the endless packer-producer meetings and conferences. Unused to long hours of high-pressure office work, Wickard's irritation increased. Worse, he discovered after two weeks of this turmoil that he was not yet on the government payroll. In a gloom of despondency Claude wrote to Louise:

If it were not for all the publicity that I have gotten around home I sometimes think I would tell them to take the job and go to the dickens. I'm not sure I'm going to like this work because I am just not accustomed to having to ask about six people if I should do something, and then I get so tired of waiting in some office to see somebody. If I were not an assistant it would not be so bad, but no one wants to see an assistant. They want to see the chief. I am accustomed to running the show and not being run. Everyone is just fine to mc and I have heard that I was getting on allright. But if I didn't get so tired on the farm I believe I would be better satisfied there. The glamour of Washington soon wears off and you are one of thousands of people here who are just government employees. You can bet I would like to see you, the kids, the pigs, the cattle, the green fields, all of which are mine and the best in the world.9 Out of the struggle to hasten the processing of his appointment papers, Wickard began to sense the rapidly developing cleavage of viewpoint within the Department. At first it was ' C l a u d e Wickard to Louise Wicltard. August 11, 1933, in Wickard Papers.

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difficult to ascertain the lines of conflict from the side remarks and innuendoes he heard. Dr. Black warned him to say nothing of a "confidential nature" in front of Guy C. Shepard, who administered meat for the Triple-A in an adjacent office. The delay in Wickard's appointment seemed somehow due to a coolness between the men in George Peek's office and the Secretary of Agriculture. From Wickard's lowly station as an assistant, the eddies and crosscurrents of discord slowly began to take form. Action and change were the key concepts of the early New Deal, and the shock of both on old-line government agencies caused confusion and conflict. Perhaps fearing too much disruption, the President wisely organized such purely emergency action agencies as the National Recovery Administration and the Civil Works Administration independent of Cabinet departments. To Interior he granted the Public Works Administration, but that was a time-honored action simply done on a larger scale than ever before. Straight into the vitals of the Department of Agriculture, however, Roosevelt lodged the Triple-A. Henry A. Wallace ran the Department of Agriculture. In the first six months of the New Deal, except for the intrusion of the AAA, the Department had changed little since the Harding years when Wallace's father had been Secretary. Ir was still a tremendous Washington beehive of nearly six thousand clerks, technicians, and office managers dispensing farm bulletins and crop reports. These people were, for the most part, career civil servants, dedicated to doing the best job they could and holding their positions in the midst of great uncertainty. They loyally performed the same tasks under Wallace that most of them had under the Republican administrations. They attended to the personnel and financial housekeeping of the department, looked after the library, Experiment Stations, Extension Service, Weather Bureau, Food and Drug and Grain

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Futures administrations, bureaus of Public Roads and Home Economics, and the many scientific research bureaus. The remaining bureau of the Department, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), had been established by Henry Wallace's father to operate as a research agency. The first chief of the BAE had been also one of the first agricultural economists; intense, quick-minded, rebellious Dr. Henry C. Taylor. In his zeal for better statistics on farm management, Dr. Taylor worked closely with such economists as Howard Tolley, O. C. Stine, Mordecai Ezekiel, and Louis H. Bean. Innocently disclaiming the slightest intent of "action," BAE researches produced the Outlook Reports, which forecast probable production for the coming year; price indexes, upon which the parity formula was based; submarginal land researches, and finally the figures and theorizing surrounding much of the work of Spillman and Black on "allotments." Quietly proud of its aggressively effective results, the BAE was in truth the first of the action agencies. But with the coming of the Triple-A, it subsided unhappily into research status, remembering days of past glory. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration was a burgeoning giant which threatened, not entirely by accident, to engulf the Department of Agriculture. By the time of Wickard's arrival in Washington, it had nearly the same number of workers as the balance of the department. From the point of view of the public, educated primarily by newspapers and "news" magazines, the AAA was the Department. Before the AAA legislation had been enacted by Congress, Wallace was casting the parts in the farm drama. To George Peek went the title role; there was no other choice. Behind Peek loomed the nebulously powerful figure of Bernard M. Baruch, and thereby the clearly powerful influence of several Democratic Senators from the Democratic southern cotton states. Moreover, due to Peek's courageous fight in the 1920s for McNary-Haugenism, he commanded a vast segment of pub-

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lie and farmer loyalty, thus adding many more Congressmen to his support. Finally, Peek had conducted both the 1928 and 1932 Democratic Party campaigns in the corn belt. Having been passed over as Secretary, he could not be denied administratorship of the AAA, even though his appointment spelled trouble for Wallace. So long had Peek directed the play, it had become impossible for him to accept new rules or the facile young actors who had come on the scene. Determined to run his own show, he beguiled himself into believing he had direct administrative access around Wallace to the President. Marketing agreements were the cornerstones of George Peek's policy. Repeatedly he stated his one-sided interpretation of the AAA: "I'm going to try like hell to raise farm prices." Although times had changed since he wrote "Equality for Agriculture," Peek had not. If McNary-Haugenism's two price system, foreign dumping, and marketing agreements were good enough for the twenties, they were good enough for the thirties. For his co-administrator he chose Charles J. Brand, author of the first McNary-Haugen Bill. At the control of his production agency he placed Chester C. Davis. He named General William I. Westervelt of Sears, Roebuck and Company to run the distribution side. Peek outlined seven commodity sections: Cotton, Meat, Milk, Rice, Tobacco, Wheat, and Corn-Hog. In all but the latter two he placed men who upheld marketing agreements. Wallace intervened significantly in choosing M. L. Wilson to run the Wheat Section and Al Black to handle the Corn-Hog Section. Had Peek been able to staff the rest of the Triple-A with men sympathetic to his view, the actions of the new agency would have differed little from those of Hoover's old Farm Board. But such was definitely not the intention of either Roosevelt or Wallace. Wallace saw the Triple-A as a piece of social machinery—something to help restore balance between major producing groups—and, little as he liked it, he was temporarily committed to production control until foreign

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markets could be reopened. As if to insure the injection of wholly new agricultural planning, President Roosevelt had asked Wallace to accept as his Assistant Secretary a charter member of the original Brain Trust, Columbia University economics professor Rexford G. Tugwell. Wallace and Tugwell clicked immediately. Tugwell's urbane intellect was a sharp stimulant to Wallace's oftentimes speculative reasoning. Operating with the efficiency of a Comptometer, Tugwell's mind instantly dissected any problem into such perfectly polished components that their relationship was obvious. For pure policy, Tugwell was excellent; and, in line with New Deal thinking, his orientation was toward seeing greater democratic participation for the economically disfranchised. At Wallace's insistence, the Agricultural Adjustment Act provided for a separate Triple-A Legal Division and an innocuous little office called the Consumers Counsel. To direct the work of the Legal Division, Wallace and Tugwell chose an extraordinary able New York lawyer, Jerome N. Frank. Jerome Frank was volatile, excitable, and passionately interested in the use of legal interpretation as a means of achieving the social and economic rehabilitation of those farmers at the base of the economic ladder—the sharecroppers and tenant farmers, particularly of the south. Into the Legal Division Frank drew a fraternity of lawyers who were amenable to this goal. To George Peek's double dismay, not only was his Legal Division bent on pursuing a social objective instead of Peek's own practical goal of raising farm prices, but none of Frank's lawyers had anv greater contact with farmers than that offered by the corner grocery store. Peek wanted no part of Frank's reformers, but every decision Peek made had to pass through their hands en route to the Secretary. To the Consumers Counsel, designed by Wallace to speak for the price rights of the consuming public, came still another group of nonagrarian economists and humanitarians. Under the direction of Fred Howe, a Tom Johnson reformer of the

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old school, their leading spirit was lovable, quixotic Gardner (Pat) Jackson. The primary mission of the Consumers Counsel as Jackson saw it was to reduce the profit margins of the middlemen, the packers and distributors of agricultural produce— the very men with whom Peek sought to reach marketing agreements. Pat Jackson agreed with Peek that farm prices must be raised. But, directly opposed to Peek, he intended to make sure that increased farmer income did not come out of the pockets of the consumers. In this aim the Consumers Counsel found ready assistance from the Legal Division. By the fall of 1933 the infuriated Peek found himself powerless to prevent the effective operation of the Frank-Jackson cabal, for its leadership rested in the man who was close friend and confidant of both Roosevelt and Wallace, Rex Tugwell. The Department of Agriculture prepared to undertake many kinds of "action," but, as Claude Wickard soon realized, it was so cross-cleft by ideological and personal differences that it was remarkable that any cohesive program emerged at all. Wallace and Peek were fighting for administrative control of the AAA. They disagreed as to whether production control or marketing agreements were the means to ameliorate farm distress. Beneath them were combatant groups of farmeragrarians who were deeply suspicious of Tugwell's city lawyers and their reforming urges. And yet the agrarians were by no means united behind either production control or marketing agreements, for among them were such dirt farmers as Wickard, whose inordinate mistrust of big business processors tended to ally him with the ill-understood goals of the urban liberals. Wickard turned for leadership first to the soundness of his own common sense, and beyond that to his fast-growing faith in Henry Wallace. It was rightfully assumed by all the men in the Corn-Hog Section that Secretary Wallace would have a great personal interest in their work. He had hand-picked the two top men, Al Black and Claude Wickard. Black had been an economics

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professor at Iowa State College, Wallace's alma mater. Wickard was continually puzzled by the relationship between Black and Wallace, or between Black and anyone else for that matter. Al Black was a close-mouthed, unhappy little man, incapable of expressing the slightest warmth of emotion. Inexpressibly lonely behind his steel-rimmed glasses and formidable title, only rarely did he reveal that he wished it were otherwise. Wickard would hear it as a joke from one of the secretaries that once she had seen Dr. Black smile. He was as meticulously accurate in his work as he was neat in his appearance. But, to his sorrow, he was no great inspiration to his own staff, commanded little following in the Triple-A, and no loyalty whatsoever among the farmers. As a result, his contact with everyone but Wallace was largely through Wickard and the other men in the section. The next man under Wickard in Black's office was economist Gerald B. Thome. Jerry Thome was an amiable bachelor, unruffled by the vexations of government administration, with a cynical cheerfulness that made him easy to work with. Well versed in a bloodless kind of economic thinking, he never knew what it meant to have a social conscience. Wickard's impassioned aggressiveness on behalf of fanners was incomprehensible to Thome. Nevertheless, the two men worked well together, and, between them, they drew Black's staff into a functioning team. Although finally on the Department payroll, Wickard at times had terrible doubts of his ability to hold his job. His work in the Com-Hog Section alternately blew hot and cold in direct relation to his tenuous morale. He felt himself surrounded by young economists and "brain trusters" whose glib sophistication and quick repartee undid him. They became impatient with Wickard's ponderous, steam-roller kind of mind because it could not keep pace with their agility. Soon, however, they became aware that while Wickard's learning was a laborious process, once the lesson was comprehended it was

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never forgot. He had excellent powers of discrimination, culling for digestion only the real meat of what he studied. It was never for want of ample mental faculties that Wickard felt his inability to compete, only the same dread sense of inferiority which had been his great beast since Flora High School. He confided all this in his nightly letter to Louise. I suppose it is because I am too slow to get things. All forenoon I did nothing. Yesterday I did very little. I did not want to say anything to Dr. Black because he has enough troubles. But he knew that I wasn't in a very good humor at noon. Tonight he asked me if I could find enough to do. I said at times I did not. He then told me a story which was to illustrate the thing he wanted to say—that it was up to me to find something to do and prove myself indispensable. All this is pretty difficult when you don't know much about anything. But it is a challenge to me and I am going to try real hard for a few months to do it and if I can't then I will get out and know that I am just a farmer who doesn't have to be so brilliant and full of ideas.10 Wallace and Dr. Black did not know much about anything at this point either. The little pigs had started coming to market. On August 23, six slaughterhouses were authorized to receive them. Two days later these markets were flooded in a glut of tiny shoats which no fence could hold. Scampering out of the stockyards, they ran squealing through the suburbs of Omaha and Chicago. Built for the stout bristles of a fullgrown hog, packing plant dehairing machines fouled quickly with the relatively light hair of the piglets. Many of the little animals had to be sent to tankage—ground up for fertilizer. That was a good idea until storage facilities for tankage were overrun and some of the ground-up porkers ended up in the Mississippi River. The public was alternately horrified at the means and convulsed with laughter at the results. Peek washed 10 Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, August 17, 1933, in Wickard Papers.

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his hands of the whole affair, leaving Wallace to face the reporters' gibes. The slaughter of the little pigs had met with some success. Its purposes were to get money into the hands of hog fanners to tide them over the winter months, to raise current hog prices, and to reduce the production of pork for the coming year by killing off the piggy sows. The government achieved its first purpose. The pig campaign had cost $33 million, over 90 percent of which went to the farmers. The second purpose was a doubtful success. Hog prices did rise slightly, due more to the President's currency inflation and a variety of other factors than to the hog slaughter. The third purpose failed. Six and one-half million pigs were slaughtered, but only 220,000 of them were piggy sows. What happened to the little pigs? Within one month they had been transformed into a million pounds of dry salt meat which was distributed to the needy; twenty-two million pounds of grease and eight million pounds of lard which were sold in commercial channels; and about twelve and one-half thousand tons of tankage, three fifths of which was thrown away. 11 Failure then? Not entirely. The little pig episode had dramatized, as nothing on earth could have, the misfortune of corn belt people. An emergency program from the outset, it brought clothes and fuel to thousands of farmers who would have had a most difficult winter. Furthermore, it served to "break the ice" between the farmer and his government. From September of 1933 on, farmers became more receptive to the idea of production control as a means of raising farm prices. Meanwhile, Louise had come to Washington for a visit and returned. Claude had worked nearly every evening and it hardly seemed as if she had been in the capital at all. Louise *' D. A. Fitzgerald, Corn and Hogs Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1934), pp. 23-49; Wells, Interviews; D. A. Fitzgerald, Interviews; Tolley, Interviews; Theodore Saloutos and John D. Hicks, Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West, 19001939 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1951), pp. 476-77.

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liked Washington, but Claude shook his head. Not yet. He was still too uncertain of himself. Louise went back to Indiana, but not back to the farm. She found a small apartment in Logansport and moved there with the girls so that they could attend school in town. For a second time, on September 21, 1933, the Committee of Twenty-five met in Chicago's Union League Club. To meet with them came the presidents of the great packing houses, the staff of the Triple-A Corn-Hog Section, Chester Davis, Jerome Frank, and Secretary Wallace. They were there to decide whether corn and hogs should be handled by a subsidized agreement with the packers or a production control agreement with the producers. It was rumored that Henry Wallace had come to Chicago with a packer agreement in his pocket, ready for signing. The Secretary, slumped in his chair, listened quietly through the first day of debate, then late into the second afternoon. Suddenly, without even bothering to clear his throat, Henry Wallace rose from his chair, said he had to catch his train, and walked out the door. The packer agreement had lost, but production control had not yet won. Wickard's estimate that it was a "partial victory" was confirmed two days after he returned to Washington when Peek's co-administrator, Charles J. Brand, resigned.12 The temporary scuttling of the packer agreement left a great gap in Triple-A planning, for the Corn-Hog Section had not yet come up with another program. As soon as they returned from Chicago, Dr. Black appointed a committee to draw up a plan for the controlled production of corn and hogs, and he named Wickard head of it. To Wickard's mind, any agricultural planning began with soil conservation, but he had to discard these concepts because there was as yet no way to finance such a program, nor could it be done until farm output was u Wickard, Interviews, p. 659; Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, September 22, 1933, in Wickard Papers.

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first mastered. The problems of controlling corn and hogs were labyrinthine. The committee started out trying to control either corn or hogs. They ended up with a plan, based upon the processing tax, to control the production of both. By calculating a base acreage and farrowing for each farmer contingent upon the bushels of corn grown and number of hogs sold the previous year, the government would pay a sum of money (a benefit payment) to each farmer for a 20-25 percent reduction below that base. This plan was essentially Wickard's, and, while it was full of "bugs," it was, nonetheless, the first workable suggestion to come out of the Corn-Hog Section. By mid-October, Wickard and his committee had ironed out the worst kinks in their plan and sent it to the Secretary for approval. A few days passed. The silence from the front office was appalling. Then came the sudden announcement. Wallace called in the reporters. With George Peek present, the Secretary gave then an off-hand disparagement of the marketing agreement philosophy and proclaimed a production controlled Corn-Hog program for 1934. Peek was livid. The loss of corn and hogs from marketing agreements did not gall him nearly so much as his administrative humiliation. He never understood that his approach to the problems of the 1930s was out of step with that of the President. He thought that Wallace was being gulled by a few "urban liberals" within the Department, while right-minded people everywhere still saw things as Peek saw them. While the AAA Administrator fulminated in his office against the "collectivism" of Tugwell and Frank, assuming that his only opposition came from them, Claude Wickard struck another blow at the ancient regime by adapting his corn-hog plan to M. L. Wilson's democratic concept that fanners should run their own program. He felt the corn-hog program would be in unsympathetic hands if turned over to the nearly 100 percent Republican State Extension Services. Moreover, it was certain that unless the farmers policed crop reductions them-

Us DA photographs by

Secretary of Agriculture Wickard tours the family farm in Carroll County, Indiana. Above: with his father, Andrew Jackson Wickard. Right: a pause beside the corn crib.

Mitchell

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selves because of faith in the program, no amount of government control could prevent chiseling and black-marketing. Wickard knew that his own success as a farm leader was based completely on his calloused hands and practical knowledge of agriculture—the credentials of a real dirt farmer. Only a farmer could lead a farmer. Perhaps I painted with a rather broad brush, but the point I had in mind was that farmers are pretty quick to sense the difference between somebody who is enthusiastic about something and believes in it, and somebody who is doing it as a part of his profession, so to speak.13 By the first of December, the Wallace-Peek battle had broken into the newspapers. Wickard's interest in the outcome was great; his job depended upon a triumphant Wallace. On Thursday, December 7, the USDA hummed with speculation as Wallace and Tugwell conferred with the President in the morning, and Peek lunched with Roosevelt that noon. On Monday the story was released. George Peek had resigned to become a special advisor to the President on foreign trade. Charging his successor, Chester Davis, with the solemn duty of getting rid of Jerome Frank's crowd, Peek brought to a close his distinguished career of service to the American farmer. For Wickard the administrative change coincided with a thousand-dollar raise and reunion with Louise. "I suspect," he wrote her, "that you had better consider moving to Washington as soon as the kids can get their grades for the first semester." Excitedly he considered the future before them: "It will be quite a novel experience to have a home or an apartment to ourselves. I suppose we will scarcely know how to act." 14 After returning to Washington from a one-day Christmas on the farm, Wickard started apartment hunting. Friends offered " Wickard, Interviews, p. 697. " Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, December 19, 1933, in Wickard Papers.

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large amounts of advice, but no five-room apartments for $90.00 a month. For two weeks he scanned newspaper want ads and rode streetcars. Finally, on Sunday, January 14, he found what he was looking for, at 2101 New Hampshire Avenue N.W., overlooking Meridian Hill Park. It was $105.00 per month, furnished, but it had two bedrooms and was close to schools for the girls. Dr. Black helped by sending Claude back to the University of Illinois to make a speech on the 18th. Wickard reached the farm late that night. Early the following morning he loaded Louise, with her pots and pans, silverware and clothes, and the girls, with all their dolls and mountains of necessary children's paraphernalia, into the family car and started for Washington. Twelve-year-old Ann recorded in her diary the events of the expedition: January 19. We started on our way this morning at 4.30. When we were getting a good start something went wrong with the car. It was the piston. We are staying at Zanesville all night. January 20. We took the 2:00 train for Pittsburgh this morning for after we sent to Columbus for one they sent the wrong one. It is fun going along in the train in it out of tunnels & up & down mts. January 21. Well we got to Washington all right the apartment is swell. Twin beds, electric icebox & fireplace are only a few of the many. The trunk & box of stuff hasn't come yet. We are staying all night at the Harrington Hotel. January 22. The stuff hasn't come yet!! Are we mad. The man told us we would get it at 11 oclock then 12 oclock, then 1 oclock and at 4 oclock we finally got it. Daddy came home at twelve tonight.15 15 Ann Wickard, Diary, in Pickart Papers; Louise Wickard, Interviews; Ann Wickard Pickart, Interviews; Claude Wickard, Interviews, pp. 7 8 4 95; Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, January 14, 1934, in Wickard Papers. The Pickart Papers include Mrs. Pickart's childhood diary and a folio of correspondence with her parents while her father was Secretary of Agriculture. They are in her possession, at Camden, Indiana.

5: Triple-A Corn and hogs represented different things to different men. President Roosevelt probably associated them instantly with the hundreds of thousands of American farmers, their wives and their children, whose weathered faces he had seen from train platforms throughout the south and west. To Henry Wallace, corn and hogs perhaps equated with misplaced facets of a scientific-economic-sociological problem which had to be rearranged in proper terms. For Chester Davis they were likely to be commodities to be purchased, stored, processed, sold, and consumed. To Dr. A. G. Black they would be units of statistical data. For Claude Wickard, corn and hogs meant a search for his own "parity." When he thought of them, he too saw the faces of the fanners, but, unlike the President, he knew he was one of those farmers. His appreciation of Wallace's conceptualized "corn-hog" was slight. Chester Davis's view was comprehensible to Wickard except for one thing: Davis had never raised corn and hogs and sold them as integral portions of his soil fertility. As for Black's statistics, Wickard was impatient to the point of contemptuousness. Parity was the goal of the Triple-A. The act defined parity as the establishment of prices to farmers at a level "that will give agricultural commodities a purchasing power with respect to articles that farmers buy, equivalent to the purchasing power of agricultural commodities" during the period 190914.1 To George Peek this had meant what it said—parity "prices"—and he had been overruled. Wallace had said tacitly 1 Pub. L. No. 10, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. (Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933).

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that the word had a far broader meaning. Parity was not an end in itself, it was a means toward achieving a balanced agriculture within a balanced economy. Agriculture would supply all the food and fiber needed for American tables and factories, in return for which farmers would receive their share of the national income—parity for the farmer, parity for the laborer, parity for the investor of capital. 2 Wickard understood this. We were genuinely trying to help the national economy and not just trying to work out a program which would help the farmers alone. The whole economy is interdependent. . . . It was now our responsibility to get agricidture on its feet to help the rest of the nation get to its feet.3 These were brave words on behalf of AAA, but hollow ones to come out of the Corn-Hog Section. As of March, 1934, corn belt farmers had benefited only from the sale of their pigs; parity was nowhere in sight, even though corn was up to nearly 80 cents a bushel. Twice Secretary Wallace had spoken sharply to Black about hurrying things along, but the complexities of the corn-hog contract were such that greater haste was impossible. That was one thing that I worried about I'm sure more than aU the rest of the people put together. I know how the farmer feels in the spring of the year. He knows he has to be ready to plow when the time comes, but I think the economists and lawyers and other people didn't sense the importance of getting the information to the farmer as rapidly as possible as to what was expected of him.4 Black and Wickard had at their command three tools with which to accomplish their task. The first was not thought to be overly important at the time. In late summer of 1933, Wallace set up a system of commodity loans. Beginning with cotton, the loans were extended by fall to cover corn. Any corn grower 'John D. Black, Parity, Parity, Parity (Cambridge: Harvard Committee on Research in the Social Sciences, 1942), p. 1. "Wickard, Interviews, pp. 742-43. ' Ibid., p. 739.

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could obtain a federal loan on his crop by storing it in his own crib and having a government agent seal it shut. The loans had amounted to about 18 cents per bushel more than the Iowa farm price. At the end of a year's time, the farmer could either repay the loan or tell the government to take the corn away. To finance these loans a small organization called the Commodity Credit Corporation was established in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Black and Wickard had little to do with commodity loans other than to hold them out as bait for farmer participation in the more important phases of the program. The second tool provided money for the program. It was the processing tax collected by the government from the factories which first began to change ears of corn into breakfast cereal and live hogs into dressed pork. The third was the Congress-given authority to control production. As the 1934 Corn-Hog Program evolved, it called for a reduction in both corn and hog production to be accomplished by means of a contract which farmers agreeing voluntarily to participate in the nationwide effort to raise farm prices would sign with the government. In this contract, the farmer agreed to cut his corn acreage 20 percent below his 1932-33 average. He further agreed to cut his number of hogs farrowed and the number of hogs produced for market 25 percent below his 1932-33 average, and not to increase his total crop or pig production. He contracted not to plant any other crops which were under controlled production, and to plant the acres of land which the government had "rented" from him in soil conserving crops or leave them idle. In return, the government promised to pay the farmer (from the processing tax) 30 cents a bushel for the corn he did not raise, and $5 a head for the pigs he did not grow.5 5 Dennis A. Fitzgerald, Corn and Hogs Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1934), pp. 67-70; Dennis

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To many men in the department and farmers in the corn belt, this program was designed solely to get money out to the farms as Harry Hopkins's Civil Works Administration was doing in the cities. To Wickard it was a real program with long range purpose behind it. He wanted to see those idle acres put into soil-rebuilding crops and conservation practices such as he had employed so successfully on Fairacre Farms for fifteen years. "Let's have a program," he said repeatedly, "that will conserve the soil as well as control production, and that will be in the best interests of the individual farmer, of agriculture, of the consumer—of the entire economy." 6 I felt that we had to be very careful, if we were really going to get an adjustment in production in corn and hogs, that the farmers really made an adjustment in their corn acreage and hog farrowings rather than just complying with a program on a very loose basis in order to get the money. In other words, I looked on the program NOT as a means of getting out money? If the program was to be effective, the government had to establish quotas for all those farmers who had agreed to participate. There had to be a nationwide limitation on every major farm commodity raised, and this limitation had to be broken down by states and counties so that each farmer raised no more than his share of the total national crop. The endless difficulties of such a program were the despair of New Deal farm planners. There were large "factory" farms and small "family-sized" farms. There were areas of great rainfall and dry areas. In some places hogs were customarily marketed at lighter weights than in others. There were peanut hogs, corn hogs, garbage hogs; and there were lard hogs, ham hogs, bacon hogs, pork hogs. Equally varied were the types and uses of com. Forever before them were the problems involved in the A. Fitzgerald, Livestock Under the AAA (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1935), pp. 81-96; Edwin G. Nourse, Joseph S. Davis, and John D. Black, Three Years of the Agricultural Adjustment- Administration (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1937), pp. 102—4. 7 Ibid., p. 740. " Wickard, Interviews, p. 747.

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competitive feeds (corn, other feed grains, and forage crops) and the competitive feeders (cattlemen, poultrymen, and hog raisers). Quotas were established on other commodities much as they were on com and hogs—on the bases of each farmer's own estimates of what he had raised in the past two growing seasons and the figures on total American production compiled by the Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates. Much to Wickard's chagrin he discovered after the farmers had signed up for the AAA program that many had estimated their 193233 production of corn and hogs far in excess of what that crop actually was. This cast considerable doubt both on the government's figures and on the farmers' honesty. Crop and Livestock Estimates stoutly maintained the infallibility of its reporting service. The farmer's case was weaker. He had no records, his memory was apt to be faulty, and he wanted his "base" production to be as high as possible so that the Triple-A would give him the largest possible benefit payment. During March, while the county committees were collecting their data and the department was arranging its own figures, Wickard was traveling back and forth between the corn belt and Washington. Rare was the midwestern farming community in which Wickard was not known and respected as a man from Washington who knew what he was talking about. Better than any other man in the Corn-Hog Section he could explain not only the difficult terms of the reduction contract but the whole plan of the agricultural philosophy behind it. By the end of March the program was ready for operation. The first crucial step was the release of quotas which had been assigned to each county. The entire program hinged on farmers' acceptance or rejection of the drastic production cuts. Wickard was apprehensive of the result. The quotas had been mailed in sealed envelopes to the various county committees, and were to be opened sometime on Monday, April 2, 1934. Late Saturday, March 31, Wickard boarded a train for

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Indiana. On Monday morning he went to Shelby County, in the heart of Hoosier corn-hog country. When he arrived he found a tense group of farmers in the basement auditorium of a brick schoolhouse. Dressed in their Sunday suits, they squirmed on folding chairs in dread anticipation of the moment when the pile of manila envelopes on a table in front of them should be opened. Behind the table an Extension Service director nervously droned on about the details of the program. Outside they could hear the light spatter of spring rain. Wickard sat far to the back of the room, watching, feeling the tension as those farmers strained forward to get their hands on the envelopes. Finally the speaker seemed to realize that no one really cared what he was saying and portentously started passing out the sealed quotas. Eagerly the farmers gathered around the table, started opening the folders, scanning the columns of figures. "Jesus Christ!" exploded one. "I quit!" another shouted. ' T o hell with it! We've done all we can do and to hell with the whole business!" It was a mixture of anger, disappointment, exasperation. Program or no program, they could not see how they could make a living on the planting and farrowing quotas allowed them. The farmers were getting into their coats when Wickard called out for them to wait. "Let's talk this thing over a little bit," he pleaded. "I don't know whether we farm people are just not good enough businessmen and don't know our figures well enough and don't know how to operate well enough so we can tell what we're doing. But we ought to be able to get together somehow and agree on a reasonable figure. It may not be the one to suit you or me or the government, but we've gone too far on this program. The question is, if you stop now, where are you going to go from here?" Wickard paused for effect. The men had stopped to listen. "What would you fellows suggest we do now?" he con-

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tinued. "We've tried everything else in this country. We've let other people run our business. The people who have been running our business have failed and would like nothing better than to have us fail in running our own business. You're not resigning from anybody but yourself. You're just running out on yourselves—turning it back to the people who have been running your business for you." 8 The ultimate thought was, If we don't do this, what will we do? The farmers came back and sat down. Wickard left them squinting over lists of figures to see where they could be raised without endangering the whole program. Later that same day Wickard halted another farmer insurrection in central Indiana. Other men from the Cora-Hog Section, as well as AAA workers in adjoining states, were all working to keep the program together. In Iowa, Illinois, and particularly Indiana, the farmers' howls of anguish were loudest. Quotas were too low. Some change would have to be made. Pressures on the USDA were enormous. Farmer irritation was spurred by packer-inspired newspaper criticism. To this Republicans added their ridicule. The few members of the consuming public who understood that production control eventually would mean higher food prices were opposed. The first cracks in the production control dike appeared in the form of administrative rulings from Washington. Necessitated by "special circumstances" involving only a small amount of produce, they nevertheless chipped away at the 25 percent reduction. Of greater concern to Wickard were midwestern demands for adjustment in quotas. Crop and Livestock Estimates men hastened to the corn belt for conferences with local committees. In most cases the final quota arrived at was a compromise between the government's figures and the farmers' estimates. The reduction by this time was considerably less than 25 percent. The final blow at 1934 production control came rolling 'Ibid.,

pp. 764-66.

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across the horizon from the west. The spring skies of Washington, D.C. were dimmed by a film of dust as the good topsoil of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas was swirled two thousand miles to the nation's capital. Drought struck the wheat and cattle areas and, to a lesser extent, the entire corn belt. As feed prices shot upward, the Triple-A was forced to allow the growing of forage crops on contracted acres. Department of Agriculture economists, perhaps anticipating the difficulty of controlling production, had been working on the surplus disposal end of the problem. George Peek's departure to the contrary, two-price systems and dumping were arranged by not requiring southern processors to pay a processing tax on cotton ginned for the export market. Secretary Wallace was also thinking in terms of domestic dumping—distributing surplus food to the needy at prices lower than those the grocery markets had to charge. House Agriculture Committee chairman Marvin Jones would, within a few months, slip Section 32 into the Potato Act to cull out 30 percent of all U.S. tariff receipts for the encouragement of domestic consumption. Wallace's thinking would later combine with part of Jones's shrewd legislation to emerge as a Food Stamp Plan, but, meanwhile, no one was showing any marked confidence in production control. 9 However, control or less control, farmers apparently liked their program and wanted to keep it alive. More and more signed contracts flowed into the Corn-Hog Section each day. Thousands of farmers had been saved from ruin in the drought by their government checks. True, nature had fulfilled the greatest part of their reduction contract, but what Wickard had considered the least important part of the program proved the greatest boon to higher farm prices—the corn loan. Loans had allowed farmers to keep their 1933 corn so that they could have it during the lean summer of 1934. The slaughter of the ' Man-in Jones. Interviews; Frederick V. Waugh, Interviews; Pub. L. No. 320, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (Amending Various Farm Acts).

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little pigs had left a greater com supply on hand for feeding now that hog prices were rising. By the end of August, when farm leaders called for conferences, they voted 2 to 1 in favor of continuing the programs. In October the whole program was submitted to farmer rank and file for referendum to pass by an overwhelming 3 to 1 vote. But, despite this vote of confidence from the barnlots, Davis and Wallace were having their troubles. The conflict which had forced the resignation of George Peek had not been settled by his leaving. Chester Davis never forgot Peek's ominous parting words—that he must get rid of Jerome Frank's coterie in the Legal Section and Pat Jackson's group in the Consumers' Counsel. Davis, however, was a much more reasonable man than Peek. He had little sympathy for the goals of the urban liberals but he believed he could control any actions which might result from their extreme positions on the sharecropper economy. Apart from Davis's conciliatory attitude toward Frank and Jackson, he knew he lacked the power to deal with them directly so long as Rex Tugwell's followers did nothing to jeopardize his program. So Davis waited while Wallace, torn between the practicalities of the whole farm program and his strong emotional tendency toward efforts on behalf of the less fortunate farmers, wavered in making any clear commitment to either side. Wickard's predilections were the same as those of the Secretary. Since the urban liberals were concerned primarily with cotton tenancy, Wickard was not involved. While he held a safely silent approval of any program which would raise sharecropper living standards, the gulf which separated him from Tugwell, Jackson, and Jerome Frank was too great to permit genuine rapport. When the blowup finally came in February, 1935, Rex Tugwell was out of town and Wickard was extremely busy attending to matters in the Corn-Hog Section. Jerome Frank issued a telegram to all southern Triple-A offices advising them to enforce a ruling which was

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designed to compel plantation owners to keep the same tenants on their lands regardless of how poorly the tenant farmed. Chester Davis was furious. He presented Wallace with an ultimatum that Jerome Frank, Pat Jackson, Lee Pressman, and Frank Shea would have to leave the Department or Davis would himself resign. The threatened loss of Davis to the Triple-A was apparently greater to Wallace than that of the urban liberals. He fired the four men. The political left-wing instantly erupted in hysterical shouting. Wallace had sold out to the interests! Wallace was killing the New Deal! Farmers across the nation wondered what all the fuss was about. Wickard viewed "the purge" with equanimity. It was just something that happened. Of far greater importance to Wickard was the reorganization which followed. Davis suddenly changed the Triple-A sections. The Corn-Hog Section became part of the Division of Livestock and Feed Grains, and Al Black was put at the head of it. Wickard became chief of the Corn-Hog Section under him. Two months later, Black called Wickard into his office to tell him that Nils Olsen, chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, had resigned and that Black was going to take his place. Wickard made the obvious protests and waited, his pulse pounding happily, for Black to pass on his mantle. Then Black looked down at his desk and said that Chester Davis had picked Jerry Thorne to take charge of Livestock and Feed Grains. Wickard's face flushed. He stared at Black for a moment, measuring his hurt against the possibility of betrayal. Slamming his hands down on the arms of the chair, Wickard stood up, said "Well, I guess there's not much around here for me anymore," and, as hastily summoned, walked to Chester Davis's office. Davis showed remarkably little regard for the demands of pride. He had apparently considered the two men on their merits and chosen Thorne, oblivious of the fact that he was jumping Thorne over Wickard to the top position. In trying

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to explain his reasoning to Wickard, Davis stressed the team part of it. Wickard listened coldly. When Davis appeared to have reached the end of his explanation, Wickard rose stiffly. His voice was heavy with anger. "Well, I see your reasons for it, but I think it begins to be apparent that there's not much future for me and I don't believe it would be advisable for me to stay any longer than for me to make other arrangements and you to make other arrangements." "Now I don't think you're looking at this thing in the right manner, and I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay here!" 10 When Wickard went home that evening, he was uncertain as to what he should do. Davis had partially assuaged his pride with a raise of $700. Upon less passionate reflection Wickard also realized that he had come to like Washington and that more of his Indiana ties had been severed than he admitted. He had been induced by the Indiana Democracy earlier to vacate his seat in the State Senate. He had made many close friends both in Washington and in the field. Not only did he have a great personal stake in making the Triple-A program work, but his political fortunes were now tied to those of Wallace and the President. The only alternative was to return to the farm. He was not then prepared to do that, either for himself or his family. The children were getting far better schooling in Washington than they could have gained in Logansport. And when Claude looked at Louise, he could see what she hoped his decision would be. The move from rural Indiana to Washington had evoked obvious changes in Louise. Readily she had availed herself of the city's surfeit of home and personal fashions. Above all, she was now able to indulge her natural friendliness. As soon as she reached Washington, she had made contact with some of the women in local Indiana societies, and through them she met the wives of other government administrators, newspaper10

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 915-16.

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men, and business people. Her life quickly encompassed a happy round of parties, teas, and bridge clubs. In no way did she neglect her home—Claude and the girls always came first —but so warmly was she accepted in Washington social circles, and so easily had she become part of them, that a return to the drabness of the farm would have been a cruel loss. Louise definitely did not want to go back to Indiana. Neither did her husband. They decided to remain. On October 17, 1933, two Boston businessmen, William M. Butler and James A. McDonough, took possession of a bankrupt cotton textile company known as the Hoosac Mills Corporation. The government of the United States promptly demanded payment of $80,591.72 in unpaid Triple-A processing taxes. Butler and McDonough, contending that the processing tax was unconstitutional, refused to pay it. The Boston Circuit Court of Appeals accepted jurisdiction of the Hoosac Mills case and on July 13,1935, rendered its decision. The processing tax was unconstitutional. As far as Butler and McDonough were concerned, they had saved themselves $80,000, but the government could not let the matter rest there. If Hoosac Mills did not have to pay the processing tax, neither did anyone else. The Supreme Court would have to decide. 11 To strike out the processing tax was to wreck the entire Triple-A program, for no matter how idealistic Wallace and Wickard and the corn belt committeemen might get about their program, it was still the money which mattered most to farmers. Production control had been approached but not achieved. Prices were far below parity. Due primarily to the 1934 drought, hog production had been lopped off more than 25 percent. The AAA had been lucky to get farmers to decrease their corn acreage slightly more than 10 percent instead of the 20 percent called for. Regardless of monev payments, it had proved impossible to make flat reductions in corn acreage, but 11

Transcript of Record, U.S. v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1.

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a referendum in the fall of 1935 showed that farmers were now 7 to 1 in favor of AAA continuance. To Wickard, the farmers' resounding approval of his work should have come as well-earned applause. It did, but within him was the constant strum of an irritating, off-key strain. Secretary Wallace earlier in the year had dropped the first hint that something was wrong when he suggested reducing com controls. He wanted to get away from stringent crop reduction. Soil conservation was a better approach. For years Wallace had written editorials imploring farmers to raise "less corn, more clover." In 1934 the Secretary had asked that a survey be made to ascertain how much acreage would be required to produce an adequate nutritional diet for every American. The answer: greater acreage than had ever before been planted. Not more cotton or wheat, but more of the food that would protect the nation's health. Wickard began to sense, as Wallace had, the angry resentment in the cities. Eleven million men, raking leaves, building post offices, reclaiming the shreds of their self-respect, were suddenly faced with rising food costs. Short crops in 1934 and 1935 accounted for most of the higher price. The fact that consumers were in reality paying the processing tax accounted for more of it. The rest could be attributed to Triple-A production control. Wallace was thinking about abundance. Wickard's dirt-farmer ruminations began to revolve around the same thing. I knew that farmers themselves were never happier than when they were producing things. The farmers themselves didn't like a negative approach to ant/thing. Farm people are energetic. They want to do things. They don't want to feel that they are being held back from taking advantage of the best opportunities they have. Farmers, by and large, I realized, were always anxious to farm efficiently and to conserve their soil. Most farmers have a real love for their soil. It's a little bit hard to describe a true farmer's love for the soil. You see him pick it up in his hand and let it run through his fingers. To a

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lot of people that might be just a way of determining the condition of the soil, but to most farmers it is a deep-down satisfaction just to be able to pick up the soil from which all life springs, and sort of caress it, you might say. I felt that if we could have a program which would build its strength upon this basic attitude of farm people—their love for the soil, their love to do things properly—and if we could indicate that that kind of a program was in the best interest of the consumers and of the country, our program would be on much sounder ground than when it was built upon the processing tax support of restricting production. I hoped this could be done by asking the farmers and encouraging them to build up their soil and not continue to mine it by trying to produce for a market which just didn't exist, but try to save that soil for the use of future generations.12 Wickard refused to blind himself to the fact that this was a scarcity program. He was aiding farmers to establish a gigantic national producer organization which could control the output of food in terms of price the same way a monopolistic business maintained its prices. This aspect of his work bothered him. He wanted to turn it into a program of plenty for the present as well as the future. Production control had been effective to a certain extent in reducing surpluses of major crops, but it had failed to stop the use of those acres for the production of feed crops, some of which were just as destructive of the soil as cash crops. In short, the farmer had altered his production pattern with the idea of gaining only present larger income, not with the long-range view of being able to produce more valuable future crops of greater quality and quantity at less expense to his land and to himself.

I felt that a program for agriculture was something that was a national responsibility and that the national government, in the interest of the protection of all the citizens, has the responsibility of seeing that we had the proper kind of a program " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 973-74.

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supported, out of all revenues, the same way that we support our navy or our army, or the same way we build the resources of our country. I felt it was a national responsibility, because of the way we were wasting our soil resources. We were making it less and less attractive all the time for farm people to stay on farms. I thought we were in danger of having people become convinced that in America we should have the kind of serfdom that other nations had. That, to me, would make a weaker nation than if we had a strong, virile kind of agriculture with farm people feeling they were a part of this nation rather than just peasants who took the crumbs as they fell from the economic table. Wickard's suggestion seemed to imply a thoroughgoing socialization of American agriculture. Nothing was further from his mind. A farmer wants to feel ownership of land above all. The first reason is the security that's involved in just having a piece of soil as his own—having the feeling, This will sustain me. It will help me keep body and soul together. He also had a feeling of security which comes from being able to operate and control something, the feeling that he can't be forced off as long as he has the ownership. It gives him a feeling that here is a little guarantee that he shares in this great nation. It's a little evidence to him, I have this little plot of land. That's my part. Wickard's thinking was very much in line with Secretary Wallace's. The thing that I talked about was that you can have the Ever Normal Granary by having grain in the bin or productivity in the soil which would put grain in the bin. I said that the Ever Normal Granary could consist of two characteristics: first, something that's already produced; and second, the potentiality to produce things. Wickard wrote up his "soil bank" idea in a memorandum, left it unsigned, and took it to Al Black for transmission to the

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Secretary. Black delivered it and returned with Wallace's comments : "Give more thought as to how to approach it, and how to get farmers to accept it." Wickard was disappointed. He had drawn a blank. 13 Once again Wickard felt himself pushed by time. The 1936 political campaign was forthcoming. There was no doubt in his mind that the entire farm program depended upon Roosevelt's reelection. And over all hung the implications of the dull announcement in October, 1935, that the Supreme Court would judge the Hoosac Mills case. The court up to then had been taking a singularly dim view of the New Deal. In May, after hearing the Schechter chicken case, it had voided the NRA. Dewey Termohlen, Triple-A poultry head, had been making a speech on the farmers' chicken program at the moment the decision was handed down. Wickard had a premonition that the same thing could happen to him, and he did not relish having his horse ingloriously shot from under him when he was leading the battle charge. He had two meetings coming up. One was in Columbus, Ohio, late in December; the other was to be at Ames, Iowa, on January 6. "What should I do?" he asked Chester Davis. "Don't worry about it," Davis had answered, "I'm sure the decision will be favorable." But Wickard worried. The Columbus meeting, however, came off without incident. He breathed a sigh of relief and headed for Ames. The Iowa State College auditorium was crowded with farmers. Men were lined up around the walls. Every seat was taken. Wickard looked at his watch. It was 10:50 in the morning—11:50 where the Supreme Court was sitting. Court decisions were usually handed down at noon. Iowa's R. M. (Spike) Evans and Extension Service director R. K. Bliss had already made their speeches and Wickard was at the podium. Before him were hundreds of intent farmer participants in the

"Ibid., pp. 9 7 6 - 8 8 . Henry Wallace recalled nothing of Wickard's memo when asked about it in 1953.

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greatest agricultural organization ever created in history. For nearly two years they had struggled to erect the structure of the Triple-A—their Triple-A. Now that income was a little higher and the prospects for the future seemed brighter, they revealed a slight sense of complacency as they chuckled at the speaker's rural aphorisms. Wickard had learned to don his overalls at will. He was at his best when he was warming up a fanner meeting with his Hoosier barnyard homilies. Sometimes he purposely set up his hecklers. "I was raised between the rows of corn in Indiana," ran his stentorian pronouncement. From the back would twang the nasal rejoinder—"A punkin, by crackey!" The audience roared. The meeting was barely distinguishable from an afterdinner Kiwanis smoker. While I was making this talk I saw a boy come in the same door which I had come in. I watched him push his way, as I'd pushed mine, through the crowd. He seemed to he very eager and very determined to get to the stage. I saw a piece of paper in his hand—he was holding it—clutching it. He handed it to Director Bliss, who had taken a seat in back of me on the stage. When he handed it to Director Bliss I stopped what Td been saying and went over and asked him if I could have it.1* The farmers were still laughing at Wickard's latest remark as he read the scrap of paper. His face was humorless when he turned back toward them. A chill sense of expectancy swept down the mumble of their voices. "The worst has happened," Wickard said quietly. "The Supreme Court has invalidated the Triple-A." The room was instantly hushed. No one moved or spoke for several seconds. "Now who's going to laugh," grated Wickard. "Congress will give us another program for American agriculture," he told them. "It may take a long time. I don't know how satisfactory it might be. It might be something even better than what we have. Let's don't become too bitterly disap" Ibid., 995-96.

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pointed. I'd like to suggest that you all go home quietly, and we'll see what the democratic process will produce." They went out rather hushed and quietly. Keen disappointment was written on the face of every farmer in that group— not only disappointment but bewilderment. Most of them— practically all of them, I suppose—had thought of the Supreme Court as some body that had something to do with finer points of law, as something far removed from their sphere of activity. Suddenly the Supreme Court had come to the farms and homes in Iowa, and they didn't understand t/.ir' That night the students of Iowa State hung the Supreme Court in effigy from a fcnce outside the campus. Soon after Wickard returned to Washington, Chester Davis called a press conference and announced to the waiting farmer world that the Department of Agriculture was backing a new farm bill based on the concept of soil conservation. The resultant legislation was the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, which became law on April 27, 1936. In wideeyed innocence, the Congress solemnly declared it to be "An Act to provide for the protection of land resources against soil erosion, and for other purposes.'' Over and over the law reiterated that its provisions "shall not be used to discourage the production of supplies of foods." The Supreme Court had found noxious both the processing tax and federal control of production. The new farm bill differed from the old one mainly in the substitution of congressionally appropriated funds for tax money and in the "replacement" of federal control by state control. While soil conservation was to be the new "positive" approach, the true aim still included enough production control to achieve price parity. Two kinds of payments were to be made. The first was an allotment payment which would be made for not growing soil-depleting crops (corn, cotton, * Iowa State Daily Student, January 7, 1936, in Hamilton Papers. Carl Hamilton, Interviews; Wickard, Interviews, p. 998. The Hamilton Papers include onlv a few items about Claude Wickard. They are in the possession of Mr. Carl Hamilton, Iowa Falls, Iowa.

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tobacco, wheat, and certain vegetables). Instead, farmers were to raise on those now idle acres a soil-conserving crop (grasses, clover, or hay). The second payment, an Agricultural Conservation Payment (ACP payment), was to provide the farmer with funds with which to aid in the purchase of lime, potash, and phosphate fertilizers for restoration of fertility, or for terracing and similar anti-erosion measures.16 With the passage of the new farm bill came the announcement that Chester Davis was soon to leave. It was known around Agriculture that the Davis-Wallace relationship had been strained ever since the unpleasantness surrounding the "purge" of February, 1935. Despite his excellent administration of the farm programs, Davis had become tense and openly irritable. In April he turned the Triple-A over to acting administrator Howard Tolley and sailed for Europe on a "special mission." At the time Davis left, the organization of the USDA came completely to hinge upon regional farming instead of individual commodities; crop reduction contracts were made for two years instead of one, and farm-by-farm instead of crop-by-crop. Jerry Thorne was named director of the North Central Division comprising the ten com belt states from North Dakota to Ohio. Wickard's duties as assistant director of the Division continued much as before. Although now forced to broaden his farming knowledge to include all the crops raised in his region, he remained the man who, as far as the corn belt states were concerned, brought Washington to the farmers and the farmers' thoughts to Washington. His relationship with Thorne was professionally friendly. As for Wickard's stature in the Secretary's office, to the best of his knowledge he had none. Wickard had placed Henry Wallace on an imaginary pedestal. The Secretary could do no wrong. Mr. Wallace was a very well informed man and he was a very sincere person, a very honest person, and he had great " Pub. L. No. 461, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act).

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vision. He was perhaps the greatest Secretary of Agriculture we've ever had and could possibly have.1'' There was no doubt in Wickard's mind that Wallace was genuinely interested in helping farm people. Among the agrarians of Wickard's outlook, Wallace's social reforms were applauded while the vagaries of his insatiable scientific curiosity were regarded with indulgence. If he appeared to detach himself in semi-slumber from the unpleasant realities of a dull meeting, it was irritating but forgiven. For the Department was running smoothly, its programs were heavily contributive to the well being of American farmers, and practical agricultural research was proceeding at a pace never before seen in the USDA. Wickard had enjoyed little contact with the Secretary since his memorandum many months before. He had been summoned for two or three conferences in the "front office" on corn-hog problems, and, while Wallace continued to call him "Claude," Wickard knew well the enormous distance between the government warren across Independence Avenue where he worked and the Administration Building. Consequently, when Wallace asked Wickard during the last week of May to accompany him for an evening at the White House, the Assistant Director of the North Central Division was astonished. 17

Wickard, Interviews, p. 1096

6: Seven-League Straddle We went in the front door. I was thrilled to death. I really was thrilled—as excited as I could be. I don't suppose I could have acted nonchalant very well. We went upstairs to the President's study. That was the first time I had ever been in the White House, and to go upstairs to the President's study was a little awesome to me. The President was sitting at his desk on the west side of the room where he usually was when he was in that room. I was introduced to him. I shook hands with him. We sat down. . . . The Senator from Iowa, Louis Murphy, was there. Chester Davis was there. . . . The President had some drinks brought in. . . . I took beer. I don't know what other people took. Apparently the Senator got enough to make him very talkative, and I'm afraid that ruined the meeting. The Senator got to talking and he just didn't stop. When Wickard arrived in the President's study and saw Louis Murphy, he divined instantly that discussion would center around politics, and the President soon had the conversation on "What are fanners thinking about?" Roosevelt never mentioned that he might be standing for reelection in five months, and everyone present maintained the fiction that such a possibility was furthermost from their minds. I only made one or two statements during the entire evening. They didn't seem to be very fruitful. I did what I thought I was to do, and that was suggest that we talk to the farmers and the consumers about a positive program for helping farmers build the soil and produce the ihings that consumers needed. I got that much out. It was just a sentence or two.

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That's about all I got out. It was not accepted. Nobody took it up.1 Wallace and the President seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely; why, Wickard could not imagine. What Wickard did not know was that the talkative Senator was the star attraction. Murphy had been upset by some real or fancied slight and Roosevelt calculated rightly that a convivial evening in the intimacy of the President's study would smooth the Senator's ruffled feelings. But why had Wickard been included? Wallace explained that very simply: I picked him to come along probably because I knew he was a Democrat and thought that Louis Murphy probably wanted to talk about Democratic politics. I didn't think of Wickard when I brought him into the department as being a Democratic politician, but at the time of that meeting I undoubtedly looked on him as a Democrat and thus suited for this meeting. Nearly all the folks we had were technicians or farm organization people and not Democrats. He was about the only one of the whole crowd in Agriculture that had any claim to being a Democratic politico.2 Meeting at Philadelphia during the summer of 1936, the Democrats renominated Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republicans burst forth with large sunflower placards bearing the picture of their candidate, Alf Landon of Kansas. The Literary Digest predicted a Landon landslide. Jim Farley snorted in reply that Roosevelt would take every state but Maine and Vermont. Early in September, Henry Wallace decided that he would stump the corn belt in support of the President and invited two men to accompany him—Spike Evans and Claude Wickard. "Why pick on me?" was Wickard's first reaction. I began to sense that Henry Wallace thought I was sort of expert in politics, or something of that kind. Why he would draw that inference was something that I did not know. I sure had never promoted it. I didn't know much about politics. I 'Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1102-04. Wallace, Interviews. ' Wallace, Interviews.

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just didn't. One term in the Indiana legislature didn't make me an expert. The thing I knew about politics was that from an organizational standpoint it was kind of a cutthroat proposition. You're either part of the machine and you do what the machine says, or the machine has no use for you. There's no ideology in political organizations. It's a very practical matter, and I knew it. I broke with the machine, so I was a political liability in Indiana. Wallace didn't know that. I didn't say much to him about it. There wasn't any use telling him about it or anyone else. Political machines don't want people that are not a hundred percent dependable. Now I don't think Henry Wallace ever quite fathomed that sort of thing. He thought more of the ideological approach, and he was thinking about the things that the Democratic Party could stand for, and the great things Franklin Roosevelt had done as a humanitarian, and things of that kind. Machines only used those things as a part of the propaganda to keep machines in power. That's what I mean by his not quite understanding the practical aspects. It's pretty hard to talk to him about such things. We never very frankly discussed these things; perhaps we should have.3 Wickard soon discovered that the Democratic National Committee had little or nothing to do with Wallace's trip. Apparently the Secretary had taken it upon himself to go barnstorming through the corn belt and, without many well-defined notions regarding what was involved, invited Evans and Wickard to take care of the details. Wallace was unaware that the "details" included itinerary, reservations, the hiring of halls, contact with local political leaders, press liaison, speech writing, arranging radio time, and trying to squeeze in an occasional hour's sleep. It had never occurred to Wallace that whenever a Cabinet Secretary gave a public address a large, enthusiastic crowd had to be in attendance or the opposition press would use the small turnout to demonstrate defection. 3

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1 1 5 1 - 5 2 .

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Such crowds, contrary to the Secretary's suppositions, were achieved only under extremely active local party sponsorship. And so, two political novices and one presumed expert set forth late in September, carrying the word of Roosevelt to the grassroots. As political medicine-making, the tour was a fiasco. Governor Cochran of Nebraska snubbed and effectively boycotted the Secretary. Governor Clyde Herring of Iowa was most unenthusiastic about Wallace's appearance. Had Wallace's audiences been left completely to Wickard's political proficiency and the capricious discipline of state party councils, the Secretary might have spoken to half-filled halls. As it turned out, Wickard and Evans had adequacy in quite another direction. A native Iowan and chairman of the state AAA organization, genial Spike Evans had a local following which rivaled Wickard's. Calling on farmer groups and Triple-A committees for aid, between them Wickard and Evans were able to swell the size of Wallace's audiences and serve his campaign needs with some distinction. For Wickard, the trip was notable mainly to the extent that he could observe his hero, Henry Wallace, at close range. What he found v/as confusing. He's an awful hard man to get acquainted with. That's the reason he was never understood very well, yet people idolized him. I did, and a lot of other people idolized him. He never warmed up to people. He just wasn't a person you apjnoached easily and sat doum with to have a heart-to-heart talk. It just wasn't possible. I don't know of anybody that had much success along that line. I think perhaps he'd be injured if anybody felt he was cold or unresponsive. I think it would hurt his feelings. But his mind was on different things, and he didn't quite respond to people and their more or less human reactions. The person mattered to mc, but also what he thought. If people weren't honest and sincere, I had no use for them at all, quite frankly* 'Ibid., pp. 1152-53.

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As Jim Farley predicted, Roosevelt carried the midwest and Alf Landon was consigned to the political limbo of candidates who "also ran." While Wallace's corn-belt politicking had little effect on the outcome of the election, the trip was personally successful for both Evans and Wickard. Early in January, 1937, Spike Evans became an assistant to the Secretary. At the same time Jerry Thorne resigned from the department to accept a position in the meat-packing industry, and Wallace named Claude director of the North Central Division. Wickard viewed the North Central directorship as the capstone to his government career. He knew his work merited the promotion, and he was well satisfied to have reached the "top." Looking back over his recent past, as he frequently did, Wickard could see the outlines of all-important Success. He had gained the respect and confidence of farmers and farm leaders throughout the corn belt. His sympathies for the less fortunate and his genuine humanitarianism, layered over as they were with the cautious conservatism of his rural background were adjudged adequate credentials for membership in the New Deal fraternity. Wickard's economic thinking, however, admitted of some limitation. In following Henry Wallace he had been led out of the strict boundaries of the back forty, but he continued to behold the entire corn belt as no more than a vastly extended forty acres of good Indiana land sown in fine com and fringed with modern sanitary hog houses. Claude Wickard's strength and weakness lay in his curious seven-league straddling of life; for by 1937 he had one foot planted firmly in the soil of Fairacre Farms, the other in the Department of Agriculture. And it was this bifurcated Wickard who took the measure of national farm policy under the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act. The "positive" soil conservation approach to the problem of crop reduction had failed to cure the ills of agriculture. In western areas, southern tobacco plantations, and particularly in the cotton south, ACP payments were baldly used to restrict

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production with minimal attempts to fulfill the anti-erosion and fertilizing clauses of fanner contracts. Since the growing of soil conserving crops on contracted acres was being enforced in only one quarter of the farming area, friction between the geographical sections of the country was bound to develop. Even in the corn belt there were many farmers who held the "commodity" idea, that of controlling production of the particular major crop within their own section and raising as much of any other crop as they chose regardless of national planning. Southern fanners cut the production of cotton and augmented their incomes by going into dairying and hog raising. There was no way for northern farmers to retaliate, and so, goaded on by their Republican press and Extension Service, they complained about the New Deal farm program. This North-South antagonism was the economic residue of the century-old sectional conflict. Wallace had for years in Wallaces' Farmer proclaimed the advantages of a "wedding of corn and cotton." Some progress had been made in the American Farm Bureau Federation, which, in fact, operated under the joint direction of Edward A. O'Neal of Alabama and Earl Smith of Illinois. Wickard had lectured his com belt farmers many times on the peculiar economy of the south. He told them that southern sharecroppers and tenants were in desperate nutritional need of what few cows and hogs they raised. These products were not going into a competitive market, he pointed out. They fed people who would otherwise have little milk or meat. Nevertheless, such a situation gave strong impetus to the commodity approach. Henry Wallace's talk of the EverNormal Granary and the loan program encouraged it. If a farmer could seal up his com in a government bin under loan, he could afford to cash-crop some of his remaining acres instead of liming his soil. The com belt was thought to be naturally fertile. Conservation was nonsense. Wickard could

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not talk fast enough to beat back the lore of the corn-hog country. It all went back to the foolish ideas they had that you could just keep on mining the soil, that you could farm in the summertime and loaf in the wintertime, and that the landlordowner could move to town, build a big, white, square house, and live on Main Street while the tenants produced enough off the farm to maintain the farmer on Main Street as well as a good living for the tenants.5 For four years the Triple-A had sold production control to the farmers. When the Supreme Court had decided that control was a prerogative of the states, the talisman became "soil conservation." It fooled no one, since the only enemy in sight was still the dreaded surplus and the only effective weapon yet devised was control. Wallace hated scarcity capitalism. So did the consumer (on products other than the one upon which he made his living). Partly to offset the drought-induced drop in production, Wallace quoted the biblical text on the "seven lean years" and called for easement of controls and an enlarged loan program for the creation of his Ever-Normal Granary. Huge tin storage bins would be scattered over the countryside to receive the season's surplus and seal it safely away from any price-depressing effects on the market. Should drought, famine, or war threaten the American food supply, the government bins could be opened and the wealth of the cornucopia released. The farmers voted for production control both in political elections and in their referenda, but they disliked government checks in lieu of accustomed initiative profits. Their short memories led them to suppose they could make more money without a national program, although they were unwilling to try. Instead, they chipped the program. By and large, they accepted ACP payments as "parity" payments—money which they thought they would have made by themselves had their 5

Ibid., p. 1206.

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production not been restricted. They continued to cash-crop their idle acres, obeying restrictions only on that single commodity most widely grown in their area. Other American farmers could go hang. It was time for a new farm bill. I'm not sure just how it happened, whether it was sort of a budget fault, or what happened, but the first thing I knew, I was sort of given responsibility for getting through a new agricultural act, one which would go on beyond the 1936 act. The great puzzle was, what kind of a program could you have with the corn belt that would give them something like what the cotton people had? That was the big puzzle.6 That was Wickard's big puzzle. Wallace's was even bigger. How to get an effective system of federal production control past the Supreme Court? How to get an administration farm bill through Congress? The American Farm Bureau Federation had grown large and oaty. When Ed O'Neal or Earl Smith spoke it was assumed, particularly on Capitol Hill, that they were speaking for the American farmer. This was an assumption which could not be seriously challenged by the social brotherhood of the Grange, by the agrarian radicals of the Farmers' Union, or by the business-minded functionaries of the cooperatives. Ed O'Neal told the Farm Bureau convention in December, 1936, "The farmer wants definite measures for production control through legislation and will be satisfied with nothing else." 7 Secretary Wallace followed O'Neal on the convention program with an espousal of his Ever-Normal Granary concept. Congress read both with interest and did nothing. Three years of drought and Triple-A had raised farm prices and the American farmer wanted nothing so much as to leave things alone. Then the 1937 bumper crop came to market. Prices started to slide. Iowa corn, which had reached $1.06 per bushe! in ' Ibid., p. 1235. 1 O. M. Kile, The Verm Bureau through Three Dccades

YVaverly, 1 9 4 8 ) , p. 234.

(Baltimore:

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1936, dropped to 80 cents in August of 1937. A business recession was on, and Congress had its hands full of the President's plan to "pack" the Supreme Court. The Farm Bureau, cooperating with the other farm organizations, had a farm bill ready in May; but when it appeared that the measure would be called the "Farm Bureau Bill," cooperation ended. In the meantime, Wallace had assigned John B. Hutson to oversee USDA work on a new law. Claude Wickard, Spike Evans, and many other Department men were selected to work with Hutson and the Farm Bureau in preparing new legislation. O'Neal and Earl Smith had insisted that their own legislative expert, Fred Lee, should help draft the language of the act. Wallace agreed and assigned USDA attorney Robert H. Shields to work with Lee. For months Lee and Shields struggled with the legal wording necessary to move farm legislation from a constitutional base on the welfare clause to more solid footing under the commerce clause. In November, 1937, President Roosevelt reconvened Congress for the explicit purpose of enacting a new farm law. For several weeks, Wickard and other Agriculture administrators spent long hours in the dreary chore of explaining to Congress the reasons for changing the 1936 act. House hearings, before amiably tough-minded Marvin Jones's tightly disciplined committee, had the air of a university classroom about them. In the Senate before irascible old Ellison D. (Cotton Ed) Smith, hearings degenerated into a maddening tussle to complete the job before planting time. Cotton Ed, apparently for no better reason than his malicious hatred of Roosevelt and all his Cabinet, threw up every parliamentary roadblock he could wring out of Robert's Rules of Order. But by February 16, 1938, Cotton Ed's obstructions had ended, and the other farm organizations had come to terms with the Farm Bureau and the Department. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 became the law of the land. The purpose of the act, so said Congress with a wary eye on

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the Supreme Court, was "To provide for the conservation of national soil resources and to provide an adequate and balanced flow of agricultural commodities in interstate and foreign commerce and for other purposes." Fooling no one, least of all the somewhat chastened "nine old men" across the street, Congress had attempted to enact a planned agricultural economy. Titles I and II approved the continuance of soil conservation policies and ACP payments, extended the life of the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, and established four Department of Agriculture regional laboratories. Title IV concerned financial matters in the Cotton Producers' Pool. Title V provided for crop insurance on wheat. The real guts of the bill were in Title III. The 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act strongly reflected the agrarian fear of surpluses and the need for production control on one hand, and Secretary Wallace's abundance economy on the other. By definition, parity had become two things: parity price, based on 1909-14 farm and nonfarm price differentials; and parity income, based on the relative per capita incomes of farm and nonfarm families in 1909-14. As under the 1936 act program money was to come out of the Treasury. "If and when appropriations are made therefor," the Secretary was authorized and directed to make parity payments in amounts which would provide a return to producers "as nearly equal to parity price as the funds so made available will permit." So few were the Congressmen who dared buck the Farm Bureau, there was little doubt that necessary parity payment funds would be forthcoming. Production control machinery was to operate on five basic commodities: tobacco, com, wheat, cotton, and rice. Congress went to great pains to point out that the marketing of each of these crops constituted one of the great basic American industries "with ramifying activities which directly affect interstate and foreign commerce at every point, and stable conditions therein are necessary to the general welfare." Having thus set up the proposition that agriculture is not local busi-

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ness, no matter what the Supreme Court might think, and that the economic health of the farm community was vital to the national welfare, Congress solemnly provided for production control through marketing quotas. There were differences in each basic crop which made slight changes in the pattern of operation, but generally the programs were the same. On a particular date each year, the Secretary would determine the total supply of a given basic commodity. If the total supply exceeded the "normal" supply by 10 percent, the Secretary would call for the imposition of marketing quotas. A referendum would be held among the farmers. If two thirds of the farmers growing that crop agreed, marketing quotas would go into effect. Each farmer would receive an "acreage allotment" as a guide to the amount he could grow without exceeding his marketing quota. If he grew more than his share of the national output, he paid a penalty for marketing it. Would marketing quotas alone achieve a balanced agriculture and provide farmers with their share of the national income? Perhaps, if all farmers agreed to participate and none chiseled on the program. But it was safer to face the imperfections of human nature and provide a tangible incentive— crop loans. The Commodity Credit Corporation, by 1938 a financial giant which had burst out of the RFC and moved under the wing of the Department, was authorized to loan money on basic commodities to those farmers who cooperated with the program. Loans could be made, for instance on corn, whenever supplies were in excess of normal, or whenever farm prices dropped below 75 percent of parity. The loan rate was attached to a sliding scale. The greater the excess in production above normal requirements, the lower dropped the loan rate. If the excess was about 5 percent, the loan rate was 75 percent of parity; if the excess was 10 percent, the loan rate was only 70 percent of parity; and so it scaled down to where, in case of a 25 percent excess, the loan rate would be only 52 pcrcent of parity. If strict production control meant production balanced to

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meet no more than the probable demand, the inclusion of Wallace's Ever-Normal Granary ran somewhat counter to that aim. Despite its stern dictates on controlling production, Congress had established liberal definitions of normal production, supply, consumption, and exportable surplus. "Normal" usually meant an average of the past ten years. All food consumed on the farm was exempted from control. The "normal" supply to be kept on hand in case of drought or emergency was about a fifth of a whole year's crop. In addition, a subsection of the act called for maintenance of "reserve supply levels" 10 percent above the "normal" supply. 8 Production control had become production regulation. Consumers were protected against famine or abnormally high food prices. Continued high production of surpluses which could not be exported could be discouraged. Adequate production of the food necessary for a healthy America at prices which the people could afford was assured. Although government subsidization was necessary, the farm economy was granted a measure of stability to which it was entitled. The Roosevelt "honeymoon" was over and the political facts of life had to be faced. Fanners were not less greedy than other Americans. They wanted money. Reflecting accurately this least altruistic rural desire, the Farm Bureau demanded and received a program which would channel more money into the pockets of the men who fed the nation. If the still ravaging disease of depression was to be overcome, cold, hard cash had to flow once more. And, Democrats believed, if the social gains of the New Deal were not to be struck from the hands of the hitherto unaided masses, farmers had to vote for continuance of Democratic administration. Nor was this line of reasoning entirely without validity. Few Americans understood the extent to which government had moved in response to their cries 8 Pub. L. No. 430, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. < Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1 9 3 8 ) ; Wickard, Interviews,'pp. 1 2 3 4 - 7 1 ; Oris V. Wells, Howard R. Tolley, John B. Hutson, Frederic P. Lee, Henry A. Wallace, and Robert H. Shields, Interviews.

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for help. New Dealers, by definition, were ready and eager to tinker with the works. Claude Wickard, conservative Hoosier farmer, was one of them. But Wickard's meddling with the system went just far enough to shore up the capitalistic economy so that it could function most equitably for rich and poor alike, leaving an opening where a man could still amass a fortune if he had the virtues and luck of a Horatio Alger hero. In these sentiments Wickard was a reliable barometer to farmer opinion. He knew the political impossibility of tight production control leading to an agriculture balanced to meet demand. The most they could hope to achieve was a certain measure of production adjustment and continued soil conservation education and aid. Wallace pushed for allowing the accumulation of surplus in government bins. He hoped its ultimate pressure would result in wider distribution of food to the destitute, hungry people who needed it. Roosevelt was aware that although lack of real production control meant the creation of a government-owned farm surplus, it was an economic necessity to inject the same purchasing power into rural communities as he had into labor and business. As leader of the Democratic Party, he knew that a farmer request was a political demand. It is certain too that the President had sensed in the cadenced tread of Adolf Hitler's marching legions the ominous threat of war and the possibility that food and fiber might soon be needed on an unbelievable scale. On October 16, 1938, Secretary Wallace announced a reorganization of the Department of Agriculture. R. M. (Spike) Evans was named Administrator of the Triple-A supplanting Dr. Howard R. Tolley. Tolley became Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The change meant little to Claude Wickard, but he speculated as to its implications. In the reorganization, lumbering Howard Tolley, Wickard's

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high school science teacher, had been set aside. Tolley looked more like a genuine dirt farmer and thought less like one than any man in the Department. The kindly outlines of his massive face, the slow rumbling tones of his Hoosier accent, and the shy friendliness of his chuckle and smile effectively masked an intense, inquiring mind and a temper which could erupt with startling swiftness. Tolley was neither farmer nor administrator; he was a superb economic planner. Every New Deal farm program from the early parity indexes to the 1938 AAA bore the stamp of his scholarly contribution. But his handling of the Triple-A had been hampered by cautious administration, by his inability to "speak the farmer's language," and by his unalterable refusal to allow either farm or party politics consideration in program planning. Rudolph Martin Evans, on the other hand, had the appearance of a prosperous midwestern banker. A handsome, robust man, Spike Evans exuded an aura of geniality and well-being which inspired confidence. Listening to the homespun sound of his prairie argot and the dogmatic certainty of his assertions, one could not help but feel that every day in every way things were getting bettei and better. He was a gentleman stockfeeder from northwest Iowa. While he proclaimed himself a Democrat, he could not be confused in any way with the New Dealers. But, for reasons best known to himself, he was a staunch follower of Henry Wallace and an ardent advocate of farmer-administered programs. A practical man in the fullest sense of the term, he gave every indication of becoming a bang-up Triple-A administrator. "Politics," was the word whispered down the corridors of the USDA. "Wallace has caught the political bug." The change from Tolley to Evans, they said, was designed to help Wallace's political stature in the corn belt. Perh; ips so, but at the same moment the change took place, Wallace was busy opposing the President's attempted "purge"' of recalcitrant Democratic Sena-

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tors. Nevertheless, an air of political expectancy began to permeate the Department. Now I think most of us in the department were not in sympathy with any move to make the department a political machine. Yet most of us—I'll say a lot of us—who were in responsible positions realized that had it not been for a Democratic victory there never would have been a New Deal or a New Deal farm program. We were also aware of the fact that the people who controlled the Republican Party would like to dispose of or eliminate the New Deal farm program. The people who complained the loudest, the speculators, the processors, the millers, the packers, and all those people, of course were predominantly Republicans and would do anything they could to see that the Republicans were put back into power.9 There was no real threat that the Department would become a political fortress in the pro-Democratic Party sense. But it was rapidly becoming political in two other ways; pro-farm program and pro-Wallace. There was no organization. No contributions were collected. It was just a shared community of interest with a remarkable purity of motivation which had grown out of the last five fast-growing years of the USDA. The Department of Agriculture had changed enormously since Wickard first entered it in 1933. Action agencies had become the main show. Rex Tugwell had resigned and become Governor of Puerto Rico. M. L. Wilson was the new Under Secretary. Beneath him came the Assistant Secretary, Harry Brown. Wallace kept his mind free for policy matters, and he had largely delegated his administrative duties, not to the Under Secretary or the Assistant Secretary, but to a man who wore the deceptively innocuous title "Executive Assistant to the Secretary." Paul H. Appleby filled this role. Through Appleby passed nearly all Department matters going to the •Wickard, Interviews, p. 1208.

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Secretary, as well as nearly all of Wallace's decisions regarding both policy and administration. His strategic position made Appleby the most important man in the USDA apart from the Secretary. And it was Wallace's great good fortune to have found a person of Appleby's ability to take this post. Appleby and Wallace had become acquainted many years before while both were Des Moines newspapermen. In 1928, Appleby took over a small weekly newspaper in Virginia, which he published until 1933 when Wallace asked him to serve as his assistant in Agriculture. Appleby quickly developed a positive genius for administration. His aim was to mold the Department's constantly wrangling bureaus and offices into a team whose members all pulled in the same direction. By the end of 1938 he had very nearly accomplished his task. Never in the memory of any man there had the Department functioned so well. Appleby's reputation spread throughout Washington. Unfortunately, however, Paul Appleby's genius was only one side of his personality. So dedicated was he to his mission of making the wheels run smoothly, he lost sight of the aspirations and uncertainties of the men and women with whom he dealt. In his mind he seemed to replace them with cardboard figures which could be moved up and down the administrative scale, and their functions changed, all for greater efficiency. Neither power nor self-aggrandizement were his goals. His passion was good administration. Thus he moved, tight-lipped, quickspoken, feared and little understood, through one of the most brilliant administrative operations in the history of government. Wickard described his contact with Appleby as a "neutral working relationship."

Appleby in those days to me was not a person that I confided in. He was to me an assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, doing detail work. I never, shall I say, respected his position and his power as I should have. 1 wasn't aware of it I guess. And perhaps he may have sensed that.10 10

Ibul., pp. 1321-2.3.

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Around him Paul Appleby gathered a small group of men, each of whom was interested in administration, in the political future of Henry Wallace, or in both. Budget Officer William A. Jump was strictly a government career employee in the highest sense. Able, objective, and devoted to the USDA, he had nothing to do with party or farm politics. Milton S. Eisenhower, the USDA Director of Information, whose brother was then an Army major stationed in the Philippines, tried to emulate Jump's nonpartisanship and to concern himself only with administration. An excellent administrator, he had served in the Department since the days of Secretary Jardine, but occasionally his definite Republicanism showed through. James D. LeCron and James L. McCamy were assistants in the Secretary's office. McCamy was a Vermont political science professor, and LeCron was a close personal friend of Wallace. Both enjoyed their roles as administrators, but their greatest concern was for the Secretary's eventual candidacy. Beyond the Secretary's office Appleby knew he could depend for political aid on still other groups. One was Wayne Darrow's off-beat little coterie of "cloak and dagger" boys in the AAA information service. Another was Spike Evans' state and county Triple-A committeemen all over the United States. And a third was C. B. (Beanie) Baldwin's part of the Farm Security Administration. When Chester Davis smashed the "urban liberals" in 1935, many of them fled the Legal Division and the Consumers' Counsel into Rex Tugwell's independent agency, the Resettlement Administration. There they were able to continue their efforts on behalf of southern sharecroppers and farm tenants everywhere in relative peace. Tugwell's last act before leaving the department in late 1936 was to take Wallace on a tour of the south, particularly down the back roads where poverty, filth, disease, and ignorance were common realities. Wallace moved swiftly upon his return to bring Resettlement into the USDA, changing its name to the Farm Security Administration.

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FSA was primarily a lending agency. It made credit available to low-income and family-sized farms under a supervised rehabilitation program, taught canning and gardening to the women, good farming to the men, carried on a small program of community farming, and generally looked out for the welfare of two million little farmers whose interests had never been served by any organization, public or private. Decidedly "New Deal" in character and a pet project of the President, FSA people looked with favor on the Farmers' Union, continued Democratic party control, and particularly on a happv political future for their mentor, Henry A. Wallace. The great action agencies were caught in a political crossfire as pro-Wallace sentiment increased. The Farm Security Administration, Hugh H. Bennett's new erosion-fighters in the Soil Conservation Service, and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration all had enormous field forces. Nearly every county in the United States housed one or more FSA, SCS, or AAA offices. It took little imagination to see that whoever controlled these county organizations might control not only the farm programs, but also a preponderance of the rural vote. The main contenders for program control were the Department of Agriculture and the Farm Bureau, backed by the Extension Service and the land grant colleges. Democrats and Republicans, of course, vied for political control. With the New England and midwestern Farm Bureau remaining largely Republican, and the southern Farm Bureau staying solidly Democratic, Wallace's political future was a mere side issue. In the meantime, the American farmer enjoyed a center stage spotlight never before granted him in the political arena. Change had been the keynote of Franklin Roosevelt's two administrations, and it was difficult for most Americans to chart their exact position in the turbulent era through which they had lived. Changes? Yes, many. For the better? Who could say. Prices and profits were up on the farm and in the

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city. A bewildering Roosevelt minestrone of alphabet-named agencies appeared to have swept unemployment from public view. The "Noble Experiment" had come to an end. Al Capone was now in an Atlanta penitentiary, and Schlitz, Budweiser, Old Grandad, and Canadian Club were once more household words. A fine old trade-union movement, the A.F. of L., had been caught napping by new labor laws and a bushy-browed miner named John L. Lewis. The bursting force of the C.I.O. had already crumbled the bastions of steel and autos. Sitdowns, picket lines, and collective bargaining became the language of a people. "Fascist!" they spat at those who opposed them. "Communist!" was the epithet hurled back from the safety of Congressional immunity. Peter Arno cartooned some well-heeled Union League Club industrialists listening, with fists clenched in frustrated rage, to the sound of the hated Groton-Hyde Park accent issuing from the radio. Beyond the shores of the American continent, an angry drama was rising to a climax. Japanese troops, having swarmed off their tiny island onto the Asian mainland, had occupied Manchuria and were driving south into the heart of an impotent China. Benito Mussolini sent his legions into Haile Selassie's Ethiopian kingdom. The League of Nations wrung its hands but avoided real sanctions. In Germany Hitler broke the Versailles Treaty, seized Austria, and plunged his people to the nadir of civilization. Daladier and Chamberlain met with Hitler at Munich in September 1938, traded Czechoslovakia for time, and crouched behind their Maginot lines. Stalin imposed on Russia another Five-Year Plan to meet the day of reckoning. If they were not completely oblivious of the meaning of Munich, Claude and Louise Wickard, like most Americans in Jul}', 1939, tried to pretend it never had happened. As they drove down a tree-lined highway in southern Minnesota, their thoughts were on the beauty of the scenery and tomorrow's Triple-A meeting in Sioux Falls. Within twenty-four hours

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they would be headed for California on a long-planned vacation. Meanwhile, with AAA leaders Alva Trover and Norris E. Dodd in the back seat, they could talk of programs and politics. Suddenly Claude stiffened. A car approaching them was veering to the wrong side of the road. He pulled to the right, felt his tires leave the pavement. His foot jammed the brakes as the crash came. Troyer and Dodd were hurled against the front seat. Louise went into the windshield. Claude smashed the steering wheel, his kneecap splitting over the ignition key. The Wickard automobile stalled on impact. The other car, having caromed off up the ditch a few yards, came to a halt. The dazed but unhurt driver emerged and stood dumbly watching as Dodd went for help and Troyer eased Claude and Louise out on the grass. The Wickards were taken to a hospital in Jackson, Minnesota, where it was ascertained that their injuries were not critical, but the six weeks set aside for California were spent in Halloran Hospital. Louise suffered a slight concussion, fractured ribs, cuts and bruises. Claude's knee had to be wired together and put in a cast. Doctors doubted that he would ever recover complete use of his right leg. Troyer and Dodd were unharmed. By mid-September the Wickards were back in Washington. Recovery had been slow. Louise was able to get about somewhat painfully. Claude had progressed from crutches to cane. Every evening he presented the New Hampshire Avenue neighborhood with the curious spectacle of a man walking backward up the Meridian Park steps. Someone had told him this would strengthen his leg muscles. Whether it did or not, he could see that the Minnesota doctors had been overgloomy —the smashed kneecap was beginning to function once more. 11 11 Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1356-65; Claude Wickard to Ann Wickard, August 5, 1939 in Pickart Papers; Claude Wickard to Wavne Coy, September 15, 1939, in Wickard Papers; Claude Wickard to Del Hansen, September 30, 1939, ibid.

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Six weeks in bed and three months of enforced reduction in activity became for Claude Wickard a time of reflection. He was a man who had nearly everything in life he wanted. He had managed to divide his efforts between farming and program administration, with achievement of notable success in both. Claude had made it a practice to visit the farm at least once a month ever since he had been in Washington. Fairacre Farms, for the first time in two decades, was showing a profit; the mortgage was paid in full. He never disabused his father of the impression that Jack was running the farm, although Claude directed its operations in his constant correspondence with the hired men. Wickard's reasons for continuing his farm duties were partly economic—his government salary was only $8,000; partly tactical—a man could not better know the efficacy of a program than by applying it on his own farm; and partly a necessity to his own happy existence—Claude Wickard would always be a dirt farmer. Now that Betty was attending Purdue University and Ann was in high school, Claude and Louise could spend more time with each other. For Louise, Washington had been delightful. Her winsome personality and natural poise were welcomed in Washington's social circles as well as in the Women's Democratic Committee. She had learned that Washington social engagements were serious business for the wife of a government administrator. His position could be indefinably weakened or strengthened by what Louise had said in these seemingly innocent conversational occasions. Wickard's statutory position in Henry Wallace's department by the end of 1939 was that of a second-deck administrator. His prestige position was far greater than that. He had done a magnificent job of running the most important Triple-A region. While he was somewhat known outside the corn belt, his midwestern acceptance was complete. From the Secretary's office down, he was regarded as a professionally competent Democrat, an attitude which Wickard had done nothing to

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discourage. It was thought that he had a fairly close relationship with Wallace because of the steadily increasing calls from the office. Such was not the fact. It often happened that Wallace would ask Wickard to come to his office for a conference, and when he arrived they would discuss nothing but trivialities. Wickard was continually perplexed by these seemingly pointless meetings with Wallace. Nevertheless, the two men did have many interests in common. Wickard, of course, had followed Wallace's economic thinking all his mature life, and he was prepared to give his complete aid to Wallace's political ambitions, although it was not certain that the Secretary's hat would be in the ring at all. If Wallace said nothing about politics in January, 1940, the Department was buzzing with it. Change was in the air. Wickard heard it rumored that he might be asked to join the Secretary's staff, and he was obliquely approached on the subject of accepting an appointment as the Commodity Exchange Administrator. Irritated by such gossip, Wickard made it known that he was loath to leave the North Central Region for any reason. Then Harry Brown resigned and Grover Bennett Hill of Texas became Assistant Secretary. In December M. L. Wilson was moved quietly into the safety of a Civil Service appointment as Director of the Extension Service. This left the under secretaryship open. On January 22, Wallace offered the position to the Department's nonpartisan careerist, William A. Jump. Jump refused it. Wallace then looked about for another candidate. One bv one, as he ran down the list, each name appeared to have a disqualifying defect: Tolley, not enough field acceptancc; Hutson. unknown outside of tobacco area; Eisenhower, politically questionable; Appleby, no; Spike Evans, needed as head of AAA. One name remained and on January 26, Wallace recommended Claude Wickard to the President. "Has Wickard had anything to do with the Two Percent Club?" Roosevelt askeu instantly. "No," said Wallace, "I'm sure not." He assured the

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President that Wickard had entered the USDA before Paul NlcNutt managed to finance the Democratic Party in Indiana by forcing state employees to kick back 2 percent of their salary. Roosevelt nodded his approval, and they moved on to other matters.12 On January 29 I was sitting in my office over in the South Building. It was about 10:15 when the phone rang. It was from the Secretary's office and they asked for me to come over. So I walked across the street and went to the Secretary's office. Somebody showed me into Wallace's office. I went into the office and wondered, as usual, what he wanted this time, having no idea what he wanted. I hoped that he had a very distinct impression about what he wanted. I don't think Wallace was very long in coming to the point when I sat down. "Claude, how would you like to be one of the generals in the Department of Agriculture?" Wickard blinked in surprise. Then the disturbing rumors of previous job feelers flashed through his mind. But before he could protest, the Secretary continued. "I would like for you to be the Under Secretary of Agriculture." When he told me that he wanted me to be Under Secretary of Agriculture, I was both surprised and flattered, and, may I say, relieved. I was afraid I had arrived at the place where I couldn't refuse to take a request when it came directly from him. And I was relieved and honored and pleased. I think I told Wallace right then that I very probably wanted to take it. I would perhaps want to talk to my wife about it, but I was pretty sure that I would take if.13 When Wickard came home that evening from the office, Louise, Ann, and a friend from Logansport were there. Claude hung up his coat and joined them in the living room for a before-dinner cocktail. Presently Louise had the meal on the table, and they all sat down to eat. Claude stared about him, "Wallace, Interviews. Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1383-84; Diary, January 29, 1940.

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then arose. "I'm going to open a bottle of wine," he announced, as calmly as he could. Then he stood at the head of the table and said, "Now we will drink a toast"—he paused dramatically—"to Under Secretary of Agriculture Wickard." " Louise Wickard, Interviews.

14

7: The Great Honor Nothing had changed my mind. I had the feeling that I had arrived when I was made head of the North Central Division and that was the limit of my capabilities. I suppose that if I had known that I could have stayed on my job in the North Central Division indefinitely, I would have preferred to have stayed there. But it was apparent to me that I couldn't. That is, these talks about my going someplace else came up. And I felt, Well, if I'm going to have to leave North Central, here is the most desirable place for me to go. I liked administrative work and I felt there was some administrative work involved here. It just carried the name of being a member of the President's official family or his Cabinet, even though it was the second position in the Department of Agriculture. It was something which I felt was a pretty high honor, and something which perhaps would never be offered to me again. For those two reasons, I rather readily accepted.1 In taking the office of Under Secretary, Wickard knew he had to brave the vicissitudes of a political appointment in an uncertain election year. Furthermore, members of the President's "family" were expected to get out and campaign for "Papa" in the fall. How much could Wickard accomplish as Under Secretary? Wallace knew what Wickard was soon to learn. You have to pinch hit. That's the size of it. You go out and make a speech to which the Secretary's been invited and can't accept, or the Secretary goes out to make a speech and you're left behind and you have to spend about two hours a day signing documents. That's about it. Jt has a lot of prestige, with a car and chauffeur, a certain 1

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1 3 8 4 - 8 5 .

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amount of social life, but it's pretty dull. You may go to the Hill to testify in lieu of the Secretary on occasion. You're supposed to know what's going on in the department. There's a possibility that vou may be the successor, which gives you some prestige. It's something like being Vice President, except a little more active. 2 As Louise considered Claude's new rank it began to dawn on her that more was involved than she had anticipated. T h e word "protocol" suddenly loomed large enough to send her hastening to Brentano's for a copy of Ann Squire's Washington.

Social

" T h e social duties of the President's official fam-

ily," read Louise, "are numerous. E a c h has the privilege once during the season of giving a dinner in honor of the President and lxis wife." When she received her first engraved invitation from Mrs. Roosevelt for a W h i t e House tea on F e b r u a r y 6, she was petrified. Claude was out in Indiana making a speech, and upon his return, she excitedly told him all about it: When I walked in I was just trembling in my shoes. I was nervous, very nervous. The chief usher took my coat and then I walked into the Red Room—the ladies sort of circled around and sat on chairs— and I looked all around and I saw Senator Sherman Minton's wife, whom I knew. I went over and I sat down by her and we talked and then Mrs. Roosevelt came in. She was so gracious—one of the most gracious persons I've ever seen—she came around, shook hands with everyone very sweetly and made vou feel at home right away! I enjoyed it very much after that. After I met her, shook hands with her, and she was so sweet, I wasn't a bit frightened. I had a good time. It was wonderful!" 3 In the Department of Agriculture Claude's promotion was looked upon with some surprise. H o w a r d Tolley assumed that the Secretary wanted a Democratic corn belt farmer.

Jack

Hutson, Roy Hendrickson, and Henry Jarrett thought of it as political in purely partisan terms. Many saw it as a logical succession and applauded. Economist Preston Richards

ex-

pressed the view of young U S D A hopefuls: "I was surprised Wallaco, Interviews. Louise Wickard, Interviews; Claude Wickard, Diary, February 7, 1940. 1

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that they had picked what I thought was a pretty good guy, and picked him out of the department." 4 A new Under Secretary of Agriculture was somewhat beneath the front page notice of large metropolitan daily newspapers, but the rural press was elated at Wallace's choice. Much was made of the fact that Wickard was a "real dirt farmer." Farm writers speculated on a policy shift to replace Department "college professors and theorists" with men who knew which end of the cow to milk. "Can you imagine Braintruster Rexford G. Tugwell, who was a predecessor of Wickard as Under Secretary of Agriculture, serving as midwife to a trio of sows?" asked one Indiana paper. When feature writers came to see Wickard, they found an open-faced man with an engaging grin, dressed in a well tailored, single-breasted gray business suit and conservative tie. Manv noticed his marked resemblance to movie actor Edward G. Robinson. But none who shook his heavy, calloused hand could doubt that he was indeed a dirt farmer. 5 THURSDAY February 29, 1940 A busy day. . . . At 4.15 PM I was sworn in as Under Secretary of Agriculture in Secretary Wallace's office. Louise was present. Innumerable pictures were taken. My hand rested on the 57th Psalm when I was sworn in. It was all quite impressive. I was sorry more of my family were not present. I still have trouble believing that I should receive such a high honor. Where will I be next leap year day? 6 4 Howard R. Tolley, Henry A. Wallace, John B. Hutson, Roy F. Hendrickson, Henry Jarrett, Carl Hamilton, Robert H. Shields, and Preston Richards, Interviews. 5 Delphi (Indiana) Citizen, February 8, 1940; Indianapolis Star, February 2, 1940; Rochester (Minnesota) Democrat and Chronicle, February 8, 1940; Kirksville (Missouri) Daily Express, February 11, 1940. •Wickard, Diary, February 29, 1940. Psalm 57 reads: "Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me. . . . My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. . . . They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: They have digged a pit before me; They are fallen into the midst thereof themselves. . . ."

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The following day Wickard moved his belongings across Independence Avenue to the "front office" on the second floor of the Administration Building. His office was at the center of eight large bays and rooms which were aligned over the main entrance. To his left, two doors away, was Assistant Secretary Grover Bennett Hill. On his right, three doors, five secretaries, and Paul Appleby away, was the Secretary's office. The furnishings were tastefully elegant. Beneath his enormous, draped window overlooking the Mall was a large, polished mahogany desk; behind it stood a great leather chair. Across a generous expanse of heavy taupe carpet stood matching chairs, bookcases, and ashtrays. On the walls Wickard promptly hung a picture of Fairacre Farms and a portrait of the President. On his desk, beside the pushbuttons and telephones, he placed a photograph of Louise and the girls. Under Secretary Claude R. Wickard of Indiana was ready to assume his duties in shaping farm policy and guiding departmental administrative machinery. At 3:00 o'clock that afternoon Paul Appleby came into Wickard's office with a telephone slip in his hand. Had the Under Secretary talked with somebody on the Hill about the Department? Yes he had. What understanding, Appleby then wanted to know, did the Under Secretary have with Wallace at the time of his appointment? Wickard replied that there had been no "understanding." "Well," said Appleby, "just as I thought." And for the next half hour he proceeded to stomp, with remarkable precision, all over every tender spot in Wickard's psyche. His unhappy talent for unintended insult was at its best. Wickard recognizcd that Appleby had not come there for that purpose, and all that he was interested in was the maintenance of good administration. But the impression he left in Wickard's mind, whatever his motivation, was one of undeniable tactlessness. Appleby's exact words quickly fled Wickard's memory. But the import of his disapprobation would not be forgotten:

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You ought to have known better. How dare you assume that you are to do any administrative work! I'll tell you where your place is. You must not act or move unless you consult me, and I'll give you your directions. Now you stay out of all important matters in the Department of Agriculture administration. If you want to think about ideas of broad principles, or about the philosophy of the Department, that'll be all right. But you just keep right out of any administrative work. I'll handle that—and you ought to have known that before you ever came in here! It was just the fact that Appleby approached me as a person who was very very ignorant and I'm going to teach you things. It was just a feeling that I was out of place—or so Mr. Appleby thought me at least—that I was entirely out of place, and I should never have been given the job in the first place. Now I'm not saying that he said I shouldn't have been given the job, but you got the idea that I wasn't around here when the whole thing happened; if I had been it would have been different. That is exactly the point he tvas making. How different it would have been I don't know. At least I would have had different instructions, and I somehow gained the impression that I wouldn't even have been there. That destroyed a lot of the enjoyment. It made me feel I tvas an unwanted person. I had never felt that way quite so much before. Here, however, I just got the impression, which I brooded over, that I didn't know how to handle it, but somehow just found myself in it7 For the next six weeks, the Under Secretary wandered about in the alien altitudes of upper bureaucracy looking for chores to keep him occupied. He did his best to get interested in "the serious and perplexing problem of the farm labor surplus," but beyond gaining Appleby's hurried acquiescence to a survey of USDA materials on the subject, nothing came of it. Wickard spent Sunday, March 10, reading the New York 7

Wiekard, Diary, March 1, 1940; Interviews, pp.

1398-1411.

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Times and descriptive material on the Department's many branches and bureaus. On Monday, the Under Secretary and the Assistant Secretary put in a typically gruelling day's work visiting an agricultural exhibition across the street from the Smithsonian Institution. On Tuesday, Wickard attended a forum to hear the Secretary speak on foreign policy. Broken only by a few conferences with Wallace and an abortive attempt to establish a Rural Human Welfare Committee to aid agriculture's forgotten low-income farmers, Wickard's days passed in sodden inactivity. On March 21, Claude and Louise drove west to spend Easter in Indiana. As he walked about his farm, Wickard considered the state of the world. The hog nuirket is now the lowest it has been for five years, due to increased production and loss of foreign markets. The increased production was caused primarily by high corn yields, particularly in the hog raising states. It is going to be difficult for us to obtain a very good foreign outlet for pork and lard so long as the European War lasts, since Germany is shut off entirely and the United Kingdom is buying in small quantities in order to use her credit in this country for airplanes and munitions. All this is going to be difficult to explain to the voting farmer this year.8 Low prices, foreign markets and politics played the leading roles against a papier-mache backdrop of faraway war—this was a dirt farmer's view from his back forty. As soon as Wickard returned to Washington early in April, he set his hand to a self-appointed task directly concerning Henry A. Wallace. Wickard knew that no mortal was perfect, but in his sight, Wallace came uncomfortably close to the ideal. Whatever foibles the Secretary possessed Wickard dimly recognized and discounted. Wallace was in many ways Wickard's demigod—an economist, scientist, humanitarian, and practical idealist. But, as Wickard had seen, politics was one of Wallace's blind spots and Wickard thought he might be " Wickard, Diary, March 28, 1940.

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able to help further what he and everyone else assumed were the Secretary's political ambitions. Wallace, like Roosevelt, had said nothing. Whether this was coyness or strategy on his part, none could tell; apparently only Wickard dared ask. One day in early April he remained after a conference in the Secretary's office to talk with Wallace. After chatting about other things for a moment, Wickard gingerly approached the subject of politics. Wallace was willing to talk. Wickard then put the question to him: "If Mr. Roosevelt becomes the nominee, will you accept the nomination for Vice President, or do you want it?" Wallace replied that he would be interested in the vice-presidential nomination. Wickard asked him what had been done about getting the Iowa delegation endorsement. Wallace had not done anything. Wickard pointed out that without backing from his home state, Wallace would have rough sledding at the convention. The Secretary suggested that Wickard discuss the matter with Paul Appleby. On April 19, Wickard's want of useful employment was temporarily ended. He and Paul Appleby discussed proWallace strategy for three hours, deciding finally that Wickard should go immediately to Iowa and find some local Democratic leader who would undertake to pledge the state delegation. Early the next morning, they inet with Wallace in an effort to commit him to what they were about to do.

The one thing that causes worry is what the President's attitude would be toward an attempt to get the Iowa delegates for HAW. This morning HAW put in a call to Warm Springs to ask the President about his attitude. The President was in bed when the call reached Warm Springs but HAW cancelled the call after the delay which indicates that HAW is in a quandary.0 Wickard left for the midwest that evening, an emissary without portfolio. After spending Sunday on the farm, he arrived

' Ihid., April

20, 1940.

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in Des Moines on the 22nd. The first men he saw were two of Wayne Darrow's field workers. For once they failed. They could not think of anyone who would work for Wallace. At noon Wickard met with Dante Pierce and Donald Murphy of Wallaces' Farmer and Cliff Gregory of Prairie Farmer. The three men tried to talk about anything but Wallace's candidacy, and when Wickard brought the subject into the open, Murphy said nothing and the other two said it was hopeless —Wallace would find no political support in Iowa. Tuesday was somewhat more profitable. Wickard talked with Des Moines attorney Will Riley and Congressman Fred Biermann, both of whom were Wallace's friends of long standing. Riley doubted the possibility of gaining the Iowa delegation so long as the President's attitude on a third term was unknown. Biermann was opposed to a third term. While Wickard was talking to them, Paul Appleby called from Washington to say that Roosevelt had given the word that he wanted the Iowa delegation pledged to Wallace on the first ballot. Riley and Biermann went to work for Wallace, and Wickard took the train to St. Paul. On Saturday, April 27, 1940, Henry Wallace delivered a speech on farm credit before fifteen thousand cheering farmers in the St. Paul auditorium. Held under the auspices of Bill Thatcher's northern wing of the Farmers' Union, the meeting served as a fighting forum over the credit policies of the New Deal and those of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Wallace's militant stand on easy credit for the small farmer ruptured his relationship with the Farm Bureau and the relationship of every Democratic Secretary of Agriculture who followed him. Since early in 1933, when it appeared that New Deal farm policies were headed toward something new, the essentially backward-looking southern bourbon Democrats and northern Republicans who ran the Farm Bureau had begun to lose interest in Wallace and Roosevelt. When Wallace installed the

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Farm Security Administration in the USDA, the Farm Bureau was stricken at the thought of easy credit, nonrecourse loans, and 3.5 percent interest rates. The heresy of such "unsound" banking policies as FSA rehabilitation loans was bad enough; but when Wallace asserted his determination to bring the Farm Credit Administration and the Commodity Credit Corporation into the USDA, the Farm Bureau broke ranks. They saw in the Secretary "growing consumer-consciousness and labor-consciousness, as he glimpsed more and more the alluring possibilities of higher political office." 10 If, in an election year, Henry Wallace's ringing address in St. Paul had ignored the political potency of the world's largest nongovernmental farm organization, he may well have gained the one vote which counted most—that of Franklin D. Roosevelt. After the St. Paul meeting, Claude and Louise drove to Purdue University for Betty's graduation, thence to the farm to start the cornplanting. On May 13 they resumed their longawaited vacation which had been interrupted by the automobile accident, spending two weeks driving through the southern states, visiting FSA and Soil Conservation projects, and taking pictures of old New Orleans. While they were gone the Second World War erupted across the face of Europe. Norway fell. Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain as the Nazis smashed over the frontiers of France, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. By the time the Wickards returned, the evacuation of Dunkirk had begun and Secretary Wallace had turned his attention to the stockpiling of rubber and starting small shipments of food to England. The President had sent a multimillion-dollar defense appropriation to Congress and had appointed Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox as his new Secretaries of War and Navy. Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins had more or less recovered from " 0 . M. Kile, The Farm Waverly, 1948), p. 260.

Bureau

through

Three

Decades

(Baltimore:

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a nearly fatal illness, and one of his first assignments was the creation of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense. The Council of National Defense, composed of Cabinet Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, had existed only in theory since the end of the First World War. The Advisory Commission to it was Roosevelt's opening move in the American war effort and its form set the administrative pattern for governmental mobilization. The President created within the executive establishment a group of legally powerless presidential advisors with himself as their effective chairman. The membership of the Advisory Commission was half big-business, half New Deal. William S. Knudsen of General Motors was to handle production; Edward R. Stettinius of U. S. Steel, industrial materials; Burlington Railroad president Ralph Budd, transportation; Sidney Hillman, labor; Leon Henderson, price stabilization; Harriet Elliott, consumer protection; and Chester C. Davis, farm products. Reporting directly to the President, not to Wallace, Chester Davis's job was to prepare to produce what might be needed during the coming months of uncertainty, and to formulate plans for best use of farm labor and the food distribution mechanisms. 11 As France fell before the Panzer onslaught, Wickard and most Americans, watching the dark shade of German conquest spread over their newspaper war maps, began to sense the need for military preparedness. But, as far as anticipating the changes that would have to be made in the whole internal economy, agriculture included, Wickard shared with his fellow citizens almost total unawareness. Throughout most of June he continued to concern himself with lard standards, office housekeeping, his family, and politics. u Industrial Mobilization for War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1 9 4 7 ) , I, 1 8 - 3 8 ; The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1 9 5 5 ) , III, 193-96; Robert E . Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper, 1 9 4 8 ) , pp. 1 5 7 - 5 9 ; Bruce Catton, The Warlords of Washington (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1 9 4 8 ) , pp. 2 2 - 2 4 .

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Secretary Wallace's position was clear. If Roosevelt did not run, Wallace's name would be presented to the convention for the presidency. If the President were to be the nominee, Wallace would accept the vice-presidency. Wickard was in daily conference with Wallace on political strategy. The Republicans had nominated two immensely popular candidates, Wendell L. Willkie and Charles McNary, both of whom were as liberal as most Democrats. It was possible that the Democrats might lose, and Wallace's endeavors on his own behalf seemed to Wickard almost indolent. Wickard suggested that greater force be exerted to swing the Iowa delegation into line. Wallace replied that his main interest was in maintaining and promoting party harmony, and that he would make no fight to obtain the nomination. As the time approached for the opening of the Democratic Convention, Wallace told Wickard that he wanted him to go to Chicago. The Secretary never used the words "campaign manager," for he knew better than to place himself in the same position as the other candidates whose eagerness for votes had caused Roosevelt to question their dependability. Wallace had no organization, only a few backers, and he warned that no gaudy headquarters suite was to be set up in Chicago. What the Secretary wanted was a man of unquestioned loyalty to him who had sufficient experience in politics not to make mistakes, but not enough experience to qualify as a seasoned political hack. Wallace knew he had no need for a "vote-swinger," only an honest, sincere representative. For this he chose Claude Wickard. For all participants of that great American sideshow, a political convention, the proceedings are a nightmarish mélange of ringing telephones, hectic hours, guarded conferences, bad food, and no sleep. By Sunday evening, July 14, when the Wickards moved into their two small rooms on the third floor of the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, only three real candidates were in the field for the presidency: Paul V. NlcNutt, James A. Farley, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The vice-presidency, as far

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as the delegates knew, was wide open. If one faced the fact that Roosevelt's nomination was a foregone conclusion, the actual second place choice narrowed to two men—NlcNutt and Wallace. No vice-presidential nomination unacceptable to the presidential nominee could be made. Claude Wickard understood all these facts. Most delegates did not, and in their ignorance they arrived in Chicago somewhat resentful of the rubber-stamp role they were to plav. This, when added to a substantial amount of anti-third-term sentiment and an ever plentiful supply of New Deal hatred, threatened to split the polymorphic structure of the Democratic Party at the seams. Wickard's tasks were, first, to get the Iowa delegation committed to Wallace and, second, to assure Roosevelt that the Secretary commanded a large convention following without raising factional enmities which might split the party. Part}' harmony was essential. Without it the President would probably lose. Wallace's headquarters bore no placard and dispensed neither food nor drink. Its managers were Louise Wickard, who answered telephones, and Claude Wickard, who talked over them. Assistant Secretary Grover Hill was there, working among members of southern delegations. To Wickard's knowledge, apart from the subtle influence of Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins at the Chicago end of the White House phone, there were no other Wallace forces. Soon, however, three other unpolitical Wallace adherents appeared. Rex Tugwell, lately of the New York Planning Commission, showed up at headquarters. Then came economics professor Luther Harr from Pennsylvania. And, finally, Father Maurice Sheehy of Catholic University in Washington. Only Harr knew anything about politics, albeit very little, but they were all in the Stevens Hotel to do what they could for a man whom they admired. From the moment of his arrival in Chicago, Wickard began to contact delegates from rural areas who were already inclined toward Wallace. His statements were shrewdly de-

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signed to attract as many of the uncommitted delegates to Wallace as possible. Wallace was acceptable to the President. Wallace's name was more influential in farm areas than McNary's and would offset half of Willkie's drawing power. Hull was too old, Farley was from New York, Byrnes's support was sectional and McNutt had not only deserted Roosevelt in 1932 but was financing his lavish 1940 campaign out of "Two Percent Club" funds. This left only Wallace. I told the group that the Secretary was of the opinion that any outward effort on the part of his friends to get the nomination for him for Vice President would not be looked upon with favor by him because he felt that this was a case of the nomination seeking the man. Also he had the idea that such an effort would be frowned upon by the President and his advisors, so each person was asked to operate quietly.12 On Monday morning Wickard discovered that McNutt was packing the convention hall galleries. Any McNutt supporter who lacked a ticket could gain admittance through certain gates. Wickard tried to warn Wallace of this but the Secretary was too full of another chat with Harry Hopkins to listen. Hopkins made two rather significant points. First, that the President would not take the nomination for a third term unless he could have a Vice President who was entirely acceptable to him. Second, that the Secretary was among those who was being given consideration. This, like everything that came from Hopkins's room, was to be held in strictest confidence but was somehow likely to end up as common knowledge within an hour of issuance. By Tuesday, more Wallace workers had applied to Wickard for assignments. Dr. Harr reported 75 percent of the Pennsylvania delegation safely in the Wallace fold. It was rumored II Claude R. Wickard, "The 1940 Convention," in Wickard Papers. This is a separate diary account, covering 18 single-spaced pages, which Mr. Wickard dictated on July 28, 1940. Succeeding Wickard quotations on the convention are from the same source. A personal interview with Monsignor Maurice Shcehy was also most helpful.

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that Wallace had a great following among the League of Women Voters. The worst snag was still the Iowa delegation. Father Sheehy was doing excellent work, but he was fearful that the delegation would split violently between Herring and Wallace if it were put to a vote. Governor Herring, deluded bv the oddly inspired notion that he would sleep in the White House, clung tenaciously to his Iowa support. Wickard was all for forcing the issue that same night, but Wallace refused to allow it. He said he was here in the interest of harmony in the party and that he could not afford to be a party to any action which did not promote such harmony, even though it involved only the Iowa delegation. On Tuesday afternoon Wickard went to a cocktail party for a few minutes, then returned to the Stevens for a meeting with Luther Harr and his Pennsylvania cohorts. The meeting had ended by the time Wickard arrived, but a couple of Harr's assistants told him the results of it. Harr had gone hog-wild in promoting pro-Wallace publicity. Stories had been planted in all Pennsylvania newspapers and in the New York Evening Post, and twenty thousand matchbooks had been printed bearing the inscription W I N WITH WINNERS—ROOSEVELT AND WALLACE. Wickard was horrified. He demanded that no matchbooks be distributed under any circumstances. There was no way to stop the newspaper plugs. Then he hurried out to find Harr and try to make him understand the meaning of a "quiet" campaign. Paul Appleby arrived from Washington on Thursday morning, the 17th. All day Wallace workers brought stories to Wickard's room of growing Wallace strength. Sidney Hillman was apparently making great Wallace headway in the C.I.O. Wallace had given the green light to Father Sheehy to arrange for an old Iowa friend, Frank O'Connor, to nominate the Secretary for Vice President. In mid-aftemoon, Senator Gillette of Iowa arrived with fresh news from Harry Hopkins.

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Mr. Hopkins said that H.A. was definitely on the list of those who would be approved by the President and that this list was pretty small. When Gillette asked what we might do, Hopkins House advised that some word should be gotten to the White by people who had the respect of the President, as to what such persons opinion might be of Wallace's strength and desirability as a vice-presidential nominee. . . . I remembered that 1 had promised to get in touch with Miss Frances Perkins during the week. I called her and she said she could see me immediately. I told her what the situation was and suggested that she call the President. This she said she would do immediately and went to the telephone. The rumors flew all afternoon. Hull was back in the running, then he was not. Jesse Jones was being touted. One of McNutt's lieutenants even telephoned to find out if the President had chosen Wallace already. Miss Perkins called Wickard to say that she had talked with Roosevelt and that he wanted to wait a few hours before making his decision known. That night Rex Tugwell, Grover Hill, Paul Appleby, and the Wickards sat together in Convention Hall listening to the presidential nominations. They were there at the counting of the first ballot, in which the President took 946% votes, leaving 147% scattered between Jim Farley, John N. Gamer, Millard Tydings, and Cordell Hull. They felt the dramatic sadness of the moment when Farley stepped up to a microphone to ask the convention for a unanimous nomination and ended his amazingly virtuous career in national politics. As Wickard was eating breakfast in the Stevens Hotel coffee shop early the next morning, he was paged to the telephone. It was Louise. She said Wallace had been called to Harrv Hopkins's room. Wickard swallowed his coffee and hurried to Wallace's suite to await his return. In a few minutes the Secretary came in followed by a newspaperman. As Wallace talked, he looked over at Wickard and nodded his head. When we had an opportunity we stepped into an adjoining

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room and he informed me that Hopkins had summoned him to his room and when he entered Hopkins extended his hand in congratulations. He informed the Secretary that the President had chosen him as the person whom he wished to receive the nomination for Vice President. It was agreed that no word should be given out to the public until such time as a plan had been worked out to inform the delegates concerning the President's wish. From that moment until the end of the convention, Wickard and Wallace whirled through a kaleidoscopic bedlam. Claude suggested to Wallace that he ask Farley and McNutt to second his nomination. Wallace thought that was a good idea and called the President to clear it with him. Roosevelt agreed. While the Secretary was talking over another phone, Wickard succeeded in reaching Frank McHale at McNutt's headquarters. The Governor's bitterness was apparent. There was a decided split of opinion over whether McNutt should fight on in defiance of Roosevelt's choice. About noon, Paul McNutt came to Wallace's rooms. The Secretary took him into an adjoining bedroom and closed the door. Wickard sat outside widi McNutt's assistant, Fowler Harper. The tableaux on "both sides of the door were the same. Both reflected the ugly disappointment which follows the thwarting of overwhelming personal ambition. When the door opened after their long conference, Wallace and McNutt smiled opaquely for press photographers and parted. Wickard had the feeling it was an uneasy peace. In mid-afternoon, the Iowa delegation, guiltily truculent over its bad guessing, began to jockey for position. If Alabama or Arkansas would yield on the first roll call, Iowa would pledge unanimous support for Wallace—but for a price. Iowa delegate John Valentine must make the nomination speech in place of Frank O'Connor. I told them that Mr. O'Connor had been chosen a few days before when it was very difficult to get any support out of the

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Iowa delegation. . . . and that I did not feel we should change now when there was so much chance of his nomination. This seemed to have been a remark which they took back to the rest of the delegation because I did not hear from them again for quite a while. At 5:30 P.M. Wickard was still trying to find Jim Farley. Wallace was dictating his acceptance speech. By 6:00 o'clock it was apparent that Farley could not be reached by any member of the Wallace group. At 6:15 Governor Olson of California consented to make a seconding speech. The convention opened at 7:00 o'clock. While the opening invocations were being given, Wickard and Appleby were hurrying back and forth between Wallace's seat on the platform and the convention floor, making last minute arrangements for the nomination, even lining up the final seconding speech. Mrs. Roosevelt arrived and was seated a few chairs away from the Secretary. Elliott Roosevelt was moving about on the floor telling delegates that his father had no particular choice and that Jesse Jones would be all right. No one was yet certain what McNutt might do. As nominations were opened, Alabama placed the name of Senator John Bankhead in nomination. Arkansas yielded to Iowa, and O'Connor named Henry Wallace. There were catcalls from the galleries. Some boos issued from the floor. One excited delegate bawled into a live mike, "Give us a Democrat, we don't want a Republican!" It was anything but party harmony. When Indiana was reached on the roll call, Paul McNutt walked to the platform and the galleries went wild. The more he tried to stop them, the louder they cheered. Again and again he began, "I'll explain why I'm withdrawing . . . ," and the shouting drowned out his voice. It took many minutes to restore order. Amid much cheering of McNutt and booing of Wallace, the Indiana Governor finally withdrew his name from nomination.

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It took about all the elation out of the nomination. Maybe but I didn't like deflated is a good term. I wasn't frightened, it, and was rather subdued. I distinctly remember that and wondering what Wallace was thinking to himself. I tried my best. I wasn't sure. I thought he'd be reacting the same as I, was simply a part and I tried to tell him this demonstration of the McNutt organized campaign. Wallace just didn't say much. Two or three times he said, "It'll come out all right. It'll come out all right." 13 As the balloting began, only Wallace, Bankhead, and McNutt were still in the running. Every time Wallace's name was mentioned the galleries renewed their booing. Cheers for McNutt were carried into every radio-equipped American home, giving the mistaken impression that the convention delegates were opposed to Wallace. The delegates were far from enthusiastic. But they were manfully doing their duty, many out of faith in Roosevelt and Wallace, most out of fear of the political consequences. None of them knew how well founded were those fears. President Roosevelt had in his hands at that moment a speech, drafted by Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, refusing his own nomination if Wallace should lose. Senator Byrnes came up and said it looked as though the Secretary were going to win. He advised that the Secretary should not attempt to address the convention because of the late hour and because the President was still to make his talk.1* Wallace was insistent that he should address the delegates. He still had the feeling that he could say just the right thing to restore the harmony for which he had worked. Wickard tried to tell him as gently as possible that he would be booed off the rostrum. Byrnes and Wickard took the candidate down to the stadium office to discuss it out of earshot of reporters. I went with the Secretary

and there

we met Miss

" Wickard, Interviews, p. 1494. " Wickard, "The 1940 Convention"; Samuel I. Rosenman, With Roosevelt (New York: Harper, 1952), pp. 215-20.

Perkins, Working

TJSDA photograph by Forsythe

Top: the Secretary of Agriculture (left) with Under Secretary Paul H. Appleby and Assistant Secretary Grover B. Hill (right). Center: the Wickard family at noonday dinner on the farm. Right: the Secretary keeps in touch with his farm friends in Indiana.

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Harry Hopkins, and Senator Byrnes. Senator Byrnes was advising that WaUace not make his talk. Apparently Miss Perkins insisted that he should. Hopkins was of the opinion that it would be better for the Secretary not to speak. I simply said that I was positive that the Secretary should not talk and the matter should be closed. Senator Byrnes suggested that we return to the platform. I did not think this should be done, but apparently the Secretary thought it best to return so we started out. The various broadcasting agencies were trying to get him to say a word. I told them many times that he absolutely would not speak a word over the radio. He shook his head at them each time they tried to make him talk. When they reached the platform, Wallace had won and the delegates were going through the motions of making the nomination unanimous. As soon as all the delegation changes had been made, the convention quieted down to hear the President's radio address. Wallace and Wickard listened intently from their seats. When it was over, they returned together to the hotel and Wallace put in a call to Roosevelt. He congratulated him upon his speech and the President evidently was very much pleased with the Secretary's nomination. The Secretary told him what a grand statement Paul McNutt had made and said, "I hope that we can profit by his frieiulship, for he made a very fine statement, especially in view of the opposition to such a statement by some of his wealthy backers." The Secretary told the President that he wished to see Mr. Farley, Mr. Byrnes, and Mr. Bankhead and others before he left Chicago. He wished to do everything possible to retain their good will and to bring about a harmony which he had worked so hard for during the entire convention. Late Friday afternoon, Claude and Louise drove to the farm and slept for twenty-four hours. On Monday, July 22, Wickard went to Indianapolis to sec about the corn belt Democratic campaign committee. He

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parked his car near the State Capitol and started walking over toward the circle. I can remember how that man came tip to me in Indianapolis. I was walking along the street and he came up to me. He said to me, "Some of your friends out here would like to do what they could to see that you succeed Henry Wallace." That came as a shock to me when he mentioned it. I really was shocked about it. I had never thought about it, and the thought flashed through my mind: Is that why people think I was working so hard for Wallace? 15 Repeatedly, on that same day and on the days which followed, Wickard was to have the same shocking experience. Farm Bureau people, county agents, Triple-A committeemen and influential neighbors offered their support to Claude Wickard for Secretary of Agriculture. To each of them he gave the same answer: he did not think he should be considered for the position if and when Wallace resigned to run for the vice-presidency, and, furthermore, this kind of talk could prove most embarrassing. The man who was to become Secretary of Agriculture had to be capable of administering the Department and advising the President on farm matters. He should have a large rural following, particularly in the politically doubtful midwest. He should be an unquestionable New Deal Democrat who was willing and able to campaign for the party. And, in 1940, he had to be a man who would accept the job knowing that Wendell Willkie had every Gallup Poll expectation of winning the election. There were but four possible names which Wallace might suggest to the President: M. L. Wilson, Marvin Jones, Claude Wickard, and Spike Evans. M. L. Wilson's contribution to farm planning and rural welfare was rivaled only by that of Wallace himself. Respected and beloved throughout the Department, a confidant of both the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, M. L. Wilson was Wallace's first choice 15

Wickard, Interviews, p. 1498.

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for the post. The Secretary had tacitly offered it to Wilson in December of 1939. Unfortunately, a crippling attack of arthritis made it impossible for him to accept. Wallace's second choice, House Agriculture Committee chairman Marvin Jones, was a lifelong Democrat, a seasoned campaigner and a New Dealer who stood high in all three branches of government. As a reward for his outstanding work the President had promised him the next opening on the United States Court of Claims, and Jones had no desire to become Secretary of Agriculture. Spike Evans had a large Iowa following and was exceptionally well thought of on the Hill, but he knew little about partisan politics. He told his friends he did not want the job. 1 6 The Wickards returned to Washington on July 28. Late the following afternoon Bill Thatcher of the Farmers' Union came in to see Claude Wickard. Thatcher wasted no time in coming to the point. "Do you know that some of your friends would like to see you be appointed Secretary of Agriculture? Have you given any thought to it?" "Yes, some." "What have you done about it?" "I've discouraged it," answered Wickard. "I've just now signed a letter to Hassil Schenck, president of the Indiana Farm Bureau, asking that nothing like this be done." Bill Thatcher left Wickard's office and went straight to the White House with the news that the Indiana Farm Bureau was behind Wickard and that the Farmers' Union was also supporting him for Secretary. Wickard had no knowledge of Thatcher's action. But it was easy to guess what he would do, and the Under Secretary made no move to stop him.' 7 Tuesday morning was spent with the Agricultural Advisory " Wayne, Darrow, Hendriekson, Jones, Shields, and Wilson, Interviews. Evans participated in conferences with Appleby, LeCron, and Milo Perkins in which the secretaryship was discussed. M. L. Wilson's name was the outstanding one, but they finally suggested Wickard's name to Wallace. Letter from James D. LeCron to the author, January 4, 1955. 17 Wickard, Interviews, p. 1500; Shields, Interviews; letter from Thatcher to Wickard, October 4, 1940, in Wickard Papers.

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Council. Because the meeting ran over its usual two hours, it was nearly 1:30 before Wickard could get out to eat.

After lunch the Secretary called me in to tell me that he wanted me to be appointed Secretary of Agriculture when he resigned to engage in political activities about the first of September. He said that Mr. M. W. Thatcher had already discussed the matter with the President. I thanked him for his expression of confidence in me and said I did not feel equal to the task but that I would do the best I could to carry on present policies if I were chosen.18 Late that same afternoon Paul Appleby asked Jim LeCron and Wickard to go with him to see Wallace in the Secretary's office.

Paul told the Sec. that he had lunched with Marvin Jones and had told him that he was being considered for Sec. of Agriculture. Jones apparently did not want to take the position. . . . The Secretary informed PA and James Lecron who was present that he had decidcd to ask the President to aj>point me. PA said that in view of the fact that the Secretary wanted to come back as Secretary after election the Sec. should only take leave of absence and I should be appointed as Acting Secretary during the time the Secretary was most active in the campaign. I agreed today that this was the best procedure. It will have to be approved by the Pres.10 As close as he was to the Secretary, Paul Appleby obviously was unaware when he entered Wallace's office that Wickard had been offered the secretaryship. This news was of staggering importance to him. If Wickard were named Secretary, both Appleby's job and his magnificent administrative strucWickard, Diary, July 30, 1940. " Ibid., July 31, 1940; Interviews, p. 1505. Judge Marvin Jones recalls that Wallace and Ed Flynn offered him the secretaryship either as a permanent or temporary appointment, but lie refused both. Jones, Interviews. Mr. Wallace says it is possible he offered the job to Jones, but he does not remember having done it. Wallace, Interviews. James D. LeCron says he has no memory of this conference with Wallace, Appleby, and Wickard. Letter to the author, October 15, 1954. 18

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ture would be threatened. Appleby's agile mind grasped at the first straws of confusion he found and threw them up to head off the Wickard appointment. No one knew better than he that there was no such thing as an "appointment" for Acting Secretary. The Under Secretary was automatically Acting Secretary in the Secretary's absence. But he succeeded on the second try. He sensed that Wallace was not eager to quit the Department any sooner than he had to, and, if by some administrative legerdemain he could keep Wallace in office through the campaign, he would have time to locate a Secretary more suitable from his point of view than Wickard. As far as Wickard heard, nothing further was done about the matter for a week. He had the same unhurried schedule of meetings on lard standards and budgets which had deadened his early days as Under Secretary. No word of his appointment had been given to the press. So ephemeral was the possibility of his becoming Secretary, Claude had not bothered Louise with the details. Then, on August 6 — This morning Paul Appleby saw me when I came to work and asked if the Secretary had told me about what the President had said about Secretary's resigning. I said no. Paul said that the President wanted the Secretary to resign from about the sixth of September until after the election and that I tvas to be named Secretary for that period. If the Democrats win the election no promises were to be made for the new term, but perhaps M. L. Wilson would be named. The Secretary called me a little later and told me the same thing except he did not mention what would be done after the President took office for the third term if he is elected. Naturally I was pleased to have this word, although I realize the President may change his mind on the whole matter.20 Now Wickard was utterly confused. From an "appointment" as Acting Secretary it had become a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of an interim Cabinet appointment. Wickard, Diary, August 6, 1940.

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He had never heard of such a thing. Wickard had the impression that Wallace had offered him the secretaryship contingent upon Wickard's willingness to give it back as soon as the votes were counted. The consequences in Congress alone of such a "deal" were too hideous to contemplate. It appeared unlikely that the President was party to this proposal, and not even Wallace's lack of political sagacity was so profound as to believe it would be overlooked by the press. Wickard thought the scheme came from Appleby, but under what guise he had sold it to Wallace, Wickard could only guess. Of course I felt that this offer was a great honor. It was something beyond my fondest hopes. I had never expected to be Under Secretary, let alone Secretary, even for an interim period. Even though I recognized, or thought that it wasn't a permanent position, and even though I felt in some ways that it was kind of a last choice or a last resort to be putting me in these things, yet 1 was appreciative of the honor. Don't think I was not. I guess that outweighed any other considerations. I wouldn't have refused, even if I had known that they were going to go ahead and carry out their intentions as Paul Appleby described them.21 Henry Wallace faced two undecided questions when he went to see the President—whom to appoint to succeed him, and when he was to resign. He had two candidates for Secretary: Spike Evans and Claude Wickard. He discussed them both with the President, giving Wickard the edge because he was more progressive. The decision was then made to name Wickard. As far as Wallace's tenure was concerned, there Wickard, Interviews, p. 1508. Mr. Wickard added that Secretary Wallace "told me that he would like to have the President appoint me, and of course he wanted it understood that I would only serve between the time he resigned and the election, because he had to have the salarv—he had no other income. . . . He didn't put that as a condition, whether I'd accept it on that basis or not. He simply made the statement of fact, and made it so that I would understand that was the condition under which I was to be appointed." Interviews, p. 1509. No mention of this aspect of the appointment appears in Mr. Wickard's diary.

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existed no legal necessity for him to resign his appointive office to run for an elective one. For financial reasons it would have been helpful if he could have retained the secretaryship during the campaign. However, Roosevelt was adamant about Wallace's resignation since the President had himself resigned from the assistant secretaryship of the Navy in 1920 to run for Vice President. The date of Wallace's resignation was set at September 5, 1940. Once this issue was settled, Wallace said he had not the slightest intention of returning to the Department of Agriculture. "There were no strings on Wickard's appointment. It was to be permanent. It was completely a bona fide thing." 2 2 At the time Wallace and Roosevelt agreed on naming Wickard, the President did not know his new Secretary by sight. He expressed some of his reasons for accepting Wickard in a reply to Josephus Daniels's recommendation of Clarence Poe for the post: I had already determined the succession in the Department of Agriculture, based on certain important administrative considerations. The thing of first importance is to have a maximum of continuity in the Department during the campaign, as little confusion and adjustment to new leadership as possible. I know Dr. Poe would try strictly to hold the lines, but any man coming in from the outside would find it more difficult to take over than would a man already in the line of authority and fully acquainted with all the activities and the people concerned.23 On August 13, Wickard received the next news of his ap- Wallace, Interviews. Russell Lord, in The Wallaces of Iowa, p. 477, has an undocumented description of Wallace's intention to return to the USDA between November and January. 23 Roosevelt to Daniels, August 21, 1940, General Records of the Department of Agriculture, Secretary's Correspondence, 1940-1945, Record Group 16, Records 6-7, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as S.C.). This letter does not sound as though President Roosevelt dictated it. Since it was found amid the Secretary's Correspondence, it is possible that it was composed by Paul Appleby.

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pointment when Paul Appleby and Jim McCamy came in during the afternoon. Paul informed me that the Secretary was going to ask that the President appoint him as Under Secretary when I am appointed Secretary for the two months period beginning with the Secretary's resignation, which should be effective 24 about Sept. 5. Wickard's heart was not exactly gladdened by these tidings. Nor did he stop to think it strange that he was not even consulted in the matter of choosing his number two man. Paul Appleby was as incomprehensible to Wickard as Wickard was to Appleby. Wickard, oblivious to the esthetics of managership, looked on "administration" as a largely menial chore, merely the doing of what had to be done. Administration was Paul Appleby's way of creating outside himself the orderly world which he lacked within. In a candid letter to his former associate and close friend, Don Murphy, editor of Wallaces' Farmer, he revealed exactly what he had in mind: This letter will be one that will perhaps in a general way reply to various of your communications, but more particularly yours of August 21 in which you voiced congratulations on the new job. I was about as surprised as you were, although a week or so sooner. I wanted Henry to decide definitely where he thought I could be of greatest service, without any pressure from anybody. I think he made the decision on that basis. And, oddly, when it was first suggested to me it was a possibility that hadn t theretofore occurred to me. It had the advantage of making me an honest man under the terms of the Hatch Act, and perhaps an advantage in assuring a somewhat higher degree of continuity in the Department. Of course, next to the campaign our greatest concern was in seeing that the Department wasn't turned over to serve political purposes and that it did project the leadership of H. A. [Wallace]. Confidentially, in case nobody has told you, H. A. is to return as Secretary immediately after the election, and fill out the political year. And in the next Administration it is altogether likely that there will be a still different arrangement. It is possible in the next Administration that we may get legislau

Wickard, Diary, August 13, 1940.

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tion to establish a career assistant secretaryship in charge of administration. I think that that's more logical than having that job be the job of the Under Secretary. The Under Secretary ought to be the farm front alternate to the Secretary, the policy alternate. If we get the legislation I think it is rather likely that I'll be given that particular job. Whether or not I'd ever stay beyond the next Administration would depend on what happened after that. But at the present writing I am inclined to feel that I'd prefer to stay on throughout the next Administration.25 Drawn from the British system of government, the idea of a career assistant secretaryship was first suggested for the Department by William A. Jump. At the time Jump refused Wallace's offer of the undersecretaryship in January, he told him of the administrative "shiver of fear" which went through the USDA when a new Secretary took over. He pointed out how little effective use was made either of the Under or Assistant Secretary. Then he described to Wallace his concept of having a nonpartisan career civil servant occupy a Congressionally created, permanent assistant secretaryship. This man would serve as a sort of administrative "manager" of the Department regardless of who was Secretary or which political party ran the country. Jump's high ideals and excellent prose presented an alluring picture. If it ever is tried, and does work, I believe the American Secretary of Agriculture can have more chance of functioning as a Minister of Agriculture in the sense that he can live and work in an atmosphere conducive to the highest development of statecraft in the field of his ministry, rather than as an executive officer, driven and harassed from hour to hour and from day to day with una Appleby to Murphy, September 3, 1940, Records 10, S.C. (italics added). The "continuity" phrase was also used in Roosevelt's letter to Josephus Daniels. Mr. Murphy did not remember this letter when it was shown to him in 1953, but he thought he would have been very skeptical of the section describing Wallace's return after the election. Donald R. Murphy, Interview. No hint of the appointment's being "temporary" appeared in Wallaces' Farmer. Further documentation of the "temporary" aspect may be found in Appleby to Marshal! Dimock, August 26, 1940, Records 6-1, S.C., in which he says, "My appointment is for a temporary period, but I am pleased to have this opportunity to serve with Claude Wickard in carrying on the policies and programs of the Department. . . ."

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snarling the problems and difficulties of the moment. [The Secretary should be] . . . free to range the whole area of agricultural program policy, with freedom of time to initiate on his own behalf, both as to long time and as to current problems . . . but able to proceed on the assumption that no matter how he spends his time the department is being run in an effective and orderly manner by the responsible, overall managership of the "General Manager" or "Permanent Secretary." 2 6 Jump protested that he was too old for the post and suggested that Paul Appleby would make an excellent USDA manager. Wallace was greatly taken with the idea. This was precisely the role he had tacitly granted to Appleby for the past few years. Therefore, it was no trick to sell Wallace on the thought of appointing Appleby to the undersecretaryship. Knowing nothing of the antagonism between Wickard and Appleby, Wallace firmly believed Wickard would carry on his policies while Appleby would supply a continuity of fine administration. "This would make a good team," he said.27 Wickard was not aware of Appleby's "career Assistant Secretary" scheme or of his letter to Murphy. It had been two weeks since Wallace had first brought up the matter of his appointment, and in that time nearly every scrap of information Wickard received about it came through Paul Appleby. By August 14, when Claude and Louise drove out to Indiana with Ann to get her started in Purdue, Wickard had come to doubt that Wallace really wanted him to be Secretary or that he would ever be appointed. On the 15th they stopped in Ohio while he presided over an AAA meeting, arriving at Fairacre Farms the next day. On Friday, August 16, before leaving on a trip to the Great Smokv Mountains, President Roosevelt cleared the nominations of Wickard and Appleby for delivery to the Senate. New York PM picked up a White House leak and broke the story that afternoon. Apparently radio commentators were afraid to William A. Jump to Charles T. McKinley, December 10, 1940, Organization 1, S.C.; Wallace, Interviews. " Hendrickson, Interviews.

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touch the yarn. Wickard, an inveterate newscast listener, heard nothing. On the 17th, Claude, Louise, Betty, and Ann drove to Hamilton, Ohio, where Louise and the girls were to spend several days with Louise's sister. Wickard caught the train for Biloxi, Mississippi, to address the Farm Bureau's Southern Regional Conference. On Monday, the 19th, Claude Wickard was standing in the lobby of the Buena Vista Hotel in Biloxi, reminiscing with the manager about the time he had stayed there en route to the 1928 convention. As they talked, Wickard was aware that the radio in the lobby had changed from music to a news broadcast. Then he heard the words, "President Roosevelt today announced he had accepted the resignation of Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, and had appointed Claude R. Wickard in his place." When I heard the news over the radio in Biloxi, I was really surprised. I will say more than surprised—I was frightened. I was just sort of frightened. I remember one thing. I looked every place to see if anybody was there to hear it, and went up to my room as quickly as 1 could. What was I frightened about? Well, I guess I was just frightened of the responsibility and wondered, Well, what am I going to do, thrown into this big responsibility? I wasn't at all sure of myself. Maybe that's the easiest way to describe it. I had never given any thought to what I would say if I were told. The possibility had seemed so remote to me that I had never given it any thought. I was caught totally unprepared, if the truth be known. Somehow I just felt that I'd like to get away and sit down and think about it a little while. I did go immediately to my room. The moment I was there the newspaper people started calling. That didn't help at all. About the only thing I could say was that I was going to carry out Henry Wallace's policy—that was my stock answer.2" 28 Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1 5 1 7 - 1 8 ; Claude Wickard to Louise Wickard, August 20, 1940, in Wickard Papers; Early to Forster, August 16, 1940, in Official File 1, Franklin D. Roosevelt Correspondence, Hyde Park Memorial Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter cited as Roosevelt Correspondence); New York PM, August 16, 1940.

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T h e new Secretary got off the train at Washington's Union Station on August 21 with none to herald his triumphant entry into the capital but his thoughtful assistant, Carl Hamilton. When he reached his office, however, he found his desk piled high with congratulatory messages. There were short conferences with Wallace and Appleby, and a continuous parade of farm organization people and Department workers who wanted to shake his hand and utter appropriate sentiments. Some seemed to be very pleased that I had received this appointment. Others tried to act pleased, but somehow 1 felt when they met me-—probably that they were embarrassed because of personal attitude. Another group tried to avoid me, and I felt that the subject of my appointment was the one thing they ivanted [to] avoid discussing in my presence.29 Henry Wallace introduced the new Secretary to the press at 3:30 that afternoon. Wickard's past achievements were praised. Claude projected little beyond a beaming good nature and what passed for extreme modesty. The stories which resulted were again built around his "dirt-farmerness," the fact that he had come up through the ranks of the Department, and the politically fortunate circumstance of his Indiana birth A reporter asked Wickard if he knew fellow Hoosier fanner, Wendell W'illkie. Claude said he -did not, but that Willkie impressed him as a Wall Street boy trying to make good on a farm. The newsmen laughed, Wallace frowned, and Wickard was embarrassed. Claude was fretful about his press notices. He scanned them eagerly the next morning expecting an avalanche of public criticism. What he found was little more than a simple reporting of the changc, accenting "Wallace quits" rather than "Wickard named." Wickard anticipated that there would be a series of lastminute conferences with the outgoing Secretary to acquaint his successor with incompleted projects and various pending matters of policy. So he was not surprised when Henry Wallace • Wickard, Diary, August 21, 1940.

The Great Honor came ambling into his office late Thursday afternoon, the 22nd, and slumped down in one of the big leather chairs. As they chatted about the political situation, Wickard had the impression that Wallace was finding it difficult to express himself on some significant topic. They talked for several moments about matters of little importance. Then, to Wickard's astonishment, Wallace arose without saying another word and walked out. Except for two short memoranda, on tropical agriculture and the Forest Service, the outgoing Secretary had in this brief exchange turned over the keys and badge of office to the new one.30 The Senate confirmed both the new Secretary and Under Secretary on August 23. An Thursday, September 5, at about 11:30 in the morning, Claude Wickard and Paul Appleby were driven over to the White House. They waited for a few minutes while the executive staff scurried around to find someone with legal authority to administer the oath of office. Then they were ushered into the President's study. Today at 11:45 in the Oval Room at the White House I stood by the side of President Roosvelt [s/c] and was sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture. It was an occasion to be remembered the rest of my life, but one in which I never expected to participate. In some respects it is the greatest honor that could come to me, with the exception of the Presidency. I know I am not the outstanding person who it is acknowledged deserves to be given this great honor. Also I know that my appointment came about through a combination of events. I am very proud nevertheless. My rise in prominence has been rapid and enjoyable. I hope my descent will not be too distasteful.31 * Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1519-24; Diary, August 23, 1940; Wallace to Wickard, August 23, 1940, Records 6-7', S.C.; Wallace to Wickard, August 30, 1940, Forestry, S.C. " Wickard, Diary, September 5, 1940; Interviews, pp. 1531-33.

8: Wallace's Chair I am conscious that it is going to be very difficult for me to avoid unfavorable comparisons between H. A. Wallace and me. He without question was the greatest Secretary of Agriculture the Department has ever had. He was a great economist scientist and humanitarian. I feel that everyone is measuring me by his standards. Today two men who have been in the Department for some time came in to satj that there had been no unfavorable comment in the Department concerning my appointment and on the other hand a lot of people seemed very pleased. I am glad to hear these reports, because they give me a little more confidence for the task ahead.1 Wickard held his first conference with the Department's bureau chiefs within three hours after President Roosevelt had witnessed his swearing-in. They filed in through the large room full of desks and secretaries (it looked about the same) through the smaller bay where Paul Appleby used to have his desk (it was still outside the door) and into the enormous office which belonged to the Secretary of Agriculture. The same taupe carpet, mauve draperies and red leather chairs were there. Beneath the windows in its accustomed place was the great mahogany desk; beside it the stand which held the White House telephone. Behind this was a table flanked by two large unfurled flags. But the Secretary of Agriculture was not present. In his place sat the familiar figure of Claude Wickard. For most of the bureau chiefs, nearly all of them owing both intellectual and emotional allegiance to Henry Wallace, it seemed strange to see Claude in The Chair. Here was Spike 1

Wickard, Diary, September 12, 1940.

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Evans, who knew he had as much right to the secretaryship as Wickard. Beside him stood Milo Perkins, who had an intimate personal attachment to Wallace. On the far side of the desk stood Howard Tolley, Bill Jump, and M. L. Wilson. They understood the situation with detached sympathy. To their left were Beanie Baldwin and Robert W. (Pete) Hudgens from Farm Security, watching, gloomily wondering how this AAA-Farm Bureau Secretary would back up the small farmer. In front were Eugene Auchter of the Bureau of Plant Industry and Hugh H. Bennett of Soil Conservation. They knew how Wickard felt about their work and anticipated good things from the newcomer. Then there was Harry Slattery of the Rural Electrification Administration, estimating whether Wickard would sustain his shaky domain. Near him was Roy F. Hendrickson, a bear of a man whose busy thoughts danced like summer lightening over the strained assembly. Around the periphery were the remaining research bureau chiefs, impassively belligerent, ready to defend their bailiwicks against the slightest hint of change. Off in the a corner was the silent coterie of administrators—Paul Appleby, Jim McCamy, and Milton Eisenhower. After bidding them be seated, Claude's face creased into its most self-depreciating grin, and he eased himself into The Chair. "Well," he said, "I suppose I look entirely out of place here, but I'm sure I don't look out of place any more than I feel out of place sitting in this chair." There was a muffled titter around the room. Then he went on to reassure them that things would continue much as they had been, and that there would be no revolutionary changes. He said he hoped they would feel free to consult with him about their problems. 2 When he finished, they came up to the desk, shook his hand, and returned to their offices. There was no doubt how they felt. Claude Wickard had not taken Wallace's place for any of them. For some, he was poaching on the sacred preserve; 'Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1 5 3 6 - 3 7 .

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for others, inscrutable fate had raised one of their number to exalted rank without granting him the robes of office. They admired Wickard for his fine work in the North Central Division. To a man, they had great personal fondness for him. But with much shaking of heads, the bureau chiefs adopted the only position open to them: "Well, Claude's Secretary and he's a good fellow. We've got to help him all we can. Maybe he has more than we think he has." Wickard knew of this feeling. There was nothing he could do about it. As far as he could tell, he would be there only two months. It was, in fact, Wallace's chair, Wallace's desk, Wallace's office, and Wallace's department. Even the small staff in the Secretary's office was, with two exceptions, Wallace's. Wickard had brought with him only his assistant, Carl Hamilton, and his secretary, Miss Catherine Loose. Carl had just turned twenty-six and looked no more than that. His background was Iowa farm; his education, journalism at Iowa State. He had a quick, absorbent mind and a slightly moralistic idealism. Five years' newspaper experience had detracted nothing from Carl's fresh-from-the-farm sincerity, his quiet assurance, and easy humor. The remainder of the staff had been handpicked by Paul Appleby on the assumption that as Under Secretary he would continue to run the Department as he had run it when he was an administrative assistant to Wallace. LeCron had resigned to accompany Wallace on his campaigning. McCamy was treated more or less as the Secretary's executive assistant, although Wickard never once referred to him as such. Appleby had passed out the rest of the assignments to Herbert Parisius, Stanley P. Williams, Don Parel, Leon Wolcott, Frank Sette, and Ralph Olmstead. Except for Carl and Miss Loose, the whole staff looked to Appleby for direction. It was not for want of respect that they followed Appleby, but simple recognition of the fact that he was giving the orders. Soon an insidious condescension permeated the office. Parisius heard the "temporary" rumor, and in guarded

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tones it spread to other parts of the Department. Illustrative of the office attitude was the circulation of an apocryphal tale of Wickard's first Cabinet meeting. As he entered, the President is reported to have inquired, "And how is the Secretary of Agriculture?" To which Wickard was said to have replied, "To tell you the truth, Mr. President, I don't know. I haven't seen him today." 3 Although he had attended one Cabinet meeting, Wickard's real introduction to the official family came on September 15 when Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead died. The President, alert to the publicity value of a state funeral in a campaign year, decreed that all Cabinet members should attend not only the House services, but should travel on the President's train to Jasper, Alabama, for the funeral itself. Wickard hastened to rent a full-dress outfit and reported to the House of Representatives for duty. The Washington part of the services went off as scheduled. The President and his Cabinet, with the exceptions of Stimson, Knox, and Frank Walker, then boarded the train for Jasper. For the conscripted mourners, the next afternoon's ceremony was a punishing experience. The Jasper Methodist Church was small and poorly ventilated; the temperature stood at something over ninety degrees, with the humidity only slightly below that. Steaming and perspiring in their heavy formal attire, Roosevelt's Cabinet sat solemn as owls, stuck to their newly shellacked pews while, for two solid hours, a battery of local pastors and the House Chaplain eulogized the virtues of the dead Speaker. * Miss Frances Perkins recalled no such event as the Cabinet story related by Stanley P. Williams in his Interviews. The "temporary" rumor was heard by Samuel B. Bledsoe, Roy F. Hendrickson, Herbert W. Parisius, and Morse Salisbury (see their Interviews). Carl Hamilton, John B. Hutson, Robert Shields, and Howard R. Tolley recall nothing of the "temporary" aspect. In the Kiplinger Agricultural Letter for October 12, 1940, the following appeared: "Wickard's attitude toward Wallace's former 'palace guard,' headed by Paul Appleby, is subject to much speculation. . . . They say Wickard will run the Department first hand, not second hand, relying more on experienced practical men than Wallace did."

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All the seats got harder and harder and the temperature got higher and higher with all these people packed in this church. I just couldn't understand how the President could sit as straight as he did and never move. I would have to shift a little from one side to the other, or do something to ease myself. The President never moved. I thought Gee whiz, he is the most stoic individual I've ever seen. During the trip back Wickard had a chance to see his fellow Cabinet members under more relaxed circumstances than those usually afforded by official occasions. Henry Wallace had broken his campaign tour and had reached Jasper in time for the two-hour torment. Wickard tried to tell him how USDA programs were faring and found Wallace not even politely interested. Later, Roosevelt had them all in for dinner in his private car. The President was in a jovial mood. He told stories of attending other funerals of public people. The subject of discussion perhaps would not have been political if it had not been brought to this point by Cabinet members. Evidently the 1 President does not relish too much politics.' At the President's invitation Wickard spent the following Sunday at Hyde Park. When he arrived, Claude found that Harry Hopkins, movie stars Katharine Hepburn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and the President's son Elliott were also there. Hopkins stayed in the house and worked while Roosevelt drove Wickard and the movie people around the estate in his special Ford. There teas one thing that I gained from his conversation with me as he took me around showing me the trees and showing me the neighborhood and his home and his study. That teas the feeling that this was home; this was the place he dearly loved, the place he liked to be above all other places. . . . He spent so much time apparently traveling back' W i c k a r d , I n t e r v i e w s , p. 1 5 5 2 ; D i a r y , S e p t e m b e r Interviews; Ickes, Durnj, III, 3 2 6 - 2 7 .

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wards and forwards. But when you saw him there in this community and when you saw the friendliness of his neighimpression bors and the people there, you gained the distinct that here was the place where he could enjoy himself and relax more than in almost any other place.5 The Cabinet meeting on the 27th was devoted largely to the German-Italian-Japanese axis pact which had been signed a few days before. As Wickard listened to Roosevelt, Hull, Knox, and Morgenthau discuss the tactical deployment of American economic forces, he gained some new impressions of a world outside the back forty: It seems to me that we can't escape the conclusion that sooner or later we are going to be drawn closer and closer to Great Britain in this conflict. The Cabinet meeting today was a very serious one. Everyone present . . . seemed to feel that history was being made hourly.9 During late September and early October, Wickard's work in the Department of Agriculture was largely pro forma. He attended meetings of such inconsequential groups as the library committee and the Canal Zone Biological Survey. His schedule was loaded with congressmen and visiting dignitaries, both foreign and domestic. Three major problems were murmuring for his attention: an abnormally large cotton carryover, a threatened New York milk strike, and the relationship of the USDA to Chester Davis's office in the Advisory Commission. Since Appleby had staff matters well under control, there was not much for Wickard to do but read the dockets. In Agriculture, as elsewhere in the government, large issues were being set aside until the voters decided who should be chosen to deal with them. Democratic National Committee chairman Ed Flynn had written Wickard some time before to stand ready to reply should Willkie loose an attack on the farm program. By the Wickard, Interviews, p. 1585. 'Wickard, Diary, September 27, 1940. 5

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middle of October the Republicans were belaboring everything in the New Deal, and Wickard was ordered to the Hustings. He went first to South Dakota for a Farmers' Union meeting, then to Missouri to address the State Farm Bureau at Columbia, and completed his swing with a speech before the Indiana Grange. By the time he returned to Washington it was apparent that Wendell Willkie was going to force the President to abandon his pose of being too deeply involved in matters of state to engage in politics. Within a few days, Roosevelt chuckled from Philadelphia, "I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight," and waded in with both fists swinging. In New York and Boston his audiences joined with him in the chanting excoriation of isolationists "Martin, Barton, and Fish!" On October 25 Wickard left for the second lap of his campaign. Taking Carl Hamilton along as speech writer, he spent the next nine days making his way through the small cities of the midwest, addressing audiences of anywhere from fifty to two thousand people. Wickard spoke in schoolhouses, armories, auditoriums, and churches—in Van Wert, Fort Morgan, Independence, Storm Lake, Yankton, Eau Clair, and Ottuinwa. His speeches were keyed to "democracy" and "cooperation." He reviewed the faltering efforts of the GOP during the 1920s and compared them unfavorably with the stalwart measures taken by Wallace during the 1930s. He pointed with satisfaction to the Ever-Normal Granary bulging with reserve supplies of wheat and cotton in preparation for defense effort. His satisfaction with the enormous supplies held under Commodity Credit Corporation loans was, however, strictly for campaign purposes. Wickard, as a dirt fanner, looked with apprehension at a growing surplus and falling exports. He had no idea how the Ever-Normal Granary was to be prevented from becoming a Never-Ending Prop for cotton and wheat prices. Late on election night, November 5, Claude and Louise

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listened to the returns with the Wallaces, the Blacks, and the Evanses at Jim LeCron's house. As soon as it was certain that Roosevelt had won, Wallace called the President at Hyde Park. They talked for a few minutes, then Wallace handed the telephone to Wickard. Claude offered his congratulations to the President and, as if in answer to Wickard's unspoken question, heard Roosevelt reply, "It was a grand victory. I will be seeing you soon." Wickard hoped that the President's last six words had something to do with the secretaryship.7 At 8:30 the following morning the Presidential train pulled into Washington Union Station and the entire Cabinet was on hand to meet "the Champ." Despite the early hour, thousands of Washingtonians had thronged into the station plaza and lined the sidewalks of the Capital to catch a glimpse of Roosevelt and the official family. Headed by the Roosvelts [sic] and Wallaces we paraded up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. There [were] 300,000 people watching the parade. Louise picked out the curb where she and Ann stood four years ago. We were on the farm eight years ago. What a change for the Wickards in the last eight years.9 Weighing heavily on Wickard's mind was the question of his tenure in the secretaryship. According to what Appleby had led him to believe, Henry Wallace would be coming back in a few days to reclaim his office. This was the arrangement Wickard had agreed to, but, much as he was steeled to giving up the great honor, he hated to do it. On Thursday, November 7, he had lunch with Appleby, hoping the Under Secretary would refer to the matter. Appleby said nothing. Sitting in Cabinet meeting on Friday, wondering if it might be his last, Wickard commented on the seriousness of the loss of cotton exports. He questioned whether some of the cotton "neutral" Ibid., November 6, 1940. " Ibid.. Nov ember 7, 1940;

7

Louise Wickard to Ann Wickard, Novem!);•)' 7. 1910, in Pickart Papers; Washington Post, November 8, 1940.

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Russia was purchasing might not be finding its way into Germany. Again Wickard tried to read meaning into the President's request that he find out how much cotton Russia was buying. 9 On Friday evening Mr. and Mrs. Chester Davis invited the Wickards to their home for dinner. Davis had in mind that he would take this opportunity to establish a friendly working relationship with Wickard. Davis said he knew from experience that needlers and whisperers would endeavor to split the USDA and the Advisory Commission, and he suggested that the two of them confer in complete frankness. I told Claude at the outset of the talk that I had already advised the President in answer to a question he asked, that I favored Claude's retention permanently as Secretary of Agriculture, with only one reservation. That reservation was that he should really be the Secretary of Agriculture and not permit an individual or clique within the Department to set his policies for him. 10

Saturday night Wickard attended the annual Press Club banquet for the President. During the course of the evening Roosevelt called him over to his chair to talk with him about the cotton problem. Roosevelt told him he wanted something done about southern agriculture. He said he wanted to see cotton acreage reduced, and, at the same time, he wanted Wickard to find ways of raising sharecropper and tenant living standards. W ickard was enchanted with this, his first assignment from the President. It was an earnest of Roosevelt's confidence, and it appeared to preclude the possibility of Wallace's return. Two days later Wickard discovered that Vice President-elect Wallace had been named Ambassador Extraordinary to represent Roosevelt at Mexico City on December 1 for the installation ceremonies of President-elect Avila Camacho. Wallace was scheduled to leave on November 21. "Wickard, Diary, November 8, 1940; Iekes, Diary, III, 3 6 7 . 10 Davis to Wallace, November 23, 1942, as quoted in Davis to Myers, October 12, 1943, USDA History Unit Files; Wickard. Appointment

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No sooner was one resignation problem out of the way than another took its place. Honest Harold Ickes, conforming to time-worn tradition, had submitted his resignation. All Cabinet officers, according to the practice, were expected to do so at the end of each administration. Wickard wondered what to do. The newspapers were full of gossip about possible Cabinet changes. Wickard knew that his name headed their lists. Much of the press chatter was as ridiculous as the nonsense printed that Charles McNary would replace Wickard and Fiorello La Cuardia would take Stimson's job. Not so easily laughed off was the Kiplinger Agricultural Letter, whose unusually high percentage of accuracy commanded some respect. Kiplinger, in mid-October, called Wickard a "stop-gap" appointment to be replaced early in the third term. Late in November, Kiplinger gave Wickard a chance to remain "despite the undercover knifing which he is now undergoing." Although Roosevelt knocked down these hints of Cabinet replacements as quickly as they appeared, the President had never told Wickard that his was a permanent appointment and Wickard lacked the temerity to ask. Having no idea how long The Chair might be his, Claude and Louise drove west on November 11 for a series of farm organization addresses and Thanksgiving with the family at Fairacre Farms.11 Although Wickard returned to Washington on November 25, the guiding hand of an effective Secretary remained absent. Even without his uncertainty of tenure and an unfortunate situation with Appleby, Wickard's moderate comprehension of the coming war's requirements made large policy shifts unlikely. But the continuing barrage of press gossip about a new Secretary kept alive the possibility of his removal, gave credence to Appleby's claim, and further robbed Wickard of u Kiplinger Agricultural Letter, October 12 and November 23, 1940; New York World Telegram, November 9, 1940; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1770-71.

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the Department's loyalty. Determined to be Secretary in fact as well as in title, Wickard set out to undercut Appleby's power and to achieve his own relationship with President Roosevelt. In Wickard's mind, Paul Appleby's power was derived from Henry Wallace. Wickard could not believe what Wallace had tried to make clear on the train after the Bankhead funeral, that Wallace had no further interest in the Department of Agriculture. He hated the implications of comparison. If Wickard altered a Wallace policy, it was wrong because Wallace had not done it that way. The result was, of course, a change in Wickard's feelings for his predecessor. He resented the temporary nature of his appointment, which he still thought Wallace had been party to. He was irritated that Wallace had saddled him with Appleby. And he was dismayed by the revelation of some letters which Wallace was reputed to have written to some mystical-religious group. As Wickard phrased it to himself,"his idol had fallen. But when Paul Appleby threatened to resign in mid-November, Wickard was unprepared to exploit a situation which he himself, half in innocence and half deliberately had provoked. Wickard knew that his best gambit was to ease Appleby's hand gently off the mechanisms of departmental administrative control. But, in fear that Wallace might protect Appleby while Wickard's resignation was still pending, he dared not force his Under Secretary out. In the opening session with the bureau chiefs, Wickard had assured them that they might have direct access to him any time they needed it. Wise department heads smiled cynically to themselves in remembrance of eight years of conspiracy to get by Appleby to see Wallace. However, Eugene Auchter of Plant Industry decided in October to test Wickard and he found he meant what he had said. The word spread and other chiefs began to make appointments with Wickard through Miss Loose. Soon neither Hamilton, McCamy, nor Appleby knew what commitments Wickard

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had made. Coordination with other interested bureaus became difficult. Only one man could know what was happening in the Department—Wickard. Jurisdictional difficulties arose. The untidiness of departmental administration reached a point where Appleby was forced to make his bid for the permanent career undersecretaryship. When Wickard thought of Bill Jump in the "manager's" spot, the idea seemed plausible. He knew that Jump had actually served as a quasi-departmental manager ever since the days of Henry Wallace's father. But his instantaneous view of Paul Appleby in that crucial position was resoundingly negative. Every head of every department of government has to have assistants in his office. I, like everybody else, wanted somebody in those positions who felt entirely responsible to me, who would carry out my orders, both as to policy and as to administration. Everybody knows that a good policy can be wrecked by poor administration—or, put it this way, by 12 "unsympathetic administration." For a month Wickard listened patiently while Appleby and others explained the merits of the idea. He heard Sir Frederick Phillips, British permanent Under Secretary of the Exchequer, tell how it operated in England. And when all the arguments had been made, he was unmoved. Instead of killing the proposal, however, he simply did nothing. Bills were drafted to create the career post, only to find their way into the files and die. No pitched battle had occurred over the permanent job for which Appleby had measured himself, but when the agitation quieted, the scales of power tilted subtly in Wickards favor. As Wickard gained strength in the Department, he also became somewhat accustomed to the weekly meetings of the President's Cabinet. Every Friday afternoon at 2:00 o'clock u Wickard, Interviews, p. 1650; Hamilton, Hendrickson, and Shields, Interviews; Wickard, Diary, November 27 and December 18, 1940.

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he met with the other Secretaries in the White House Cabinet room. They stood about in groups, talking, until the door at the end of the room opened and Roosevelt was wheeled in. Each time Wickard covertlv watched with a kind of breathless agony as the President lifted himself from the wheelchair into his Cabinet chair. Then they sat down, and the President began with, "Here's something I want to present to you. . . When Roosevelt finished whatever he had in mind, he started around the table according to protocol, calling on each member. "Cordell, what do you have to report?'' In his dry Tennessee accent the Secretary of State brought up two or three items of utmost importance. Henry Morgenthau was next. He rarely failed to present the New York Times business index which was to appear in the paper two days later. The Secretary of War followed. Wickard was fascinated as Stimson, with the precision of a judge, laid out the latest moves in military policy. Attorney General Robert Jackson, soon to be replaced by Francis Biddle, then presented some legal matters which were less than interesting to a farmer. Postmaster General Frank Walker had little to contribute bevond the state of the Post Office's finances—usually a deficit Navy Secretary Knox, always ruddy and animated, took increasing amounts of time to explain naval preparedness. Harold Ickes used his turn to needle Jesse Jones for being so tight with money. Wickard followed Ickes with a summation of the latest crop information which his staff prepared for him every week. Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones delivered a sermon on business conditions, and Miss Frances Perkins described her troubles in the labor field. Wickard sat at the end of the table to Roosevelt's left between Frank Knox and Miss Perkins. In his first Cabinet meetings, while Wickard still struggled to understand the trade cant of older members, Miss Perkins undertook to educate hirn with a series of hastily scribbled notes analyzing the various comments as they were made. Wickard would lean

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over and whisper to the Labor Secretary, "Did I hear Morgenthau correctly? Did he say this . . . ?" "Yes," Miss Perkins would hiss back, "that's what he said." "Well, did the President authorize that?" "No, but this is the thing Morgenthau's always trying to put over. The President never said it's all right. You'll have to watch for it." 13

Today [November 30] the President showed considerable impatience because he couldn't find 100 millions for a loan to China. The English shipping losses are apparently causing more and more worry. Our own defense preparations are running into some difficulties. There is evidence that some prominent men are starting an appeasement campaign. One of the largest airplane manufactors is opposing the request to turn more of his commercial plane production to military production. Some manufactors are failing to see the necessity of enlarging plants to be sure to have enough capacity for our defense production. There is a chance that steel mills will soon become the bottle neck in the defense program. There is always the question of what share of our production to turn to England.14 Nearer and nearer Wickard moved to the realization that (if he could hold his office) he might be called upon to provision an American army. As yet, only Chester Davis and Henry Wallace had tied the words "production" and "England" sufficiently close together to arrive at anything approaching a correct quantitative answer. Both Wickard and Chester Davis addressed the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation at Baltimore on December 10. Davis's job in the Advisory Commission was in the vanguard of the defense effort. Wickard's job, at the moment, was trying to hang onto his chair. Davis was being pushed quietly by the Farm Bureau for Wickard's " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2 1 6 2 - 7 5 ; Perkins, Interviews. "Wickard, Diary, November 30-December 1, 1940.

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position. Wickard knew he was being sabotaged by the Farm Bureau in its current crusade to "decentralize" departmental administration. The two speeches were a study in contrasts. Chester Davis's address was a straightforward, solemn account of what preparedness entailed. He spoke of total defense. When referring to industry he used such phrases as "full production" and "more capacity." To the farmer he said, "Our storehouses and bins are full. It is well that it is so. . . . Some branches of farm production will be stimulated both in demand and price as consumer employment and payrolls increase. Other important crops [cotton, tobacco, and wheat] which have depended largely on foreign markets now almost wholly destroyed will suffer. . . ." But then he added, "I hope no one whether he live on the farm or in the city will get the idea that we are facing a war booin for agriculture as a result of war markets for farm products." Wickard's address, "Agriculture and the Nation," followed Davis's. He traced the historv of the Farm Bureau and told of his own role in its growth. He pledged his utmost effort as Secretary to carry out the purposes of the 1938 AAA in assisting farmers to obtain parity prices and parity income. "For defense," he said, "an adequate supply of farm products is absolutely essential. This essential has been provided. Abundant supplies are on hand from this year's production and the Ever-Normal Granary reserves of the National Farm Program. Future supplies will be produced in full measure." He asked for unity in farm planning, support for Farm Security Administration programs and social security for farmers. He concluded with a plea for "justice for agriculture— all of agriculture." lr ' This was as far as either Davis or Wickard was willing to go in encouraging greater production of food. Everyone hoped 15 Chester Davis, "Agriculture and the Defense Program," December 10, 1940, and Claude R. Wickard, "Agriculture and the Nation," December 10, 1940, in Wickard Papers.

Wallaces Chair America would stay out of the conflict. No one knew whether Britain could withstand many more months of German bombing. Wickard's address, while less direct and not as well written as Davis's, was a courageous speech. At a time when he needed every bit of support he could muster to retain his secretaryship he had boldly flaunted two concepts that were anathema to the Farm Bureau—Farm Security and social security. Perhaps Wickard had learned from Wallace that the only vote which really counted was Roosevelt's. Ed O'Neal and Earl Smith undoubtedly were surprised when Wickard failed to heed their demands for "decentralized" USDA administration. First hint of their proposal came during the campaign, when O'Neal suggested that Roosevelt's speeches should stress "continued effort to improve and decentralize administration." Paul Appleby had picked out the "decentralization" theme instantly and warned the President that the Farm Bureau was actually making a grab for control of all farm planning through the state Extension Services. At the Farm Bureau convention, Smith and O'Neal were able to get approval of a series of resolutions calling for administration of all USDA action programs by a five-man board similar in function to Hoover's old Farm Board. Wickard spent most of December 14 in his office listening to Farm Bureau leaders tell him that the USDA was inefficient, overlapping, and duplicative, and should be run by men such as themselves. Wickard knew this was merely the opening of the campaign for the five-man board, and that he must prevent the Farm Bureau from getting to the President with what sounded like a reasonable scheme. Wickard's methods were crude but effective. After Cabinet he showed Roosevelt a letter which Earl Smith had circulated to Illinois Farm Bureau leaders just before the election. Artfully couched in nonpartisan terms, the message was unmistakable—"Vote for Wilikie." Roosevelt responded appropriately. Wickard calculated rightly that this letter would keep O'Neal and Smith

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out of the White House long enough for him to find out who was going to be Secretary of Agriculture. 16 Cabinet meeting on December 19 was devoted to defense. Wickard was shocked to find that many businessmen were talking what in Cabinet had become a dirty word: "appeasement." A number of influential newspaper people are also in the group which seems to be making plans to convince the people of the U. S. that the Germans are so strong that it behooves the American people to insist on the British going without aid from us, thus saving all of our military materials for our own use. Apparently these people have a lot of money and means to carry on the active campaign which they are planning. As 1 think back of our American history I can now see a modern version of the old conflict between the pacifists and those who insist on an honorable end. After Cabinet meeting Wickard sought out General Edwin M. Watson, the President's military aide. He told General Watson he did not want to burden the President with agricultural problems, but that he was submitting two memoranda on farm matters and asked Watson to bring them to Roosevelt's attention. Wickard paused for a moment in some embarrassment, then he asked Watson if he was supposed to submit a resignation as he had heard Ickes had done. Watson said he would ask the President. 17 Two days later Wickard sent his two documents to the White House, in effect timidly requesting a conference with the President. The first letter outlined Farm Bureau charges of inefficiency, answered them, and reminded the President that the O'Neal-Smith proposal was substantially what Willkie suggested in his campaign speeches. Wickard's other letter " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1697-99; Diary, December 14, 1940; O'Neal to Roosevelt, October 23, 1940, and Appleby to Roosevelt, October 27, 1940, Agl. Adj. Program, S.C. 17 Wickard, Diary, December 19-26, 1940.

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concerned farm programs in general and cotton in particular. He had no specific recommendations to make, but he said his objectives were to aid small farmers, shift production to nonexportable crops, increase domestic consumption, and devise new programs which "more nearly fit each commodity than one program for all commodities." On Monday, December 23, Wickard received a telephone call from General Watson regarding Cabinet resignations. The President, Watson told Wickard, said to forget the matter. Nearly four months after the Senate had confirmed his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture, Claude Wickard now had reason to believe the position was his.18 But the actual portfolio was still beyond his grasp. Paul Appleby's scheming, however idealistically motivated, had deprived Wickard of every visible scepter of authority—his office was still Appleby's, his Department still Wallace's. Wickard's whole relationship to the President hinged on Watson's oblique words. Support from neither the Grange nor the Farmers' Union was dependable. The Farm Bureau was trying to steal the Department right out from under him, and Harold Ickes, with an infallible nose for tactical weakness, was making a grab for the Forest Service. No Cabinet Secretary ever took the reins of office under less auspicious circumstances. Wickard was far from certain what he should do next, but from the moment Watson told him of his acceptance, the Secretary prepared to move along whatever lines the President might indicate. In a press conference on the 17th, Roosevelt used a homely simile to reveal the new direction. "Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose. . . ." England's homes were being fired nightly by devastating Nazi air raids. Material must be loaned them

"Ibid.,

S.C.

Wickard to Roosevelt, December 21, 1940, Agl. Adj. Program,

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to put out and, parenthetically, to prevent the arson. Within a week Harry Hopkins's aides in the Treasury Department were at work drafting H.R. 1776—the Lend-Lease Bill. Roosevelt's words and the educating influence of Cabinet meetings had led Wickard uncertainly away from the back forty. During the election campaign his speeches had been typically Triple-A in approach. On October 15 he had told the Missouri Farm Bureau that the prospects were bright for better hog prices because 10 percent fewer hogs were going to be marketed in the coming twelve months. One month later, before the Grange at Syracuse, Wickard had digressed from his notes to admit, "We may have to give food to Europe. After the last war we lent Europe money to buy our food, and the money wasn't repaid. That's pretty nearly the same thing." 19 His passing reference in Baltimore to the full-measure production of future supplies was more than mere oratory. The day before he addressed the Farm Bureau convention, he had signed the Department crop report, which revealed not a 10 percent hog reduction, but a 14 percent cut. Conferences with BAE economists O. C. Stine, Oris V. Wells, and Preston Richards bad followed If Wickard still had been thinking along production control lines, he would have been overjoyed. But he had boned up on food supply problems of the First World War to discover that lard was one of the most concentrated energy foods known. Something might yet be done to aid defense preparations, help the British, and bail out the com carry-over in the Ever-Normal Granary. On December 26, 1940, with more courage than conviction, Wickard issued a press announcement calling for increased production of hogs and larger cattle marketings for the coming two or three years. Corn belt farmers wiped their specs in amazement and reread the Secretary's words. Anybody with a pint of brains " "Twenty-five Years of Farm Progress," October 15, 1940, in Wickard Papers; Baltimore Sun, November 15, 1940.

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knew better than to increase hog production when hog prices were the lowest since 1934. The Triple-A erupted in fury. Spike Evans would have nothing to do with it. Crying that Wickard had succumbed to consumer demands for cheap food, the Iowa Farm Bureau foreswore their allegiance publicly and called for his resignation. Despite an avalanche of criticism, two calm voices in the background supported Wickard's contention that farmers would make more money by increasing their hog farrowings. The highly respected Iowa Extension Service director, R. K. Bliss, agreed. So did agricultural economists at Iowa State College.2" Within the USDA, Wallace's bureau chiefs were taking a new look at the man in the front office. They were by no means united in agreement with Wickard's position, nor did they recognize this as the opening salvo in agriculture's war. But they felt in the unheralded and quietly given proclamation an assertion that the Secretary's chair was his. For some this was a welcome change from the past four months. For others it was a declaration which Wickard would have to defend with pure power. " "Statement by Secretary Wickard," December 28, 1940, in Wickard Papers; Walter W. Wilcox, The Farmer in the Second World War (Ames: Iowa State College Press, 1947), pp. 38-39; Hamilton, Hendrickson, and Richards, Interviews; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1744-56; Baltimore Sun, December 27, 1940; New York Times, December 27, 1940, and January 12, 1941; Des Moines Register, January 12, 1941.

9: "I Have Arrived at Some Decisions" I am aware that position as cabinet officer after having come up through the ranks has created a condition of some jealousy on one hand and an unconscious lack of respect on the other. It is a question of whether I should disregard exhibitions of insubordination in some degree or other at times or whether I should become stern with those who have for many years occupied a position of higher rank and who are in addition strongmind[ed] capable people. 1 have chosen to more or less disregard the incidents which up to this [time] may be termed minor acts of insubordination and to use methods which I hope are indicative of extreme patience, tolerance, and humbleness on my part. This attitude has led people to state, so I hear, that 1 lack the courage or ability to make decisions as rapidly as I should.1 Wallace's Ever-Normal Granary presented Wickard with some immediate decisions. It contained a substantial amount of corn (nearly a half billion bushels), a large supply of wheat (281 million bushels), and the largest cotton carry-over the United States or the world had ever seen—10,882,000 bales. What should have been a scene of busy exporting activity was instead one of fearful torpor. And more cotton was on the way. Wickard had called the action-bureau chiefs for cotton conferences in December, only to sense an almost arrogant unwillingness among them to deal with the problem. The principals were Spike Evans, Administrator of the Triple-A, and Milo Perkins, head of USDA marketing agencies and Director of the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation. Evans had 'Wickard, Diary, January 2, 1941.

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grown strong and complacent behind his bureaucratic breastworks. He was fully aware that his excellent administration had made of the AAA the most smoothly functioning, effective part of the Department. He was apparently unaware that, due to a changing environment, the AAA could not stay smoothly functioning unless it too changed. Milo Perkins, intense, self-assured and sharp witted, had been a Texas bag manufacturer until Wallace brought him to Washington. After an apprenticeship in the Secretary's office, Perkins demonstrated his approval of Wallaces production abundance economics by devising and administering the Stamp Plan, a mechanism for getting food through regular distribution channels to those who could not pay for it. Perkins was no farmer. He believed in producer parity, but his job was to provide low-income consumer nutrition. Evans viewed Perkins as a social meddler. Perkins looked on Evans as a big-producer man. They both saw in Wickard indecision and half-hearted support of their own programs. As a result, cotton planning got nowhere. By January 4, Wickard was thoroughly provoked. He took Assistant Secretary Grover Hill aside and pointedly told him he would tolerate no insubordination in this matter and that a workable cotton plan was to be delivered one week hence. 2 The next day Henry Wallace dropped in for an hour's chat about his trip to Mexico. Their slightly strained conversation, while pleasantly carried around the borders of triviality, was a reminder to Wickard of his feeling that he was wearing shoes too large for him. Wallace, oblivious to the comparison, soon made it apparent he was not on a snooping expedition. As soon as he left, Wickard put his hands in his pockets and started pacing about the office, wondering why Wallace had come. Passing his window he could see Henry Wallace striding across the Mall toward Constitution Avenue. As he watched, out from the Department of Agriculture into Wick3

Ibid., January 5 and 11, 1941; Shields, Interviews.

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ard's view came another figure, hatless, coatless, half running, half walking, trying to overtake Wallace. Wickard stared in amazed fascination at the saddening sight of the mighty Paul Appleby humbled to the indignity of running across the grass after Wallace to talk with him. 3 Grover Hill brought in the cotton plan on January 11. Quotas and the Stamp Plan had reached miraculous understanding with great saving of face all around. For each acre that a southern planter voluntarily put out of production he would receive a bonus from the government of $25.00 in stamps which would be redeemable at any dry goods store on the purchase of cotton clothing or bedding. Farmers would be encouraged to put their idle acres into food and feed crops. The plan had the merit of hitting the surplus on both ends. As it turned out, the defense-harried Congress refused to foot the bill, but the Secretary had made an effective demonstration that he was ready to crack some heads together if necessary. 4 The Wickards journeyed back to Indiana for a few days preceding inauguration to look over the farm. While there, Claude used the Purdue University Farm and Home Week convocation to make an address of major importance. "Agricultural Preparedness,' was the misleading title under which he delivered some straight talk on low-income farm problems. Government stocks of cotton, wheat, and tobacco were enormous, he said, and the export market for them was gone— probably for good. What then? Reduce production in good AAA tradition? No, said Wickard, "adjustment" was the word. And any adjustment meant that southern farmers were going to raise corn and hogs and soy beans.

As farmers and as citizens, we have a responsibility to help the underprivileged in agriculture. Requiring them to raise less cotton or other export crops isn't solving their problems. They must be encouraged and given the means first of all to Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1 7 8 9 - 9 0 . ' Time Magazine, January 27, 1941, pp. 5 9 - 6 2 .

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raise the things they need for their own tables. We can't afford to let people go without adequate diets. . . . Most of this increase will and should be consumed by the family on the farm or in the immediate neighborhood where produced. But, no one can guarantee that a small portion of such home production might not get into the so-called commercial market some time, some place, temporarily. . . . All society has the moral obligation to help these people because it is in one way or another responsible for having helped increase the problems of low-income farm people. . . . In his recent message before Congress, the President named four kinds of freedom. One of these was freedom from want. With 20 million people living on an average of 5 cents per meal, we can hardly say that the American people are free from want now.6 Sunday the 19th was the first day of Inauguration festivities. The Wickards, newly installed in spacious quarters at the fashionable Westchester Apartments in northwest Washington, had as their house guest Governor Shricker of Indiana. For two exhausting days they attended a spate of cocktail parties and receptions, culminating on the 20th with the President's morning services for the Cabinet at St. John's Church, thence to the Capitol for his inaugural address. It was another "historical" occasion for Claude Wickard of Carroll County. The final authentication of Wickard's right to be Secretary, in so far as anyone else could give it to him, came four days later. Vice President Henry Wallace invited him up to the Senate Office Building late in the afternoon on the 24th. First he told me that he wanted a couple of my men to help him. I told him that I was badly in need of help too but I [would] cooperate with him. He then apparently by great effort said that he thought he and I should talk to each other rather than through Paul Appleby. I asked him if there was any particular instance which he had in mind or if there was '"Agricultural Preparedness," January 15, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

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something in the future which was causing him concern. After some study he said "Paul is not my alter ego." Wickard's mind was not constructed to grasp subtleties quickly. He guessed that something had happened in the past five months to split Appleby from Wallace, and he assumed the Vice President meant Appleby could no longer presume to communicate Wallace's policies. Then he recalled a chance Wallace remark about Appleby: "I suspect Paul doesn't like to take his own medicine." Wallace made it clear that Wickard was his own man. 6 Wickard was now ready to face the two remaining threats to his job—the Farm Bureau and Chester Davis's Agricultural Division in the Advisory Commission. Before it became obvious to Ed O'Neal and Earl Smith that Wickard was to remain as Roosevelt's farmer, the Farm Bureau had been pushing Davis for the Secretaryship. Davis had done nothing to help them, nor had he done anything to stop them. He appeared dedicated to defense work as he strove to get war contracts into areas of farm labor surplus and some semblance of planning for the mobilization of food production and distribution. His efforts had met with little success, but his energetic motions had left the USDA uneasily jealous of its perquisites and Wickard further concerncd about his job. Davis's latest sortie into the Department's jurisdiction had been a letter to Roosevelt suggesting that agricultural commodities be made part of Lend-Lease material. His letter pricked the USDA into immediate action. Robert Shields was put to work on a Lend-Lease memorandum which was sent to Wickard late in January. On Friday the 31st, Wickard joined the "amen corner" for a post-Cabinet talk with the President.

I told him that I was being pressed to ask for a definite •Wickard, Diary, January 25-26, 1941; Interviews, p. 1786.

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provision to include agricultural products as a part of the lend lease bill. He told me that he wanted to have Treasury get in touch tvith Purvis the British Purchasing Agent and have him estimate the amount of US agricultural goods which would be needed so that a specific amount for that purpose could be included in the appropriation. . . .7 With the passage of the Lend-Lease Act through the House on February 8, Taft and Vandenberg rallied a formidable Senate opposition to anything but aid to Britain. Fearing a Roosevelt third term dictatorship, they attempted to restrict the President's powers lest, in the name of defense, he spread American beneficence all over the globe. Despite the contest over who would receive Lend-Lease, the House farm bloc had succeeded in defining agricultural commodities as munitions of war, and the British were unhappy at the prospect of Lend-Lease being turned into a rummage sale of surplus cotton and wheat. American military experts saw Lend-Lease strictly in terms of arms, and the British agreed with them. We were not always sure whether the English were agreeing with them because they thought that was the proper thing to do, or whether the English themselves were not too fully aware of their dietary needs. The practical thing, however, came down to "How are you going to get a Lend-Lease Bill without the support of some agricultural bloc Congressmen?" 8 On Sunday the 16th, Wickard was seated at his Chippendale desk in his Westchester apartment. Having finished inscribing for posterity his diary account of Friday's Cabinet, he set aside his pen. Over and over in his mind he had been moiling impressions gained from the past two months of feverish LendLease activity, Farm Bureau dueling, and intradepartmental strife. It had been a stormy winter. Now that planting season 7 Davis to Roosevelt, January 16, 1941, in Wickard Papers; Wickard, Diary, February 3, 1941; Shields, Interviews. " Wickard, Interviews, p. 1823.

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was just around the comer, it was the habitual time of decision making for every farmer. And making decisions was the hardest work Claude Wickard ever did. He dreaded it. He procrastinated. He asked for memoranda and advice. He used those closest to him as listeners as he articulated each facet of the problem however remotely connected with the essential question. Wickard reached into his desk for a plain sheet of white paper and rolled it into a portable typewriter. Punching each key with the stubby forefinger of his right hand, he wrote "Secy 2-16-41" in the corner. Then he began: 1. 2. 3.

I have arrived at some decisions. Nobody wiU like them. Not Compromise. My views have not changed on the ultimate goal. Purdue speech still stands. 4. May have changed pace or tactics a little—not much. 5. Fighting frequently—American Farm Bureau Federation; Interior; Public Utilities—Power; Sugar; Cattle; Packers; M. Reno. 6. Fighting each other—all get whipped—Earl Smith statement. 7. Difference in views—O.K. Constant bickering, however, here or in the field can NOT be tolerated. 8. Member of Cabinet necessary to conform to general policy of President. 9. Aid to British. 10. No great change in program of H. A. Wallace. Other industries. Later. In the next six points he outlined the farm problems of 1941 and his abbreviated responses to them, concluding with the ominous aphorism, "Hang together, or hang—separately." 9 Arriving at the office early Monday morning, he translated 'Records 8 - 7 , S.C.; Wickard to Bureau Chiefs, n.d., in Wickard Papers; Wickard, Diary, February 18, 1941; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1828-60; Hamilton and Tolley, Interviews.

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points 11 throught 16 into a memorandum from which he addressed the 10:00 o'clock meeting of his bureau chiefs. Opening his remarks by saying he had rather definitely made up his mind about farm policy, he tried to leave the impression in the minds of Spike Evans, Milo Perkins, Beanie Baldwin, Howard Tolley, and the others that they were to follow obediently. His hour-long statement was forceful. The war and defense programs had already affected agriculture, he said, and they would continue to do so for some time to come. The basic programs needed nothing but a few changes to make them fit the present situation. "Farmers are entitled to parity price for their commodities. This is the fundamental principle upon which all our farm programs are based." Under the 1938 AAA, the Department was allowed to make loans up to 75 percent of parity on the five major crops (corn, cotton, wheat, rice, and tobacco). Wickard proposed that full 75 percent loans be made if farmers would agree to strictly enforced marketing quotas. The loan (acting as a minimum price) plus ACP and parity payments would equal parity price. Wickard further proposed that all crops produced above marketing quotas should be turned over to the government in lieu of marketing penalities "for relief distribution or for purposes of governmental use in a war emergency" outside regular marketing channels. Export subsidies were no longer relevant— Lend-Lease, if passed, would take care of the one remaining export market. Increased industrial activity would help to increase domestic consumption of the surplus.

The seriousness of some surplus situations can not be exaggerated. Nor can the seriousness of undernourishment in a distressingly large segment of our population. At a time when the Nation is arming for defense, we need, especially, to consider the health of all our people because a strong people is just as essential for defense as armament. Secretary Wickard said he would continue the Stamp Plan

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programs "because we cannot maintain a healthy democracy when many of our people do not share decently in the benefits of production." Then came the measure of his war awareness. We should consider, 1 think, the prospect that both Great Britain and the United States need more of the farm products which have not been exported in any large degree. We have surpluses of the export crops, such as wheat, cotton, and corn, but we do not have surpluses of dairy products and meats. I would suggest that our programs be directed toward the adjustment of production from export crops to the production of these nutritive crops which will be needed by both the democratic nations. . . . For the duration of the war, and perhaps for the postwar period, some of these crops will also be needed by Great Britain. Therefore, I am directing that acreage adjustment be underscored in our programs in the immediate future. He said adjustment was particularly applicable to the south, where cotton acres should be diverted to peanut hogs and soy beans. He showed a trace of hesitation about the Farm Security programs. Admitting hif distress at increased tenancy, he said he wanted the family-sized farm preserved "so far as farmers want it." He "hoped" that Tenant Purchase programs could continue and proposed to increase funds for "sound" and "self-liquidating" loans. Omitting only his unshakable faith in soil conservation, and his dreams for the electrification of rural America, Secretary Wickard had revealed his entire farm policy. In so far as Wickard ever had a plan, this was it. True to his expectation, his policy pronouncement got a mixed reception among the bureau chiefs. Tolley thought very well of it indeed. Baldwin hoped only that he could avoid a fight with Wickard, and he was relieved that FSA had gotten as much support as it did. Milo Perkins was delighted with the implied expansion of surplus marketing activities. Spike

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Evans, behind his placid, smiling façade, was immutably opposed.10 Early in February, the President of the Iowa Farm Bureau had written Wickard to inquire about rumors of a rift between the Secretary and his Triple-A administrator. Not true, Wickard promptly wrote back. Spike and I have worked shoulder to shoulder for a good many years now, and perhaps, as much as any two men can, we see eye to eye on not only the objectives of our farm policies but also the methods needed to obtain these objectives. Wickard could not risk an open break with Evans and the Farm Bureau at the same time. Since Evans was the immensely successful, universally popular, truly representative head of the largest action agency in the USDA, there was nothing Wickard could do about it. Spike Evans, too, suffered the limitations of the back forty. His fundamental agrarianism gave him a pathological fear of farm surpluses. Evans had learned well the Triple-A dogma of production control and parity price. When those golden concepts were achieved, he might consider harmless changes. Until then, the Triple-A would drag its heels on any attempt to alter the patterns of agriculture or to increase production.11 Meanwhile, Ed O'Neal and Earl Smith had spent three weeks girding themselves for the battle to remove Wickard's action programs from the USDA. Wickard had not told them of Roosevelt's rejection of the "decentralization" idea. One does not quote a President. The Farm Bureau brought their scheme before Clarence Cannon's House Appropriations Committee and started hearings on it. Charges of duplication and inefficiency filled page after page of the Congressional 10 Tolley, Interviews; Robert W . Hudgens, Interviews; Wickard, Interviews, p. 1864. The proposal to turn the surplus over to the government in lieu of marketing penalties was never adopted. 11 Wickard to Francis Johnson, February 18, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1758-59, 1861-68; Hamilton, Tolley, and Bledsoe, Interviews.

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Record. The only way out of this mess in Agriculture, said Farm Bureau leaders, was the creation of a National Farm Authority. Nearly every farm program initiated since 1933 would be removed from federal government jurisdiction and turned over to state Extension Services. Answering the Farm Bureau, the Department drew a deadly parallel: This proposal to turn the whole process of administration in Federal agricultural action over, lock, stock and barrel, to a pressure group representing a single economic interest is analogous to a proposal to transfer the administration of the functions of the Department of Labor to the national labor unions, the functions of the Department of Commerce to the national manufacturers associations, the functions of the Treasury to national associations of bankers. 12

By the end of February, epithets from both sides were losing even the sense of politeness engendered by "governmentese." Cannon was getting sick of the whole thing, and he encouraged Ed O'Neal to call Wickard and try to settle out of court. O'Neal's opening statement was anything but conciliatory. "Congressman Cannon just called about the statements the Department is putting in the record up there—a lot of things are very vitriolic. All I am going to say is that the battle is on if you leave the stuff in. We tried to stick to factual data which was given us by the Department. Now if you leave those vitriolic statements in the record, the war is on to the teeth!" "It is just too bad, this whole thing, Ed. But who started it?" O'Neal ducked that one. "We did not attack vou or Mr. Wallace, or anyone, we, we just tried to go into the merits of the case. But if you try to attack us as an organization, the record will be full of stuff you never heard of. . . . Now if a Congressman thinks the statements made are pretty bad you " "The Farm Bureau-State Extension Service Proposal of Farm Program Administration," March 12, 1941, Organization 1, S.C. See also Wickard to Agriculture Subcommittee, February 25, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.

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know they are bad, and if you go ahead with the attacks on the Farm Bureau, if you do that, the fat's in the fire." Wickard tried to pull him back on the subject. "The point of the whole thing is that I cannot stand by and let the Farm Bureau advocate putting administration of Agriculture programs under a five-man board. It isn't consistent with the President's policy or anything else. . . . What would you expect me to do Ed?" "You do not necessarily need to be in favor of our proposals, but you are attacking us as an organization. I have not attacked you as Secretary of Agriculture. When the President asked me about you, I didn't tell the President that you would go wild. I did tell him that you had a lot of wild men around you and no telling what they might influence you to do." "There is only one way we can get through this," Wickard stammered angrily, "and that is if you will get over this idea on the administration thing. If you are going ahead with this there is nothing but for us to go through with it. It is just too bad. Everybody is going to suffer. And, Ed, you don't think you are going to get it through Congress do you?" 13 To his great discomfort Wickard knew there was a certain amount of duplication and inefficiency in the Department. There was bound to be in any organization of its size. Nevertheless, he set about rooting out some of the less easily defended examples. On Thursday, February 27, Wickard went up to the House Office Building and, at Clarence Cannon's urging, cut some of the more offensive statements out of his attack on the Farm Bureau. Cannon told me that the Farm Bureau didn't have a chance to get their legislation on administrative changes and I told him that I was very much willing to drop the whole matter if the Farm Bureau would. It is too bad that the Farm Bureau has 11 Memorandum of telephone conversation, Ed O'Neal to Claude Wickard, February 27, 1941, in Hamilton Papers.

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taken this position of the opposition. I am especially touched by it because of my long association with the Farm Bureau. It seems to me that the Farm Bureau is fundamentally too conservative, too much dominated by the Republican philosophy, and too much for the commercial type farmer to ever be truly in sympathy with the New Deal.1* Wickard's self-confidence was on the rise—perhaps a little too fast. Secretary's Memorandum No. 888 carved a few more letters of his name on the side of the Department of Agriculture. Beginning "Effective March 1, there will be a number of changes in the personnel and the organization of the Office of the Secretary," Memorandum 888 substituted Wickard's staff for Appleby's. Jim McCamy threatened to resign, and Wickard let him go without even the conventional murmur of protest. In his place, as acknowledged head of the office, came the Secretary's personal choice, a kindly, slow-moving gentleman from the Arkansas FSA office named T. Roy Reid. T. Roy, as he came to be called, embodied tact and loyalty, the two principal criteria of Wickard's selections. He was older than most assistants to the Secretary, and his age bore a gentle pomposity which passed for great dignity. A well-educated man, he assumed the pose of a cracker-barrel philosopher, behind which he was subjectively a shrewd judge of men and a "new South" liberal. His assignment was to manage the office and to keep the Secretary advised of the Farm Security point of view. To fill Jim LeCron's place, which had been vacant since September, Wickard considered Samuel B. Bledsoe. Raised on a hillside farm in western Tennessee, Sam Bledsoe never lost his twanging nasal accent. He left the farm, received a haphazard country and junior college education, played minor league baseball, and finally landed a job as a reporter on the Memphis News-Scimitar. After seven years on the Associated " Wickard, Diary, February 27, 1941.

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Press's Washington night desk, he joined the USDA information staff in 1935. By the time Sam Bledsoe was in line to reach for a position on the Secretary's staff, he had outgrown an earlier interest in "liberalism" to become deeply isolationistic and a rabid Roosevelt-hater. Paradoxically, however, he continued to be an enthusiastic worker for Negro rights and a proponent of New Deal farm programs. Closely allied with the southern Farm Bureau, he was an able writer, a man who could be entrusted with large errands, and an adroit competitor. Sam Bledsoe's talents and unqualified loyalty were up for long-term hire. Wickard told himself he needed a good speech writer-public relations man, and unaware of his isolationism, he placed Bledsoe on his staff. Herbert Parisius, Leon Wolcott, and Stanley P. Williams had left. The remaining assistants to the Secretary, Under Secretary, and Assistant Secretary were to be placed in a common pool. Carl Hamilton, too young to control the office, would continue as Wickard's personal right-hand man. Emory E. Jacobs, known affectionately as "the Oklahoma cowboy," covered considerable ability with the traditional southwestern pose of ignorance, but he knew about cattle and got along well with everyone. Ralph W. Olmstead, a man of great legislative know-how, had an unbridled personal ambition which made him a doubtful quantity for a superior, and impossible as a co-worker. David Meeker, lanky, balding, a puffer of large black cigars, was rapidly becoming dedicated to the business aspects of the defense program as they affected Agriculture. Now that Wickard had his loyally tactful staff, it would take all of T. Roy Reid's ability to weld them into a functioning team. 15 Chester Davis was genuinely alarmed at the snail's-pace mobilization of Agriculture to meet the needs of expanding 15 Secretary's Memorandum No. 888, February 12. 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.

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defense. Eager to devote his not inconsiderable talents to this very task, he viewed himself as The Man already on The Job. He assayed Roosevelt's administrative strategy as one of creating new agencies to carry out defense work, leaving standard housekeeping chores for the Cabinet departments. So, logically, farm mobilization was a task for the Advisory Commission. Claude Wickard and the Department of Agriculture saw the matter in a somewhat different light. Davis's Agricultural Division in the Advisory Commission, at first no more than an irritation, had become a powerful competitive stimulant to USDA action. It was difficult to say which had brought Wickard quicker to understand defense problems—Cabinet meetings or the threat of Chester Davis. Moreover, the administrative picture had clouded when, in the closing days of December, Roosevelt had created the Office of Production Management under William Knudsen and Sidney Hillman. Wickard breathed more easily when he saw OPM siphoning off large functions of the Advisory Commission. But then he noticed with alarm that other parts, such as the price division, had a chance of becoming independent agencies. So long as Davis had concerned himself with the location of defense plant sites, the Department cooperated fully by supplying facts, figures, and personnel. But when Davis established the Interdepartmental Conference Committee to inventory the nation's farm production, storage, and distribution facilities, the USDA regretted that it could not do more than send a series of powerless fourth-stringers to participate. Wickard began bombarding Harry Hopkins with USDA pamphlets calling attention to the Department's defense work, reports which were more for White House consumption than they were demonstrations of true defense awareness. Meanwhile, lacking power to attend to defense needs as he saw them, Davis's anxiety increased. Frustrated by the impotence of the Advisor)' Commission and irritated by the Depart-

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ment's inertia, he arrived in Wickard's office on the 25th for a showdown. When he came in he told me that he was going to see the President the next day and that he was going to discuss with the President whether the Food Administration should be placed in the hands of the defense commission under him or whether it should be in the Dept. of Agriculture under me. He had particular reference to the purchasing of British foods. He asked me some rather pointed questions about my understanding with the President and other members of the Cabinet concerning this problem. I evaded his answers somewhat and told him that I had not made up my mind.10 Davis returned to his office and drew up two memoranda for the President. In the first one he stated flatly that "Some central agency in Government must be given the job of bringing together all information on current stocks and prospective production of food and fiber, and matching against this information the best possible estimates of the requirements of the United States civilian population and armed services, and of the British Government." He said this was not being done satisfactorily, and he added, "The agency setup should be flexible, so that it can be expanded into the equivalent of a Food Administration to the extent circumstances demand." There were only two places for a Food Administration; the Advisory Commission (which was flexible) and the USDA (which was not). He concluded with the warning that the decision should be made soon. In his other memorandum to Roosevelt, Davis complained that it was impossible for the Agriculture Division of the Advisory Commission to function satisfactorily, because "no 10 Chester Davis to Claude Wickard, January 13, 1941, General Records of the Department of Agriculture, Office of Agricultural Defense Relations, 1940-1942, Record Group 16, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Wickard to Harry Hopkins, February 19, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, February 25, 1941.

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place is provided where the agricultural viewpoint can be registered while policies are being made." He asked that complete responsibility be given either to the Advisory Commission or to the Department of Agriculture. The following day Davis handed his two memoranda to the President. He suggested that Roosevelt direct Wickard to work with the Advisory Commission in development of a plan for the formation of what would amount to a food administration. Roosevelt was noncommittal. He took the easy way of disposing of an unpleasant topic by asking Davis for another memorandum.17 Davis invited Wickard to have lunch with him at the Federal Reserve Building on Saturday, March 1, and told him about his talk with Roosevelt. Davis further admitted his decision to accept the presidency of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, but he said he would retain control of the Agriculture Division of the Advisory Commission. I gained the impression that Davis had lost in his demands to be placed in a prominent position in the defense setup. Also it was apparent that he was trying to get someone to head up the Food Administration who was acceptable to him and, I suppose, the Farm Bureau people.19 Wickard was unduly suspicious. He had never trusted Davis since the rankling Jerry Thorne experience during the CornHog Section days. Actually Davis's bid was less for power than for the right to do a necessary job. It had little or no connection with Wickard's difficulties with the Farm Bureau. Wickard, however, was taking no chances. He had spent his time since the 25th conferring with Wallace, Morgenthau, and his bureau chiefs, devising a USDA food administration and a 17 Chester Davis to Claude Wickard, February 27, 1941, and attachments: two memoranda from Chester Davis to Roosevelt, February 26, 1941, in Wickard Papers. See also Chester Davis to William I. Myers, October 12, 1943, USDA History Unit Files; Wickard, Diary, March 1, 1941. 19 Wickard, Diary, March 1, 1941.

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Department-administered plan for supplying Britain's wartime food needs. On Monday he called the White House for an appointment with the President. Roosevelt was in bed with a cold. On Tuesday he reached Harry Hopkins by telephone and described what he had in mind. It had been apparent, Wickard told Hopkins, that the British had immediate need of cheese, lard, dried eggs, tinned pork, and vitamins. The Department was set up to supply their wants through the Commodity Credit Corporation on either dollar-exchange funds or Lend-Lease. But to do so meant offering farmers price inducements to increase production of pork and dairy products. Decision must be made immediately. Hopkins was dubious about using Lend-Lease funds for the purpose, but he said he would talk to the President. On the 6th, Chester Davis's outline of a food administration reached Roosevelt. He suggested an "Office of Food Supply" to gather information on agricultural supply and demand as well as information on Lend-Lease food purchases, to plan wartime food policy, make price studies, harness Latin-American resources, and plan for postwar agriculture. Davis favored placement of the Office of Food Supply in the USD A. He thought he and Wickard could work out the details if the President so desired. 19 Friday morning Wickard was suddenly summoned to the White House. I had almost an hour tvith the President. I first presented my proposal on how to handle the British food supplies through existing agencies in the Department. I told him we had almost a 100 million to start with now and that it was very desirable to start immediately.20 Wickard, by this time, understood two things about his chief: first, Roosevelt had a good grasp on the cotton problem, " W i c k a r d to Morgenthau, March 7, 1941: Davis to Roosevelt, March 6, 1941, in Wickard Papers. Wickard, Diary, March 7, 1941.

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but the rest of agriculture was essentially meaningless to him; and, second, the political ingratitude of corn belt farmers in 1940 had left them with no representation in the White House but Wickard's soft voice. At this moment, Roosevelt desired only to have farm problems kept off his desk. Wickard's strategy was to calm the President and to convince him that no problem existed—the USDA was going ahead with everything which needed to be done. Although apparently pleased with the proposal, he asked that it be brought up in Cabinet meeting. 1 was somewhat in doubt as to why he deferred making reply, but 1 was very much surprised when the President made a speech in Cabinet in favor of my proposal, and since there was nothing but favorable comment, he said "It is so ordered." Although fully aware that the fair wind for his clear sailing had been provided by Wallace, Morgenthau, and Hopkins, Wickard felt vengefully triumphant. His role in the conquest was illusory. Roosevelt had allowed the Advisory Commission to wither while money, power, and functions were poured into the OPM. Davis would come to Wickard's office a month hence, furious at the injustice to his office and his personal prestige. Why had not Wickard consulted him on program planning? Why had not Wickard told him he had written Roosevelt's reply to his memorandum on the food administration? Guilty over his own confused feelings, the Secretary would be incommunicative and Davis would leave, soon thereafter to depart for St. Louis. What was left of the Agricultural Division of the Advisory Commission would be engulfed by the USDA under the name Office of Agricultural Defense Relations. 21 About the middle of March, 1941, Claude Wickard began to see dimly beyond the back forty to the washboard road "Wickard, Diary, March 7, March 14-17, 1941; Ickes, Diary, 493.

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which lay ahead for agriculture. What started out as a tactical administrative move devised to counterthrust the threat of Chester Davis became third-term farm policy. The troublesome surplus in Wallace's Ever-Normal Granary was transformed into dependable harness with which the Secretary meant to hitch up the productive might of the New World. Wickard's was no clear vision of the rutted trace before him; it led, as Secretary Stimson said, into the valley of doubt.

But there was, I would say, a year—up to Pearl Harbor— when you were just betwixt and between, scared to death you wouldn't have enough, scared to death you'd have too much.22 Frightened, yes; mixed in motive, certainly; but drive his team straight toward Roosevelt's goal he did.

Food is going to be the deciding factor in both the War and the Peace that is to follow. I am having trouble in getting most of my advisors in the Dept. to go as far as I think we should in increasing our production of certain livestock, dairy, and poultry products. It seems to me that we should start immediately to convert as much of our large supplies of feed grains into livestock products such as evaporated milk, powdered milk, canned pork, dried eggs, and animal fats. If I visualize the situation correctly the U.S. can use a large store of these products in acquiring [the] good will of the entire world at some future date. These foods will not become obsolete like the guns and airplanes we are now manufacturing. They will be needed in War or Peace. I am convinced opportunity will present itself for the U.S. to become the greatest nation the world has ever known in terms of being a benefactor of humanity in bringing peace and the necessities of life to the war ridden world. We will fail if we don't have and offer to starving people good substantial foods which we are capable of producing if we start immediately.23 " W i c k a r d , Interviews, p. ] 8 8 6 . a Wickard, Diary, March 2 0 - 2 2 , 1941.

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Tuesday night, March 11, the Lend-Lease Bill passed the Senate. Franklin Roosevelt signed it thirty minutes later. Food for the Allies, thanks to the efforts of Davis and Wickard, was part of it. Harry Hopkins called the Secretary to ask if he thought it legal and advisable for the President to say he was transferring food to the British for immediate delivery. Wickard's conditioned bureaucratic response was yes, it was advisable for Roosevelt to say that he was directing the Secretary of Agriculture to arrange for the transfer of agricultural products. Wickard went into immediate session with his budget people to write language for the Lend-Lease Appropriation Bill soon to follow. On Saturday, Wickard shepherded the Congressional farm leaders into the White House for a conference with Roosevelt on loan levels. It was apparent that he thought that the present program was giving the farmers a fair return and that he was not favorable to higher prices for agricultural products because of the increase in cost of living and the resulting demands for increased wages. It was evident that members of Congress present were keenly disappointed at the attitude of the President.2* Wickard, too, was keenly disappointed. T h e President's cavalier attitude was that of the average American—we have always had enough food and we will now. What the President did not seem to recognize was that such an attitude automatically reduced the farmer to second-class economic citizenship. General Motors was getting cost-plus on war contracts; how about the farmer? And Roosevelt further ignored the fundamental tenet of agrarianism which his own programs had proclaimed: controlled production equals decent rural living standards. It would take more than slogans to overcome eight years of dogma and an ingrained rural isolationism. Price 21

Ibid., March 11 arid 15, 1941.

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meant economic, social, and cultural parity. Price also meant official government approval of a change in program. On the President's side was the fearful specter of inflation. The billfolds of a million defense workers containing fattened paychecks which might purchase less food, fewer clothes, and not as much beer as the relief disbursements of the 1930s. Bread went right to the heart of the cost of living index. "The British people and their Grecian allies need ships," said Roosevelt the following night at the White House newspaper correspondents' dinner. "From America they will get ships. They will need planes. From America they will get planes. They need food. From America they will get food." 2 5 It was as simple as that. Wickard suddenly had an acute sense of being caught between his loyalties. He was a farmer. He drew the substance of his existence from the land, but as he had stepped into the nether land between farmer and nonfarmer, he found himself tending not to his father's farm but to his President's farms. Wickard's overseership was hampered in both cases by his relationship to the boss. I was not a personal friend of the President. I don't know how much confidence he had in me. . . . Our relations were friendly. I was perhaps not extremely comfortable when with him. I was a little awed, for one thing, by both the fact of his being President and his personality. . . . By awed I would say I v>as ill-at-ease, and struck by the fact that I was in the presence of a great man. I wouldn't say that I had any fear. I was impressed—put it that way.2e Once defiant of his father's poor farming methods, Wickard now became inwardly rebellious at what appeared to him as the President's shortsighted planning. Testifying before the 26 Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 1948), p. 267. x Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1735-36.

(New York: Harper,

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Senate Appropriations Committee on March 18, the Secretary tacked and skidded out of the wind as Senator Russell attempted to make him approve a higher loan rate on basic commodities. Wickard's opposition was strong enough to qualify "for the record," but no one doubted where he stood. "It is my hope that I will not be blamed by the President for instigating such an increase," he smirked to his diary.27 Still fretting about a threatened food administration outside the USDA, Sam Bledsoe tried to slip a policy statement into the White House notes for Roosevelt's Tuesday press conference. What Wickard and Bledsoe hoped he would say was that the Department would handle British food purchases. It would take more experienced practitioners than Wickard and Bledsoe to get a fast ball by the President. What he did say in his noon press conference was this: I think the only thing of interest that I have is that I have been taking up with the Secretary of Agriculture and with Dr. Parran, who is just back from Britain, the problem of food and related things which will be needed in Britain in the future; and while I am away T am asking the Secretary of Agriculture and Dr. Parran and several others to work up what might be called a program relating to types of food thai are needed and things like-—what do you call t h e m ? — vitamins, of which there are various new forms, so I am told. 2 8

Roosevelt was heading for a short fishing trip off the Florida keys. Dr. Thomas Parran, Surgeon General of the United States, had returned from a tour of Great Britain with dismaying tales of meager diet and threatened deficiency diseases. The morning of the President's press conference, the Secretary had sent to Roosevelt an outlined warning of things to come and a possible plan of meeting them. "Farmers," he cautioned, "feel that agriculture is not faring as well under the defense program as are other groups." Congress would 17 Wickard, Diary, March 17, 1941; Hearings before Senate Committee on Appropriations, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., March 18, 1941. ""Excerpts from President's Press Conference," March 18, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

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press for high loans. Cotton and wheat would have to be curtailed, but certain other crops should be increased. You are aware of the fact that existing programs give the Department of Agriculture a good deal of control over production and supplies and therefore prices. If we use the programs as we should, it will be possible to supply all the democracies with food and fiber at reasonable prices. There is no reason to anticipate exorbitant prices for foodstuffs. So far as agriculture is concerned, we are in a position to protect the consumer from upward price spirals. Wickard suggested that farm income could be raised without additional appropriations or inflation by allowing 75 percent to 85 percent loans on controlled crops and 52 percent to 75 percent loans on noncontrolled crops.29 Wickard followed the President's lead in working out a more detailed plan for meeting British food needs. For a solid week he met several hours each day with Dr. Parran, Milo Perkins, British agricultural attache Lloyd Steere, Leslie A. Wheeler, USDA economists, and occasionally Spike Evans. The new program was conceived in little more than the prayerful hope that they had guessed right, and brought forth with a courage which few ever appreciated. Designed to convert the Ever-Normal Granary into animal products which the British were not sure they either needed or wanted, Wickard's production program turned eight years of New Deal production control around in its tracks. With the exceptions of cotton and wheat, the call was for more, not less. Wickard dispatched his plan in the Presidential pouch to Roosevelt somewhere off the Bahamas. We believe we have a sufficient supply of all agricultural supplies except canned pork, bacon, dried eggs, canned poultry, cheese, dried milk, and evaporated milk. Large quantities of these products will be needed in the British Isles and in Europe for several years, irrespective of the duration of the " Wickard to Roosevelt, March 18, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

204

"I Have Arrived

at Some

Decisions"

War, because foundation herds and flocks are being rapidly depleted, and many of our own people have not had sufficient supplies of these products. Wickard advised that the Commodity Credit Corporation should acquire large stocks of these products immediately, depending upon a plentiful supply to prevent inflationary prices. He called for a two-year program based on low-priced feed com, increased pork and dairy production, and government-supported prices of $9.00 on hogs (they had been selling for $8.00), 31 cents on butterfat (from 30%(f), 15 cents on chickens ( a 1-cent raise), and 20 cents on eggs (current price). Planting season was nearly here—haste was imperative. At the top of Wickard's letter to the President were two scribbled notes: Dear Mr. President—I have gone over this entire situation with Claude and have read tliis letter carefully. I believe the plan he outlines is designed to get the maximum results with the minimum of effort and friction. H.A.W. I agree—T. Parran.30 For two days Wickard fidgeted impatiently, awaiting the President's reply. On the 28th he invited his old Indiana friend, Wayne Coy, for lunch. During the course of their conversation Coy revealed that another part of the Advisory Commission had been split off to become an independent war agency. It was to be called the Office of Price and Civilian Supply ( O P A C S ) and would be headed by a former NRA economist named Leon Henderson. In less than two hours, Henderson was in Wickard's office for a discussion of the food plan as it related to the rest of the price structure. Leon Henderson was a great bull of a man whose explosive energy and single mindedness swept down the corridors of Washington's bureaucracy leaving a trail of administrative " W i c k a r d to Roosevelt, March 25, 1941, in Roosevelt Correspondence. The price on eggs was raised to 22 cents a dozen.

"I Have Arrived at Some Decisions"

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wreckage. He had started in NRA and moved successively through the WPA and SEC to become head of price stabilization in the AdWsory Commission. Intensely able, he assumed a fiery-eyed dedication to whatever task was at hand, trampling any opposition which threatened to impede his pursuance of duty. He throve on battle, fought reasonably clean, and carried no grudges. He knew little about agriculture, had yawned a general acceptance of the parity concept while in the Advisory Commission, and was stubbornly set to prevent inflation as per the President's orders. Lacking the sensitivity to pierce the façade of this expansive economist, Wickard learned nothing about Henderson at their first meeting. With great earnestness he explained his whole program and the reasons why farm prices must rise to parity. Henderson seemed to approve of the plan and suggested that he and Wickard should go to Florida and talk the matter over with Roosevelt on the train as he returned to Washington. Wickard agreed and Henderson said he would telegraph the President of their coming.31 The following morning Wickard received a wire from the President: FOR SECRETARY WICKARD THINK YOUR PROPOSED PROGRAM G E N E R A L L Y GOOD WOULD L I K E TO DISCUSS I T W I T H YOU B E F O R E GIVING APPROVAL STOP PLEASE STUDY T H E POSSIBILITY O F A CEILING AS W E L L AS A FLOOR ON PRICES STOP W I L L YOU HAVE TALK LEON HENDERSON ABOUT E F F E C T ON P R I C E S STOP APPROVE CALLING YOUR ADVISORY COUNCIL L A T T E R P A R T N E X T W E E K SIGNED ROOSEVELT

3 2

Puzzled, Wickard had his office call Henderson to see if he had wired Roosevelt as agreed. Henderson had not. Wickard's trust in the man disappeared. By Monday, the 31st, Roosevelt was back in Washington. Wickard met briefly with Henderson during the afternoon, 31 33

Wickard, Diary, M a r c h 2 7 - 2 8 , 1941; Interviews, 1945. R o o s e v e l t to W i c k a r d , M a r c h 2 8 , 1 9 4 1 , in W i c k a r d P a p e r s .

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and at noon the following day they conferred with Harry Hopkins and the President. The President looked fine after his vacation and was in a good humor. He told of his plan to turn Italian and Danish ships over to England. He spoke about his ideas on prices and also how he thought we should be in a position to do everything we could under what he termed a "limited emergency" to see that prices were kept in bounds. He gave me approval of my plan which I had written him about last week and said that I could proceed immediately. Thus I have been able to get approval of my plan by the President when every one had doubts that I could and some were almost positive that the food administration would be outside of Agriculture.33 Henderson apparently had not objected to the prices which Wickard set. Moreover, a precedent had been set for the Secretary of Agriculture to assign farm price supports to get increased production. Wickard won everything he requested. Wickard had scheduled a meeting of the Agricultural Advisory Council—the heads of the major farm organizations and the bureau chiefs—for 10:00 A.M. on Thursday, April 3, 1941. To confer with them he had also invited America's leading fann paper editors and the presidents of the largest food processing and distribution companies. As Wickard's guests understood the purpose of the meeting, they were to be consulted about a proposed farm program. Actually, they were there to be told of a plan which was already a reality. Roosevelt had approved it. The USDA press notices had been offset and were awaiting release. Letters to Extension Service and Triple-A committees had been mimeographed and were ready for mailing. The conferees in the Secretary's office could ponder, debate, and suggest all they wanted to, but their deliberations would not change one word. Wickard had chosen a heavy-handed way of doing things. "* Wickard Diary, April 1, 1941.

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His reasoning, since he depended on the cooperation of these men to carry out his scheme, was somewhat labored. I'd be in a fine fettle if I called them in and got their consent and then went to the White House and have him tell me he wouldn't accept it. It would look as though I had no influence with the President, and 1 was getting everybody all steamed up about something when there was no possibility of ever getting it approved. I also felt that if I called them in and talked to them about it they'd all find fault with it— I knew they'd find fault with it. And there'd be such a rumpus raised that I'd not only have them against it but the President would become frightened about it and maybe be inclined to do nothing, and the whole thing would die aborning.34 The whole meeting might have come off as he planned it but for newspaper reporter Richard Wilson of the Des Moines Register and Tribune, who broke the story on April 2. Wickard's guests, particularly Ed O'Neal and Earl Smith, arrived in a state of maddened excitement. All they could see was PRICE—the prices were too low; they were not parity prices; all these years of fighting for parity, and Wickard had muffed the big chance to get it; he had sold out to the consumers. In his quiet, growling manner, Wickard tried to bring them to the broad concept still sparkling with newness in his own mind. Farmers, he said, must take a long-term view of the defense effort. They will be in business long after the airplane factories and gun plants have been dismantled, and they must not gouge their customers. Better to get reasonable prices now which can more easily be defended when the defense spurt is over. So I had this unhappy situation of trying to get something done, something which I thought needed to be done, something which I thought very vital to the free world or to the entire world, but having to meet the opposition which was "Wickard, Interviews, pp. 1950-51.

208 coming

"I Have Arrived at Some Decisions" from two ways. One of them was that the prices

too high, the other that the prices where

I was—right

in the

were too low. That's

were exactly

middle.3*

Without one iota of specific authority beyond the President's word, without one dollar having been appropriated to support the prices which he had set, and lacking the sanction of either the Farm Bureau or the Triple-A (Spike Evans had absented himself from this meeting), Secretary Wickard had reversed American farm planning in preparation for defense or war and faced the future verdict of history as to whether he was fool or statesman. "Carl Hamilton to Arnold Daane, May 5, 1941, Secretary's Files, SC.. Wickard, Interviews, p. 1952; Wells, Hamilton, Bledsoe, and Tolley, Interviews; Wickard, Diary, April 3, 1941; Wickard to Parran and Roosevelt, March 31, 1941, in Wickard Papers; Walter W. Wilcox, The Farmer in the Second World War (Ames: Iowa State College Press, 1947), p. 39; USDA Press Release, April 3, 1941.

10: "Awfully Close to Parity" T h e call for defense food had been made against a steady tirade from the America Firsters, the monotonous hum of the isolationists, and the apathy of the general public. Defense production had picked up. Citizen soldiers in training were no longer playing war with broomsticks and upended packing crates. Those still at home were snatching up jobs to enjoy their first taste of beefsteak prosperity in over a decade of ground-round depression. Only Washington lived in the tense expectancy that anything could happen at any time—and probably would. Heads jerked up when the Secretary left on a sudden call to the White House. Stenographers were learning quickly the difference between a second lieutenant and a major. A monstrous thing called the Pentagon was being constructed across the Potomac on fine soil which used to grow USDA experimental crops. A new alphabetical hierarchy, hallmarked by clipped pronouncement and swift decision, was rising to prominence behind marbled government columns. Old and familiar, the WPA, PWA, NYA, and F E R A were slipping back into a sentimentally recalled past alongside the New Deal and the New Dealers. Cabinet meetings were riddled with the blunt fact of change and the innuendo of war. Labor disputes were no longer strikes; they were obstructions to defense. If a manager's obstinacy caused a work stoppage he was a Fascist or an appeaser. The name John L. Lewis was said through clenched teeth. Meetings were "momentous" and situations easily became "desperate." Eyes would narrow slightly whenever someone made a slip betraying the unspoken thought.

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"Awfully Close to Parity"

At one time in Friday's meeting there was a discussion of guarding strategic points in the U.S. The President asked if it were necessary to do that "this soon." It seemed to me that this remark and others pointed to a more direct approach to stopping Hitler.1 Wickard's consciousness had become attuned to the excited tempo of preparing American defenses. Translating preparedness in terms of agriculture, he scheduled a series of addresses over the eastern part of the country to explain the sudden shift in farm policy. There had been a moderate amount of grumbling after the increased production announcement, much of it inspired by the Farm Bureau. Some of the confusion was due partly to press coverage. Where Wallaces' Farmer had accurately headlined the startling story M - D A Y FOR IIOGS AND IIENS: WICKARD CALLS FOR MORE FOOD, the pro-Farm Bureau journal, the Prairie Farmer, had dampened it to an incidental item of Washington news with SMITH CRITICIZES PRICE-PEGGING PLAN. The word peg had unfortunate repercussions everywhere. Wickard's press release used the word support in reference to everything but feed corn prices and he warned the Presi dent to avoid giving the impression that the support prices were ceiling prices. Roosevelt either used the word peg himself in his April 4 press conference or the news service rewrite men found it a handy synonym. The word found its way into nearly every newspaper carrying the story, and from it farmers gained the impression that they were to be saddled with price ceilings while labor's wages in nearby defense plants appeared illimitable. Part of Wickard's speaking-tour mission was to correct the mischief done by the peg idea. At the same time he began a campaign of correspondence with the President to disabuse him of the notion that parity and farm relief were the same thing. Written at Wickard's request by USDA 1

Wickard, Diary, April 7, 1941.

"Awfully Close to Parity"

211

economist Mordecai Ezekiel, lesson number one was sent to Roosevelt over Dr. Parran's signature on April 7.2 We are already in a position to meet all demands except for livestock products and certain speciality crops. In accordance with the conference which Wickard and Henderson had with you on Tuesday, April 1, Wickard announced on April 3 a program to expand meat, dairy, and poultry production through supporting market prices over the next two years. This program is calculated to convert much of our ever-normal granary of feed into an ever-normal warehouse of non-perishable concentrated foodstuffs, ready for any emergency.3 By the time he left Washington for Chicago to make his first address, Wickard had become sensitive to the urgency of aid to Britain. In this he was being prodded constantly by his assistant, Sam Bledsoe. Wholly sympathetic to the words of Charles A. Lindbergh and inwardly favoring a negotiated peace, Bledsoe nonetheless believed that it was in the Secretary's interest to step out ahead of Roosevelt in stirring up the country. Bledsoe's speech writing was hard-hitting and direct, but the Secretary rewrote the first address to suit himself. It has not been very long ago [Wickard told a Chicago meeting of AAA and Extension people on April 16] since I was making speeches, saying agriculture was prepared for any eventuality, that we had plenty of everything. Now those statements shock me a little bit. I wonder why I ever made them* The Secretary proceeded in embarrassing candor to trace his path from ignorance to knowledge. He described his apprehension of November surpluses, his January opportunism in wanting to dispose of them through Lend-Lease to the 'Wallaces' Farmer and Iowa Homestead, April 19, 1941; Prairie Farmer, April 19, 1941; Wickard to Roosevelt, April 4, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; "AAA Farm Price Peg Plans," Chicago Daily News, April 4, 1941; "Dairy Price Pegs Will Boost Production," Washington Star, April 4, 1941. 'Parran to Roosevelt, April 7, 1941, and Ezekiel to Wickard, April 7, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C. 4 "The Food for Defense Program," April 16, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

212

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Close

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British. In March, when he learned that Britain had no money left with which to buy American cotton and wheat, he realized that England was the last bulwark between Hitler and the United States. It was time to convert Ever-Normal Granary feed into edible food. To encourage this he said he would try to support prices for two years—not to peg them as a ceiling. Feed prices, however, were pegged at fair but low prices and the Commodity Credit Corporation would, if necessary, flood the market with its government-owned stocks to keep them there. He defended his $9.00 hogs as being "awfully close to parity" and a fair price. He concluded with a stern agrarian declaration that farmers would not be left holding the bag after this war as they were after the last one. The longer the war goes on, the greater the post-war demand will be. . . . It is up to us to produce Food for Defense and reserves of Food for Peace.5 Wickard returned for the April 17 meeting of the Cabinet which began with a résumé of the European war by Roosevelt, Hull, and Stimson. It was admitted that the Allies had no chance of holding the Nazis in the Balkaiis, but it was pointed out that if the British could delay the German advance two months the Allies would be satisfied. It was said that the British only put 40,000 men in Greece. Also that the British had a moral obligation to help the Greeks and the Slavs. The President said that he thought the British had some chance of holding the Mediterranean. He said that it was admitted by the British that it was impossible to stop the German military machine on Continental Europe but that the British had more experience in the African desert type of Warfare and of course the British had always proven the power of her Navy. It was said by Stimson that the Germans were having much trouble in getting drinking water in their North African Campaign. The President was of the opinion that the loss of North Africa ' Ibid.; Washington Star, April 17, 1941.

Awfully Close to Parity

213

would not be a great gain for the Germans by the way of materials. The President took some time to describe the founding of the US Navy as a guard for our commerce. He told of the naval engagements in the West Indies ivith the French Navy during the Presidency of J. Adams. He pointed out that there was no declaration of War. He flatly denied there was, as had been alleged, any convoying of British Ships. He stated that patrols were operating in the Atlantic to protect the American Commerce.6 Two days later Wickard and Sam Bledsoe went to Charleston, South Carolina, for the second address. This speech was Bledsoe's; Wickard delivered it largely as written. Explaining the conversion of feed to food, the Secretary again corrected peg to support and warned farmers against the dangers of inflation and land speculation. Between each point were Bledsoe's frenzied hyperboles: "The biggest thing in this country today is the defense program. On its success or failure rests the future of America and perhaps the world. . . . —We are in the midst of the struggle because liberty and freedom are threatened by dictatorship and brute force. . . . —So long as Hitler and the Nazis rule Europe, there can be no peace, and Freedom is a prisoner. . . . —In this struggle between freedom and the goosestep, food may decide the issue." 7 Within a few months Americans would be inured to such bombast. In April, 1941, however, it struck heavily at farmer isolationism and a general American unwillingness to believe their country would be drawn into the war. On April 24 Secretary Wickard spoke over the NBC Farm •Wickard, Diary, April 18-20, 1941. According to Ickes (Diary, III, 483), "Wickard said that a one hundred percent parity loan would inevitably mean inflation and he does not want to go above seventy percent." There is nothing in Wickard's scribbled notes made at Cabinet " . 1 . 1 . i. . .i . .i . object w a s discussed. In 1941, in Wickard Papers; Bledsoe, Interviews; Baltimore Sun, April 20, 1941; San Antonio Express, April 21, 1941.

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"Awfully Close to Parity"

and Home Hour from New York City. Once more he drew the dismal picture of a Hitler-dominated Europe.

Why then am I devoting so much time to the world situation? I'll tell you why. I think it's time the farmers and the people of this country got excited about this world situation. . . . Some of the facts aren't very pleasant but we cant change them by looking the other way. Nowadays, ostrich nations don't last very long. If this country wants to continue to be a great nation, it must act like a great nation.8 T h e President began his April 25 Cabinet meeting by complimenting Hull, Knox, and Wickard on their speeches.

I told him that my speech once contained the statement "We are going to grow more food for Britain and we are going to see that they get it" but I deleted the statement in view of the statement he made at the last meeting concerning convoys. He said that he had changed his statement concerning patrolling the ocean and indicated that he thought he could avoid convoying by pushing the patrolled area farther out into the Atlantic. It is evident to me the President is going to do every thing to see that the British get our supplies except to actually convoy them and I think that iviU come in time if sinkings continue.9 A master of euphemism, the President was deluding no one with his distinction between patrols and convoys. T h e fact was that German submarines were sinking British ships faster than they could b e replaced. American government officials were speaking out with greater clarity each day. F r o m Cordell Hull:

. . aid must reach its destination in the shortest of

time and in maximum quantity. So, ways must be found to do this." From Frank Knox: "The United States cannot allow its goods to b e sunk in the Atlantic. W e shall be beaten if they are."

10

8 "The Fanner's Stake in a Democratic World," April 24, 1941, in Wickard Papers; New York Times, April 25, 1041. •Wickard, Diaiy, April 25-26, 1941. 10 "This Week in Defense," Office of Government Reports, April 25, 1941.

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During the week, the British Food Mission arrived in the United States. Wickard held two dinners in the dining room of the Westchester to introduce them to Washington officialdom. The first, on the 28th, was for the Mission and the Department. The second, on the 30th, was attended by Stimson, Leon Henderson, Justice Douglas, Harry Hopkins, and many other agency heads. The British made no bones about the gravity of their situation. Food imports into England had been cut to half their prewar level by German sinkings. For the first time they revealed a recognition that food was soon to be needed as much as munitions. Harry Hopkins then arose with the most alarming talk Wickard had yet heard. He said we faced the worst situation in our history as a nation. He said this was not a battle between Churchill and Hitler but it was Roosevelt against Hitler. He prophesied all sorts of dire things if Hitler wins, among them concentration camps for the most of us who sat around the table.11 At Cabinet on May 1, Roosevelt again began the discussion of convoys and patrols. The President announced that Greenland was going to be used as a naval base and that the patrols would range half way to Iceland. He said that the Germans were saying that they could only patrol within three miles of Greenland. The President plainly intimated that he expected a clash sooner or later but said the Germans would have to fire the first shots. He also explained that convoy was an absolute term since patrols would only protect against a three-dimensional attack: Surface raider, submarine, and air planes. He pointed out that this was a war [of] tanks and machines. He said the British did not want men, they wanted materials and airplanes. He said that the British were able to battle four tanks with one, but they still were outnumbered. At the end of the meeting he said the question had been raised as to whether it was bet" Wickard, Diary, April 30, 1941; Hamilton to Stanley McLain, April 21, 1941, and Hamilton to Frank Knox, April 22, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard, Interviews, p. 1967.

216

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ter to speak singly or to have three members of the Cabinet talk at one time as Hull, Knox, and I did last week. When J asked if I should check with him on speaking subjects or dates, he said "No." 12 T h e President's brusque "No" was the green light. Bledsoe told the Secretary "Go ahead until he tells you to stop." On May 8 before a regional Triple-A conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, Wickard took his assistant's advice.

. . . to refuse to take decisive and vigorous action to help Britain is no guarantee of peace. Frankly speaking, I see no course for the United States that gives any real promise of keeping us from becoming deeply involved in this world conflict. . . . It is acknowledged, I think, that Great Britain will go down unless the United States sees that she gets munitions and food. . . . Speaking for myself, I would never ask the farmers of this country to grow more food for the British if I did not believe we would see that this food gets to the British. I don't believe the people of this country favor half-way measures. Let's do whatever is necessary to see that our food and munitions actually get to England—and let's do it right away13 Returning to Washington the following morning, Wickard was amazed to see his picture in the newspapers and large stories covering his Charlotte speech. He had no idea he had said enough to warrant so much publicity. Here too was the expert hand of Sam Bledsoe, translating nearly everything in terms of newspaper headlines. It was wrongly assumed that Wickard's speech had the President's blessing. But when no reprimand

came

from

the

White

House,

the

Secretary

breathed easier and commended himself further to Bledsoe's good judgment. Five days later, at Raleigh, North Carolina, Wickard moved another step ahead of Roosevelt. ^ Wickard, Diary, May 2-3, 1941. 13 "Farmers and the Battle for Democracy," May 8, 1941, in Wickard Papers; Bledsoe, Interviews; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2000-2003; Charlotte Observer, May 9, 1941; Washington Post, May 9, 1941; New York Times, May 9, 1941.

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It now becomes obvious that if the United States is to prevent the fall of the last military stronghold between this country and Hitler it will be necessary for this country not only to produce the food and machines, but to see that they get there—get there safely and get there in time.1* A flood of citizen protest reached the USD A after Raleigh: "83 percent of the American people want peace. Why don't you? . . . —We do not want to shed our blood this time to save the rich man's property in Europe. . . . —If we have to slaughter our sons every 20 years in order to sell our hogs, corn and cotton then we had better quit farming. . . . —You don't care if you get us into war because you don't have to go! . . . —We agree 100% with Col. Lindbergh—A Great American—America FirstI" Less than one tenth of the response was in the measured tones of the Marietta, Illinois, farmer who wrote "I would like to go on record as being in favor of convoying supplies to our friends. . . . Let's deliver the goods." Or the terse praise of the Vice President: "You made a good speech at Charlotte, North Carolina." 15 As inspired as he was by the President's efforts to arouse the country from its apathetic view of the Nazi menace, Wickard's chief concern was with the intimate relationship between farm production and prices. By May, 1941, the definition of "price" had begun to change. For Wallace, in the depression decade of the 1930s, price meant support—a floor under distressingly low prices. For Wickard in the boom year 1941, price and inflation were coming to be thought of in the same terms. The first defense contracts were reflecting a swiftly rising cost of living. The seeds of inflation were being sown as each segment of the economy scrambled for its share of the increased wealth. Economists were warning of ceilings instead of supports, while farm bloc agrarians looked to the happy prospect of parity in the marketplace. " "The South's Stake in the Battle of Britain," May 13, 1941, in Wickard Papers. " W a l l a c e to Wickard, Mav 13, 1941, Prices, S.C.; and the various citizens' letters, May, 1941, War ( P e a c e ) , S.C.

218

"Awfully Close to Parity"

President Roosevelt was devoting himself to the massive job of saving the British. He was keenly aware that he could not risk endangering the American economy in the process. Reserve dollar strength would be needed if the United States became directly involved in the Second World War. Cabinet Secretaries were members of the Presidents team. He expected them to carry out his policies and to abet his influence on the Hill. For Claude Wickard, this was an extremely difficult assignment. His willingness to brake spiraling agricultural prices bespoke his loyalty to the President and to the whole nation. His ability to retain the farm leadership necessary to carry out the President's increased food production depended upon giving farmers the same price increases everyone else was getting—in effect, parity. Wickard's situation was further complicated by his position on parity. During April, the Secretary asked for increased production of meat, poultry, and milk. This meant the conversion of feed corn into hogs, chickens, and cows. Wickard pegged the price of feed com at 67 cents a bushel. He then announced a supported market price for meat, poultry, and milk at 75 percent of parity, which was higher than the market price had been up to that time. By pegging feed prices he hoped to prevent inflation. By raising meat, poultry, and milk prices, he granted a price incentive to gain increased production. On May 13 the House passed the 85 percent of parity loan law by an overwhelming 274 to 63 majority. The following afternoon the bill romped through the Senate 75 to 2. Wickard knew the bill was pending. He was fully aware of its strong Farm Bureau backing, and he did nothing to aid it or to stop it. Except for the fact that the Farm Bureau had stolen the march on him in assuming leadership for parity prices, Wickard secretly was satisfied with the law and hoped the President would not blame him for its passage.10 " P u b . L. No. 74, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., May 26, 1941; Wickard, Diary, May 14, 1941.

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219

Under the terms of the 1938 AAA, loans were to be made on the basic commodities (corn, cotton, wheat, rice, and tobacco) at sliding scale rates of between 52 percent and 75 percent of parity, depending on the amount of surplus. The new law, if the President approved it, would set mandatory fixed loan rates at 85 percent of parity on the five basic commodities, but not on meat, poultry, and milk. Wickard's 67-cent feed corn was now raised to 79 cents a bushel. Furthermore, a premium was placed on the very products which the British did not need instead of those which they lacked. As far as inflation was concerned, a 10 percent rise in a loaf of bread or a package of cigarettes would amount to about a penny. But a 10 percent rise in a couple of pork chops or a pound of chicken would bite into the budgets of thrifty housewives. It was obvious that further agricultural price changes would have to be made. As a result of the 85 percent loan law, Wickard received from Roosevelt, Morgenthau, and Budget Director Harold Smith suspicious glances that he might not be a fully trustworthy member of the anti-inflation team. "How are you getting along with your legislative friends?" the President airily inquired. At the same time, farm leaders began to doubt that Wickard was still their parity champion. I was the fellow that got that all the time, every time I talked to farm leaders, and was always reminded, "Why are you worrying about keeping food prices down when nobody's doing anything seriously about keeping wages down?" And it was not an easy question to answer. I just didn't have much to say. I would just have to get out of it as best I could.1"1 Writing to Roosevelt on the 16th, Secretary Wickard advised him not to veto the bill, but rather to turn it to his own advantage by proclaiming it a token of his desire to see farmers gain parity. Wickard was preparing to make a policy speech which would be broadcast nationwide from Hutchinson, Kansas. If he could announce the President's intention of "Wickard, Interviews, p. 2006; Diary, May 22, 1941.

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signing the law, Roosevelt would gain farmer support, help the British, and forestall the passage of even more inflationary measures.18 Shortly before noon the next day, Wickard received a hurried invitation to join the President for lunch. Surprised to find Roosevelt in his second floor study instead of the executive office, Wickard was subjected to the curious afflatus which the President was apt to promote in the cozy intimacy of his private quarters. Halfway through their quail luncheon Roosevelt finally got down to farm business. We first discussed the parity payment and the 85 percent parity loan legislation. He told me that I should say in my speech to be made on Monday that he was in favor of parity for farmers and that we had been eight years trying to reach this goal. He said that he wanted the parity payments so made that including the loan and all payments farmers would not receive more than 100 percent of parity through government funds. He said that he hoped farmers would receive parity on their basic commodities this year. I asked if I could announce his desire in my speech on Monday. He said that I could, which of course pleased me greatly. He said that farmers should help him in his efforts to prevent price spirals. He also remarked that farmers should not rock the boat in this critical period. We discussed what I should say about the aid to British. He made it plain to me that he didn't want me to say we were going to deliver the goods to Britain. He said that I should say that the goods should be delivered.10 Two days later Wickard revealed his talk with the President to his radio audience and the three thousand wheat farmers gathered at Hutchinson: He told me he wants the basic crops to reach parity this year. He told me also that he thinks wheat farmers, taking loans and payments into account, will get parity on this year's " W i c k a r d to Roosevelt, May 16, 1941. in Roosevelt Correspondence. " Wickard, Diary, May 17-19, 1941.

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crop. This news is further proof—although none is needed— that Franklin D. Roosevelt is the best friend that farmers have ever had in the White House. Great applause. We will do everything in our power to see that the British Navy remains intact and on our side. Mild applause. We are producing food and munitions for Britain as fast as we can. . . . Some of it is getting no further than the bottom of the Atlantic. . . . There is no sense in producing for delivery at the bottom of the ocean. There can be only absurdity, anticlimax, and danger in that course. I say, let's see that the goods are delivered.20 No applause. Farmers had given eloquent indication of where they stood. Tub-thumping slogans about the menace of Hitler would not swerve them from their one goal—parity. One week later, Congress abandoned Henry Wallace's sliding loan-rate scale. Fixed loans at 85 percent of parity became basic farm policy as the President signed Public Law No. 74. Wickard knew the 85 percent loan was only the first step toward parity in the marketplace. In anticipation of the Farm Bureau's next move, he enlisted two USDA veterans to his corps of major advisors. Robert H. Shields, one of the keenest legal minds in the Department and first-line draftsman of the 1938 AAA, became an assistant to the Secretary. John B. Hutson, a tobacco economist with a Ph.D. from Columbia University and a ranking government administrator, became head of the Commodity Credit Corporation. Shields and Hutson were handed their first assignment together, as quickly as they were named. Farm Bureau influence was holding up the semiannual House bill to extend the life of the Commodity Credit Corporation. Demanding now that Wickard pay parity prices for all Lend-Lease purchases, the Farm Bureau executive board was meeting in Chicago, wait" "Wheat Farmers and the Battle for Democracy," May 19, 1941, in Wickard Papers. Notes on applause from Wickard to Roosevelt, May 24, 1941, in Roosevelt Correspondence. Speech coverage in New York Times, May 20, 1941; Hutchinson News, May 19, 1941.

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ing to see what Wickard was going to do about it. The Secretary acted promptly—too promptly. He sent Shields and Hutson to Chicago to work out a compromise. They returned two days later with a draft of a rider to the Commodity Credit legislation which would be known as the Steagall Amendment. By its terms, over two and a half billion dollars were to be appropriated. If the Secretary called for increased production of any nonbasic agricultural commodity (anything except corn, cotton, wheat, rice, and tobacco), he was to use this money to support prices at not less than 85 percent of parity, or a comparable price. An approving, but not mandatory, statement on parity prices for Lend-Lease purchases followed. 21 Once more the Farm Bureau had forced Wickard in the direction toward which, as a member of the President's antiinflation team, he could not move by himself. Hutson and Shields had done a good job. The only mistake was Wickard's. He had failed to consult Milo Perkins, who had been handling Lend-Lease purchasing. Perkins was angry. He had been bypassed, and his administrative dignity was justifiably wounded. Moreover, he definitely disapproved of high food prices. His principal clients were the needy; the Stamp Plan operated on food bargains. He said Wickard had bowed to the Farm Bureau, and he took his troubles straight to Henry Wallace. The morning of June 6, Wallace called Wickard. He said Perkins was in his office and asked if Wickard could come over to discuss the situation. When Wickard arrived, Perkins pitched his argument around Lend-Lease bargain purchasing instead of Wickard's culpability in failing to consult him. Wickard answered that he had an obligation to the farmers. He could not ask them for increased production and then hammer their prices down at the same time. "If we keep on doing this," Wickard said, "they are rightfully going to accuse us of not " Pub. L. No. 147, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., Sec. 2-4, July 1, 1941; Tolley, Interviews; Hutson, Interviews; Shields, Interviews.

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being willing to support prices. There have been a lot of complaints about prices being too low. But if we went out and tried our best to buy things just as cheaply as we could, the farmers would lose faith in us and we wouldn't get production after all." Shrewdly swinging his reasoning around to an old cause célèbre of Wallaces' Farmer, the Secretary continued: "Mr. Vice President, I happen to have been a farmer during the last war. I don't very pleasantly recall what I thought were some broken promises then. I have an idea that a lot of other farmers remember that. . . ." "Yes," Wallace broke in, "I remember too what Hoover promised the farmers. I remember how we felt. I don't remember so much what happened during the war as what happened after the war." "That's what fits in with my whole scheme of things!" Wickard's hands were slamming the arms of his chair. "We're trying to stabilize the prices at parity levels right straight through the war—through the war and after. I don't want them to get too high now, and I don't want to drive them down now. I hope I'll be able to keep these prices on a fair level, fair to everybody." The Vice President surprised me. I knew that the situation was desperate. I thought it was or he wouldn't have called me up there. I thought he had called me up there to give me a lecture, and I had my back to the wall. I don't know how it happened, but Milo apparently saw that he was finished, and so he then apologized. I felt very kindly towards Wallace after this. I was a little surprised. It was almost too much to hope. Milo was so forceful and dramatic, and I didn't know what all he had done.22 An unconscious Wickard policy had been carried out. He had driven from the Department one of the most ardent of Wallace's followers. At the same time, he had lost one of his most able administrators. Within a few months Milo Perkins 23

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2 0 4 6 - 4 9 ; Diary, June 5 - 7 , 1941.

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would leave the USDA to head the Board of Economic Welfare. A conscious part of Wickard's policy was also in the making. While the Secretary was a loyal Cabinet member, he was fundamentally an agrarian. The President could approve or veto his policies, but the policies would be those of a dirt farmer who had the national welfare at heart. And Roosevelt and Wickard did not look at parity, farm prices, and the control of inflation in exactly the same way. Consumers, the great mass of American housewives, had in the backs of their minds the idea that because food always had been cheap it ought to be cheap. Any pay increases should be spent on a new coat, fixing up the den, or that longplanned vacation trip to Colorado—not on higher food prices. If they had been asked to formulate a farm policy in 1941, they probably would have suggested that farmers grow everything possible to grace American tables at the lowest possible cost. This was the position of organized labor. Farmers, on the other hand, were asking for parity in the marketplace. They were saying that prices had always been too low. Now that consumers had the money to pay fair prices, let them pay. Government parity payments would be needed no longer. The Triple-A could arrange to restrict production to meet the demand. If prices ran a little above parity, that was all right, because farmers had it coming to them. This was the position of the Farm Bureau. In between the consumers and the fanners was President Roosevelt. Henry Wallace's teaching had convinced him that parity was a just goal. He knew that unlimited production would result in glut and lower prices, not parity. At the same time, he believed that the ideal of parity in the marketplace would end in runaway inflation. Roosevelt had agreed to fixed 85 percent loans with the understanding that loans plus parity payments plus ACP payments would equal parity. Consumers' food costs would be based on 85 percent of parity prices. John

"Awfully Close to Parity"

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Doe still picked up what amounted to a subsidy bill since parity payments came out of his tax money, but there would be no additional reflection of food prices in the cost of living index upon which unions based their wage demands. One thing about it, however, was the fundamental belief that the President was not willing to have established in the marketplace as high a price for farm products as he was willing to let labor and industry get. In other words, industry and labor don't have to go to Congress on bended knee and say "Give us the appropriations, what we need, what we deserve, what is just to us." 23 Secretary Wickard and Farmer Wickard nearly parted company over the question of prices. He knew it was in the farmers' interest to prevent inflation. But his agrarian hackles rose as he considered twenty years of rural economic injustice. Now that some restitution was possible, why not allow prices to reach parity—even go a little beyond if they could. Farmer Wickard would expound bitterly on the subject of consumers paying full prices for food when they had the money. It was time to change people's foolish ideas that a loaf of bread ought not cost more than 10 cents, a quart of milk 15 cents, a pound of ground round 30 cents. Farmers were as good as anyone else. Why should they alone have to stand each year at the doors of Congress awaiting a verdict which meant profit or loss? Now that prosperity had returned, had not the farm problem been cured? No, answered Secretary Wickard, it had not been cured. The fact was, the people did have notions as to how much food ought to cost, and that was another part of the farm problem. In wartime, parity in the marketplace meant inflation; in peacetime it was no more than a dream impossible of attainment. The fine head of defense steam which the President had built up in the spring could not be maintained during sum" Wickard, Interviews, p. 2025.

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mer. Americans had become inured to horrifying headlines describing London after German air attacks. Rommel and Montgomery battled back and forth across the Libyan Desert. Engorged with their easy victories over Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete, the Nazis appeared momentarily satiated. In Cabinet on June 6, Cordell Hull made a plea for something dramatic to cover up American indecision. The President said he wanted part of the Pacific Fleet moved to [the] Atlantic, which is significant. The President also said that even if the British lost the Mediterranean the important thing was to keep the Indian Ocean out of the Axis control. He said he wanted to try the Japanese appease24 ment a little longer. Early in May, Roosevelt had appointed Wickard to sit with Robert H. Brand, Maurice I. Hutton, and the other members of the British Food Mission on the Anglo-American Food Committee. Brought together to determine United Kingdom food requirements, the committee functioned well but with some uncertainty. The British were still unsure how much food they really needed, or how much they ought to take as a matter of diplomacy in order to keep the Yankee arsenal running smoothly. Meanwhile Lord Woolton, the British Food Minister, had raised a storm with his tactless assertion that Americans should share sugar, tea, and cheese with their British cousins. For the United States to offer Lend-Lease was one thing; to be told by the English what it should do was something else. In the interest of cordial Allied relations Wickard agreed with him publicly, then turned to face the wrath of his countrymen. Wickard was less discerning of growing trouble within his own office. T. Roy Reid had been unable to make a team out of the Secretary's assistants. The combination of Wickard's hesitant delegation of specific assignments to one person, M

Wickard, Diary, June 8, 1941.

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Hamilton's guarded intimacy with the Secretary, Bledsoe's expansive energy and Shields's superior knowledge had made T. Roy's task impossible. The Secretary's office was a madhouse. Under Secretary Appleby had been isolated effectively. From his office, three doors away from Wickard's, he watched his precise administrative machine become a rusty, puffing engine as the assistants to the Secretary fought for control of the throttle. Occasionally Appleby would attempt to return a little order to the system, only to suffer humiliating rebuff. "Now listen, Paul," Bledsoe told him, "you have thrown your weight around this department for quite a long time. You've been in a position to tell a lot of people a lot of things and they had to listen to you. I don't give a damn what you say." Shields was somewhat more tactful: "Look Paul, you've asked me to do something. Claude has asked me to do the opposite. You know I'm friends with both of you. I guess the only thing I can do is do what Claude asked. He's Secretary." Wickard knew he was failing to make the best use of Appleby's badly needed executive talent, but, as Carl Hamilton told him, "What in hell can you do without causing us more damned agony than it's worth?" As administrator of the North Central Region Wickard had been excellent. As Secretary he was administratively over his depth. Bill Jump's warning that the Secretary should keep himself free for policy decisions went unheeded. Wickard wanted his hand on every detail of running the major offices of the Department. He could not arrange his time to hold daily or even weekly meetings with his assistants. He would become interested in some unimportant caller and keep his busy bureau chiefs waiting to see him. He never parceled out to his assistants clearly defined areas of responsibility. As a result, two of them often found themselves working on the same problem with different instructions from the Secretary. Wickard's insistence on personal control, the tragic shutting out of

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"Awfully Close to Parity"

Paul Appleby, and the terrific pace which T. Roy Reid could not maintain, left Bledsoe and Shields fighting to bring order out of chaos." One Sunday in the middle of June, Wickard invited Shields and Appleby out to the Westchester to discuss that most dreaded of all administrative actions, a reorganization. The Farm Bureau was reviving its charges of duplication in the field. The threat of Chester Davis's food administration outside the USDA had not been forgotten. There were still scattered instances of insubordination. Above all, Wickard had become convinced that future events would necessitate a food supply larger than anyone had yet imagined. The question was how to bring USDA field organization into best focus for the task ahead. Wickard, Shields, and Appleby accomplished little beyond having word of their deliberations leak out to the bureau chiefs. The result was an immediate tussle for power. It is possible that Wickard knew what he wanted to do before he asked for any advice. But, eternally fretful about what people would think, he dallied over the reorganization of the field services for two weeks while Paul Appleby drew up a plan. At the same time, every action agency with a field service was busy promoting its interests; the Triple-A, Farm Security Administration, Soil Conservation Service, and Extension Services all hoped to control the entire field force. Knowing this, Appleby developed a scheme whereby they would all be subordinate to Milton Eisenhower's Office of Land-Use Coordination, and he submitted the idea to Wickard. Appleby's idea may have been good administration, but it was fantastic in view of Wickard's relationship to Appleby and Eisenhower. The Secretary saw it as Appleby's last grasp at the administrative reins of the USDA. Eisenhower would run the field forces, Appleby would run Eisenhower, and Wickard would no longer be Secretary. " Bledsoe, Hamilton, Reid, Salisbury, and Shields, Interviews.

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Wickard instantly returned to the idea which was first in his mind. On July 3 he made his decision, and on the 7th Secretary's Memorandum No. 921 was issued. A Department of Agriculture Defense Board would be established in each state and county. The membership of the state and county Defense Boards would be made up of the top officers from the field forces of the AAA, FSA, SCS, FCA, REA, Forest Service, and Extension Service. The chairman of each county Triple-A committee would be chairman of the Defense Board. Each state Defense Board chairman would report directly to the Secretary of Agriculture.2" The orders were clear. Let none misunderstand. Wickard himself was going to run the Department, the action agencies, and the field forces. His chosen instrument was the Triple-A. The Department must realize that defense food was more important than continued jockeying for administrative position. Here, too, was "farmer administration of farmer programs" carried into defense production. Now I felt in this case we had to take a page out of the Triple-A book and visit every farmer in the United States and sit down and talk to him right in his own barnyard. In this way we would go out and tell them what wc wanted them to do. That was my whole program all the way through, and that's why the doggone thing worked in spite of the county agents saying it wouldn't work.27 The Triple-A was anything but overjoyed at having been favored with the Defense Boards. They saw administrative lines leading directly to the Secretary and feared it meant the end of their clannish fraternity. Spike Evans disliked it for the same reason. If the boards operated as outlined, Evans stood to lose some control over the AAA. His irritation was mounting on other scores. Wickard was failing to consult him on M

SC. a;

Secretary's Memorandum No. 9 2 i , July 7, 1941, Secretary's Files, Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2095-96.

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major policy decisions and was blocking his appointment to fill the Federal Reserve Board governorship vacated when Chester Davis went to St. Louis. When one of Wickard's assistants came to see Evans about enlisting his support in welding the field forces into Defense Boards, Evans told him, "Well, all right, jump to it. I won't stand in your way." But he would do nothing to help. In spite of Spike Evans, the creation of the Defense Boards was an assertion of Wickard's determination to run his own department, and it was also an announcement to the White House that the bases of a food administration had been laid. Secretary's Memorandum No. 921 marked the end of any possibility of Appleby regaining administrative control, and it lost for Wickard the able services of Milton Eisenhower. Another Wallace advisor had been shelved. Evans and Appleby would soon depart for London to survey British nutrition, and the Secretary would use the period of their absence to educate the Triple-A on the need for increased production. On July 24, Wickard sent the President the first production report. The pig crop, he said, would be larger than that of 1940 instead of smaller as expected. There was a 14 percent increase in dairy production. More eggs were ready for market than at any time since 1930. Plantings of fruits and vegetables were near record highs. The Defense Boards were being integrated with other defense agencies. The USDA was prepared to meet any emergency. Roosevelt replied the following day, commending his fine work with the very words Wickard wanted most to hear. Our lack of preparedness during the last World War made the establishment of a Food Administration necessary. Thus far in this war we have not needed a Food Administration, and I see no reason to believe we will need one in the future.28 "Wickard, Diary, June 15, 29, 30, July 3, 17, 1941; Interviews, pp. 2083-2109; Hamilton, Bledsoe, Shields, Tollev and Darrow, Interviews; Wickard to Roosevelt, July 24, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Roosevelt to Wickard, July 25, 1941, in Roosevelt Correspondence.

11: Too Much or Too Little? Franklin Roosevelt seemed unduly fatigued at Cabinet meeting on July 18. The President indicated that he thought Japan was going to attack Indo China in a very short time. He said that Japan could move one two or three ways after occupying this country. He also indicated that the U.S. would continue to furnish some oil at least to Japan to keep her from moving into the Dutch Indies for oil. The President also indicated that the U.S. was going to deliver supplies and arms to Iceland and that if the Germans attacked these shipments it would be up to the commander of the ship to determine the policy. He also described how the U.S. should prepare proper bases in the South Atlantic. In all these zones shooting might take place and he indicated that a little shooting might arouse this country from its lethargy and help in passing the extension of the selectees' period of service.1 Within less than one month the Selective Service term was extended beyond one year by a bare, one-vote majority. Meanwhile, another meeting of Roosevelt's Cabinet had taken place on the 24th. There was discussion about sending airplanes to Russia. The President indicated that he was growing impatient with the delay of the Army in sending a few ships to Russia. Several members of the Cabinet discussed the status of the RussiaGermany conflict. Everyone agreed that there was great surprise among the experts at the Russian resistance. Sec. Stimson and Sec. Knox indicated that they thought many of their 1

Wickard, Diary, July 19-20, 1941.

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experts who had come to regard the German army as invinceable had changed their minds. Three different reports indicated five to seven million Germans had been killed or wounded. . . . There was discussion of the new device known as radar by which enemy craft can be located in darkness or fog. . . . The President indicated that he was going to continue to furnish some oil to Japan but it might approach strangulation as time went on. He said Japan had 14 months' oil supply. His whole thought is to keep Japan from having to attack the Dutch East Indies.2 Cabinet on August 1 was a little more hopeful.

The President indicated that the Japanese had been surprisingly apologetic. Welles indicated that the Japanese were acting more cautiously. The President said that the Russians had been in to see him and indicated they thought they were being given a "run-a-round." The President said he was stumped for a reply and said he was going to appoint Wayne Coy to see that the Russians received promised shipments even though such shipments meant a sacrifice to our own military strength. He pointed out we had done the same for Britain to hold up her morale and to stop invasion and that it had worked. He said he wanted to try the same on Russia. The Russians wanted bombers, antiaircraft and tank guns. Stimson and Knox indicated we didn't have them for our oum defense. The President demanded token shipments. The President said these shipments must be forwarded now because we must encourage the Russians to hold out until October 1, when the weather would bring about an entirely different kind of warfare on the Western front of Russia. The President's strategy is to give them enough of even our most needed weapons to show the Russians we are behind them. He said the Rtissians said we are doing 90 percent of the fighting with 10 percent of the aid. It seems clear to me that the President wants to help win the war by furnishing materials ' Ibid., July 24-25, 1941.

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Little?

but not to lose lives. I am sure he wants to stay out of actual conflict.3 On August 21 the President had returned from the "dog races," as he was apt to call any top-secret trip, and Cabinet met for the first time around the new coffin-shaped table donated by Jesse Jones. Roosevelt delighted his official family with a lengthy description of his mid-ocean conference with Winston Churchill from which they proclaimed the Atlantic Charter. both he and The President said that during the conference Churchill chided their military experts for their bad guessing as to Russian military strength. He said without question the Russian campaign had helped the Allied cause immeasurably but that it was a question as to how long the Russians would hold out and he said he was worried because the U.S. was assuming that we would not be called upon for great contributions to the war effort. At no time did the President indicate that he was contemplating the sending of [an] expeditionary force to Europe nor did he indicate that he thought it was advisable to declare war* Following up the creation of the Defense Boards, Wickard asked Tolley and his BAE experts to formulate a set of production "goals" which could be checked with county committeemen and announced before 1942 spring planting began. It was a brash move. If farmers exceeded the goals, the Secretary would be a great man; if they failed, it would be Wickard's failure. The "goals" approach meant a subtle lifting of government control over farm production. During the depression of the 1930s, Wallace had to prop prices while keeping a heavy hand on production lest the hated surplus again wreck the farm economy. By August, 1941, the situation had nearly reversed, and Wickard altered Wallace's program to meet the change. Prices had to be kept within the limits of parity while farmers 'Ibid., August 2 - 4 , 1941.

'Ibid., August 2 4 - 2 5 , 1941.

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were given a higher production goal. The control lid was not off by any means. Cotton, tobacco, and wheat were still under marketing quotas, although the Secretary had begun to doubt the advisability of restricting grain production in the face of wartime demands. From still another point of view some control was necessary. Wickard wanted to encourage southerners to grow soybeans and peanuts, not watermelons and cotton; westerners must go into dairying, not take quick profits from slaughter beef. By mid-August the BAE men had finished their estimates. Tolley submitted them to Wickard on the 25th. With Evans in Europe the task was easier. Campaign plans for "selling" the program were drawn up. The Secretary was to make two major farm speeches, in California, to be followed by three regional meetings, in Salt Lake City, Chicago, and New York. On September 8 Wickard announced the "goals" program in a nationwide radio address from San Francisco: I know that if I were a Frenchman or a Dutchman and I looked across the channel and saw that the British were still eating pretty well, eating good American food, while I was looking on cat meat as somewhat of a delicacy, I'd be inclined to rise up and try to get in on some of that American food. Especially if I knew that there was more where that came from. And let's not forget something more important to all of us. That is this: When the nations sit down at the peace table, a great big stockpile of American food, all ready to cook and eat, will greatly reinforce the American views on what arrangements are needed to make a just and lasting peace. I have said many times, and I now repeat, Food will win the war and write the peace.5 Wickard returned from his transcontinental tour on the 22d. The next day he was called to testify on the second Lend* "Agricultural Production Goals for 1942," September 8, 1941, in Wickard Papers; also Wickard to Tolley, Evans, Hutson, and others, July 19, 1941. Secretary's Files, S.C.; John B. Canning to Wickard, October 9, 1941, ibid.

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Lease Appropriation Bill before Congressman Cannon's committee. Agriculture, said the Secretary, needed another billion dollars to feed the British. For four hours they questioned him on how the money would be spent. Slowly they drew from him his determination that American farmers should be paid for their wartime risks, and that there would be no lowering of prices after the crop was planted. Yes, Mr. Wickard viewed the Steagall Amendment as an 85 percent of parity price floor. Yes, the government was morally obligated to support farm prices at that level no matter how much or how little the farmer produced. All I want to do is be sure that the American farmers are not penalized because they have been asked to produce more to meet this defense effort. . . . I would very much regret, Mr. Cannon, seeing these products which we are asking American farmers to produce in increasing quantities, put in a different category than airplanes or munitions, or anything else that we are asking some manufacturer to produce. Now we do not ask the manufacturer to produce anything until we have the funds, and I do not want the farmer to be in a different position,6 Wickard got his billion dollars. So far, his plans were progressing well. He (and the farm bloc) had raised the parity floor to 85 percent of parity. He had averted Congressional efforts to tie his hands on the CCC stocks. Now the President deemed it time to call for price control legislation. Leon Henderson's office had been struggling with inflation for five months of swiftly booming prices. Henderson had no more authority than his Presidential appointment could give him. This was one time when Roosevelt's vote was insufficient— only statutory dikes could stem the tide of inflation. It was an unpopular chore and Congressmen hated it. Everyone wanted " Hearings before the House Subcommittee of the Committee propriations, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., September 23, 1941.

on Ap-

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prices controlled on everything except the articles which he sold. Farmers were outside this consideration to some extent, because parity was an elastic scale which slid up or down with the rest of the economy. Nevertheless, full parity they wanted and were determined to get. And an agrarian Secretary was on hand to look out for their interests. Leon Henderson wrote the agricultural part of the pending price control bill. At Wickard's suggestion, he agreed to the inclusion of a provision that no ceiling should be placed on agricultural commodities until they reached 110 percent of parity. Wickard's theory was that farm prices fluctuated from day to day as the crop was marketed. On some days, prices were below parity, while on others they were above parity. The 110 percent provision, Wickard said, would give farmers an average of parity. Once more Roosevelt's farmer had placed himself in a dubious position as a staunch member of the President's anti-inflation team. But, at the same time, Wickard was doing everything he could to prevent Louis J. Taber of the Grange from introducing a highly inflationary amendment to "modernize" the parity formula by figuring in farm labor costs. Changing the rules in the middle of the game was too unethical even for Wickard's agrarianism. After writing to Roosevelt on September 26 about the 110 percent provision, Wickard took his Farm Organization Committee to see the President on October 7. Roosevelt was in an excellent mood. He laughed, cracked jokes and reminisced. In passing he said that "he thought we should have language put in the price control bill which would state we were to average parity in our price control operations." Two weeks later, before the House Banking and Currency Committee, the Secretary combined Roosevelt's words with the 110 percent provision to nail down an acceptable control of farm prices: So as not to prevent the season's average prices for any agricultural commodity from averaging 100 per centum of parity, no ceiling shall

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be established for any agricultural commodity below (1) the market price equivalent of 110 per centum of parity price or comparable price for each commodity. . . ,7 Two days later the House Agriculture Committee, perhaps jurisdictionally miffed that Steagall's Banking and Currency Committee was invading their domain, suddenly reported out a bill to raise basic commodity loan rates from 85 percent to 100 percent of parity. Wickard was astounded. I had nothing to do with it. I was fust as surprised as everybody else. The thing that's very indicative is that the feeling was of Congress was not good as far as the administration concerned, or so far as the administrations attitude toward agriculture was concerned. And I was caught in it all the time. I was caught right in it clear down to the finish. I never saw a time when I wasn't caught in it, whether it was a draft of farmers or increased production or machinery, or whatever between it was. Here I was in the middle. I was just aground the two.8 Having placed himself in enough jeopardy on 110 percent ceilings, Wickard whirled on Congress immediately. He intended to go along with the President's idea that 85 percent loans plus payments should equal parity. In a Farm and Home Hour broadcast on November 3 he took a position which endeared him to few farmers when he said, "The loan rate on those basic commodities is now 85 percent of parity, and I think that is high enough." Wickard knew the difference between fighting for a just farm price and agricultural jingoism. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee was a loquacious South Carolina lima bean grower named Hampton P. Fulmer, who tended to translate all farm programs in terms 7 Hearings before the House Committee on Banking and Currency, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., October 21, 1941, Secretary Wickard's statement, in Wickard Papers; Wickard, Diary, October 9, 1941; Interviews, pp. 2209-10; Wickard to Roosevelt, September 26, 1941, in Roosevelt Correspondence. " Wickard, Interviews, p. 2227.

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of lima beans, thus arriving at an astounding number of wrong answers. Backed down from 100 percent loans, Fulmer took his stand on automatic 90 percent loans in case Congress ever failed to appropriate money for parity or soil conservation payments. Wickard advised the President to make soothing assurances that parity payments should be continued. Congress adjourned soon afterward, and both the price control bill and Fulmer's 90 percent loans were temporarily set aside.9 In readjusting American farm production for the possibility of war, Claude Wickard had overlooked nothing. He had foreseen a critical shortage of fats and oils, which were not only high energy foods but were also used in the manufacture of explosives. In April he had asked Dr. Tolley to make recommendations to meet this eventuality. In June he requested a marked increase in oil-bearing crops. Late in July Wickard sought Tolley's recommendations about probable fertilizer needs. Five days later, at Tolley's suggestion, he advised Spike Evans to see that steps were taken to insure a plentiful future supply. Worries about sufficient farm machinery to accomplish the gigantic task ahead came early. In April Leon Henderson, at Wickard's request, asked equipment manufacturers not to increase their prices. In June Wickard heard grumbling from midwestem farmers that they were unable to get parts. By July Tolley had another Secretarial memo to survey the situation, but this one came too late. In October, Farmer Wickard was writing to his own foreman about repairing the old equipment: You see, we are not going to have enough steel to make all the farm machinery we are going to need in the United States next year. Therefore, we will have to repair all the old machinery and keep it working instead of buying new machinery as we have in the past. I wish that you would look over all ' "Our Food Production Program," November 3, 1941, in Wickard Papers; Wickard to Roosevelt, November 12, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.

Too Much or Too Little?

239

our machinery and see that it is all repaired and put in good shape this fall. Then, like any other shrewd farmer, he added:

It seems to me that if there are various places on the combine and other machinery which break rather often we should get two or three extra parts and have them ready. As early as May, 1941, Wickard was protesting to Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey about the heavy drafting of farm boys. By September, during his tour of the far west, the Secretary found that the labor shortage had become a constant complaint of the farmers. When he returned Wickard repeated his protest to the Cabinet. On October 18, with little realization of how acute the labor situation might become, Secretary's Memorandum No. 820 was issued. It termed the labor situation "local" in nature and suggested four bureaucratic steps to solve it through Defense Boards and local Triple-A committees. To an irate farmer Wickard could write no more than a string of government platitudes: "I do want to assure you, however, that I am acutely conscious of this problem and that I am doing everything possible to make the situation known to the proper people." Wickard was too busy achieving his "price control through abundant production" to consider the possibility of rationing. Needlessly he mentioned it in his April 19 speech at Charleston: "With our ability to produce, there isn't the slightest need for rationing and there isn't likely to be." Four months later nothing had occurred to change his mind. In a press conference he said he knew of no commodity so scarce as to require rationing, although, he confessed, some high protein foods might have to be substituted for others. What he meant was beans for beefsteak, but he did not elaborate. 10 10 Wickard to Tolley, April 30, 1941, July 28, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard to Evans, June 5, 1941, Wickard to Evans and Hutson, August 2, 1941, Wickard to Hershey, May 23, 1941, Wickard to Yeager, October 18, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, June 15, 1941; OPACS Press Release, April 22, 1941; Wickard to Hizer, October 18, 1941, and Wickard's Address of April 19, 1941, in Wickard Papers; New

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Production, fats and oils, fertilizer, machinery, labor, price control and price incentive, and rationing—Secretary VVickard had not missed a single element of the food picture. After a slow start, he had caught up with the necessity of mobolizing American resources and was pacing the President through the 1941 "valley of doubt." On Sunday, October 26, VVickard strolled down the hill from the Westchester Apartments into Rock Creek Park to reflect on the problems which beset his office. Genial, gentle, kindly old T. Roy Reid had lost none of the tact or loyalty for which Wickard had chosen him. He simply had proven unwilling to ulcerate himself over the operation of the Secretary's office. T h e younger men, Sam Bledsoe and Bob Shields, ran rings around him in vigor and knowledge of the government way of doing things. So dependent was each Cabinet officer on the advice of his assistants that all Secretary's offices ran at breakneck speed. Shields consented to stay with Wickard's staff only as long as he had to, but he had no great liking for it. Bledsoe, on the other hand, seemed to thrive under the lash of action and immediacy. T o the question "What makes Sam run?" one of his friends replied, " T o get there

first.''

Bledsoe could be depended on to scoop up a problem on the dead-run, juggle it lightly on the tips of his fingers, hurl it more or less in the proper direction, and disappear before T. Roy was aware of its existence. Wickard was impressed. He believed he needed a "more aggressive person" to handle his staff and advisory work, and he struck upon the handy solution of moving Roy Hendrickson from Personnel to take Milo Perkins's old job as head of Surplus Marketing, asking T. Roy Reid to assume the Personnel position, and making Sam Bledsoe his Executive Assistant—Wickard's "Paul Appleby." I know that Mr. Bledsoe has some faults, yet it seems to me York Times, August 14, 1941; Secretary's Memorandum No. 820, October 18, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.

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that he would take a lot of responsibility off of me if he were iti charge. I am indebted to him because he refused to stay with the Vice President and came with me. He is perhaps the person I rely upon most often as it is. Policy, too, came under Wickard's meditative scrutiny. Pausing beneath the autumn foliage of the park's maples and elms, away from the exciting tension of Food For Freedom, Wickard could feel his accomplishment. At the same time, he felt the nation had not moved perceptibly toward the solution of the problems which prompted the defense effort. Leningrad was nearly encircled, and the panzers were approaching Moscow. Hitler had proclaimed Russia a defeated nation. In Japan the warlike Hideki Tojo had been named Premier. Americans were reflecting on the torpedoing of a United States ship. The sinking of the Reuben James had a profound effect on me. I knew that such a thing was going to happen eventually, but the news today was somewhat of a shock. It is my opinion that the U.S. is now in a position where it can't afford to retract. It is also my opinion that the war is going to be a long and costly one, costly in lives and happiness as well as money. I have been thinking about the food situation. As I have so often said, it is better to have a little too much food rather than a little too little. Yet a little too much depresses farm prices and the farmers are apt to blame me if such things come to pass. The sensible thing seems to me to take off the surplus for feeding the needy.u Everywhere in government global problems were being met with back forty responses as the President led his country through one of the most uncertain periods of American history. Legislators, businessmen, and farmers were all faced with the same fear of "too much or too little." There were those who, with more enthusiasm than judgment, shouted for full-speed preparedness. There were others with less vision than caution 11

Wickard, Diary, October 28-November 2, 1941.

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who urged production on a basis of present realities instead of a threatening future. For ten months, Claude Wickard had threaded his way between the extremes, urging his farmers to produce against no more than the possibility of too little, protecting them as best he could against the known dangers of too much. In Cabinet meeting on No\'ember 7, the shrouded path ahead cleared briefly to reveal a peril which Wickard had largely discounted. Most of the time was devoted to answering the question asked by the President of all Cabinet members: "What will the reaction of the public be if we get into shooting with Japan if she attempts to go into Singapore and the Dutch East Indies?" My answer, that was similar to most of the others, [was] that the public needed a little more education and enlightenment on freedom of the seas, and second that a conflict with Japan would be more popular than the ones we were carrying on in the Atlantic at the present. It was made plain by the President that Churchill in their Atlantic meeting had urged FDR to go in with England and the Dutch East Indies in an attack on Japan. The President indicated that he had refused because he wanted to delay such action as long as possible. The President said that he had conversed with Churchill a day or so ago on the matter and that Churchill was convinced now that it was wise to delay three months ago but urged firmness now. Several times during the discussion the President indicated that he did not expect to declare war against Germany or Japan but intended to carry on undeclared war by shooting on the seas to protect American Commerce. It is evident to me that every day sees us becoming more involved in the conflict. I know that the people are not quite awake as to the technique of being in war without declaration. They perhaps would be more prepared to make the necessary sacrifices if they were. But we [are] going in under the expert Strategy of Our President}2 J

Ibid.,

November 8-9, 1941.

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During the following week newspapers were full of speculation about Secretary Hull's continued conferences with Nomura, the Japanese Ambassador. From England on November 9 came Churchill's bellicose statement that, should America become involved in war with Japan, Britain's declaration would follow within the hour. On the 10th Nomura conferred with Hull and Roosevelt at the White House. Cabinet meeting on the 14th, however, was devoted less to the F a r Eastern situation than to the President's internal war with John L. Lewis. The United Mine Workers had struck the captive coal mines. Stimson and Attorney General Biddle were urging the employment of troops to break the strike.

I asked Sec. Perkins how placing the army in charge would get the coal mined. She insisted that I ask the question of the President. I did it by saying that I thought the important thing was to keep the men working and that putting the army in charge would not in itself produce coal. The President said that if the men would not go back to work it would be necessary to use strike breakers. Wickard noted that Roosevelt looked gray and tired. The Japanese talks were discussed briefly.

The President indicated there could be no change in the embargo to ]apan unless Japan withdrew from China. Sec. Hull was pessimistic about peace negotiations. Sec. Knox said that the British had only one airplane carrier ship left in active duty because all except this were in American ports for repairs.13 Immediately after Cabinet meeting, Claude and Louise left Washington for two days on the farm, thence to Topeka, Kansas, to address the annual Farmers' Union Convention.

The Union is the only national organization which is militant in its efforts to aid the underprivileged farmers. In many respects I feel that I am more in sympathy with their programs than that of any other Farm Organization, and I suspect that "Ibid.,

November 16, 1941.

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they are really truer friends of mine. Yet M. W. Thatcher, who addressed the meeting just before I did, was very critical of the AAA and FCA. Wickard's address, entitled "The Farm Front," recited Farmers' Union contributions to the defense effort and the threat of a German-controlled world. "Isolation is dead," Wickard said. "The world is too small and we are too large. If we turn isolationist, we abandon the world to the dictatorships and eventually we must turn totalitarian too." Assumption of responsibility must fill the void of isolation; now is the time to begin thinking about the world of tomorrow: We must refuse to he bound by the petty tyranny of little words and little ideas. We must decide that there shall be world trade and world production on a new scale of abundance. The arrangements necessary may seem strange to those who think in terms of what has been in the past. But if it is necessary to make such arrangements, make them we will, now that we have made up our minds to take our rightful place in the world. This time our sacrifices must not be in vain. They must mean more security and a better life for the average man and average woman. That assumption is basic in all our planning for war and peace. With that, Wickard formulated a postwar farm program to build up and conserve American natural resources; to provide rural housing, medical care, rural electrification, education, libraries, and marketing facilities for farmers; and to gain a better understanding of the relationship between agriculture and industry.14 After another day on the farm for Thanksgiving dinner with his parents and children, Wickard returned to Washington. On November 27 he had a fifteen-minute appointment with the President. Roosevelt seemed much more rested since the settlement of the coal strike. He readily agreed with Wickard's " Ibid., November 18-19, 1941; "The Farm Front," October 18, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

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approach on the 85 percent loans and consented to assure Congress that he would approve payments which would bring farm prices up to parity. Wickard told the President of the probability of shortages in fats and oils. He suggested that loans and purchases be authorized for the stockpiling of these critical commodities. Roosevelt refused and advised Wickard to talk with Jesse Jones about it. Wickard could not dissuade the President from his suspicion that parity and farm relief were the same thing. Nor would Roosevelt concede that farming was a defense industry. There had always been plenty of food and there was nothing in Roosevelt's knowledge of agriculture to indicate a possibility of less than ample stocks in the future. Wickard's articulation was never all it might have been when he was dealing with the President. As a result, Roosevelt never understood the hazards of changing production patterns, nor all the specific uses of crops beyond the dinner table. 13 Cabinet meeting on Friday, December 5, was again devoted to the Japanese situation. The President was displeased with the reply he received to his inquiry as to why the Japanese were sending soldiers into Indo China. The Japs indicated they were staying within their agreement with the French and that they were merely seeking to have enough troops there to protect themselves from a threat from the Chinese. The President of course ridiculed the idea of the Japs being on the defensive. It seemed to be the consensus that the Japs were a little less warlike than a few days ago, but there was little to be optimistic about unless the Germans continued to meet with reverses.16 Sunday afternoon Wickard was writing a speech for a forthcoming Farm Bureau convention. Both he and Louise were so " Wickard to Roosevelt, November 27, 1941, in Wickard Wickard, Diary, November 2 8 - 2 9 , 1941. " W i c k a r d , Diary, December 6 - 7 , 1941.

Papers;

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or Too

Little?

busy that they had no time to listen to the radio. About 4 : 0 0 P.M. the telephone rang. It was one of the W h i t e

House

secretaries. A special Cabinet meeting had been called bv the President for 8 : 3 0 that evening.

The Cabinet members were ushered into the President's study at 8:40. Harry Hopkins was present. The President began by saying that this was the most important Cabinet meeting since 1861. He then told of the attack today in Hawaii. He said the attack was a serious one which he would describe later. He continued by saying that there was no question but that the Japanese had been told by the Germans a few weeks ago that they were winning the war and that they would soon dominate Africa as well as Europe. They were going to isolate England, and they were also going to completely dominate the situation in the Far East. The Japs had been told that if they wanted to be cut in on the spoib they would have to come in the war now. The President said that it would have been necessary to start making plans for today's attack at least three weeks ago. He then related how the Japanese envoys, even today, had asked for a conference with Secretary Hull at the hour when the attack was being made in Hawaii. He said thai the Japanese had started a war while carrying on peace negotiations. The President said that Guam and Wake Islands were also under attack. He said these islands were poorly fortified and that they would soon be in Japanese hands. He then read a message which he said he was going to read tomorrow at a joint session of Congress. He said that the message was subject to revision as later events might warrant. The message was short and merely stated how Japan had attacked while still carrying on peace negotiations. It ended by stating that he was asking Congress to declare that a state of war had existed since Japans attack. He indicated that he did not know whether Japan had declared war or not. He also said there was a chance that the Germans would also declare

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war. There was considerable discussion of the proposed message. Secretary Hull said that he thought that there should be a complete statement on the events leading up to the attack. The President disagreed, but Hull said he thought the most important war in 500 years deserved more than a short statement. Secretary Stimson said that Germany had inspired and planned the whole affair and that the President should so state in his message. The President disagreed with this suggestion. The President went into the confidential reports of the attack which he said must be kept in strict secrecy. He first indicated that aircraft had been destroyed in large numbers in the attack. He then revealed that six out of seven of the battleships in Pearl Harbor had been damaged—some very severely. I was shocked at this news; so were other members of the Cabinet. The Secretary of the Navy had lost his air of bravado. Secretary Stimson was very sober. The President said that the Japanese were hoping to bring about the transfer of American naval vessels from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He said he wanted to avoid this if at all possible. He said that he didn't want to tell the Congressional leaders (of both parties—including Senators Barkletj, Johnson, Austin, and Connolly, Speaker Rayburn, and Congressmen Jere Cooper, Martin, Bloom, and Doxey) who were waiting to come in to his study all the things he had told us. When they came in he said that it was very unpleasant to be a War President, and then he recounted the series of events leading up to the attacks of today. He said that he wanted to deliver a message to a joint session of Congress tomorrow. After a short discussion it was decided to have him address the session at 12:30. Some of the Congressmen wanted to know if he were going to ask for a declaration of war. The President said he didn't know yet what he was going to say because the events of the next fourteen hours would he numerous and all important. The President revealed that at least battleships were damaged. This caused considerable consternation among

248

Too Much or Too Little?

the Congressional leaders. Connolly asked what damage we had inflicted on the Japs. The President indicated he didn't know but went on to say we had no information to indicate that we had severely damaged the Japs. Connolly exploded by saying: "Where were our forces—asleep? How can we go to war without anything to fight with?" The President told how the Germans [sic] might have been five hundred miles away at dark last night since they had twelve hours of sailing in the long darkness. The President went on to say that the distance to Japan made it very diffictdt for us to attack Japan. He said that each thousand miles from base cut the efficiency of the Navy 5 percent. He pointed out that it would be necessary to strangle Japan rather than whip her and that it took longer. He once spoke about two or three years being required. The meeting broke up about 10:00 o'clock. Everyone was very sober. The President began to dictate a statement for the press. Some of us stayed around for nearly an hour. J talked to the Vice President, who said many times that it was all for the best. I reminded him that he had made a similar statement when we were at the Convention at Chicago last year when it seemed thai everything was crashing around us. Through it all the President was calm and deliberate. I could not help but admire his clear statements of the situation. He evidently realizes the seriousness of the situation and perhaps gets much comfort out of the fact that today's action will unite the American people. 1 don't know anybody in the United States who can come close to measuring up to his foresight and acumen in this critical hour. As I drove home I could not refrain from wondering at the fates that caused me to be present at one of the tnost important conferences in the history of this nation,17 " Wickard, "December 7th, 1941," in Wickard Papers, a three-page, single-spaced, separate diary account of the Pearl Harbor Cabinet meeting.

12: The Wickard Rebellion Twelve hours had elapsed since Wickard left the White House. The leaders of an outraged nation were gathered in the House of Representatives to hear Franklin Roosevelt's request for an open declaration of war. As the President faced the audience I saw tears well in his eyes. Without question he was not only struck by the ovation but impressed by the seriousness of the task before him. He read slowly and distinctly the same message, with only slight change, which he had read to us last evening. The only change that I noticed was the sentence suggested by the Vice President last night. . . . "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteousness will win through to absolute victory." I looked at the Vice President as the great cheer for the speech arose and saw tears in the eyes of the Vice President for the first time since I had known him.1 Disastrous as the Pearl Harbor attack had been, it was with intense relief that the Secretary of Agriculture emerged from the valley of doubt. At last Wickard knew he had not encouraged farmers to raise too much. But before him now lay the terrifying specter of too little. At 4:00 o'clock that afternoon Departmental bureau chiefs once again filed into the Secretary's office for what should have been a proclamation of Wickard's planning triumph as well as an exhibition of the same decisive leadership which the President had displayed the night before. But Wickard had missed the whole point of the Pearl Harbor Cabinet meeting—that the ability to 1 Wickard, "December 8th, 1941," in Wickard Papers, a separate diary account.

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portray leadership was just as necessary to the public man as the ability to lead. For an hour he stumbled pitiably through a morass of inconclusive phrases, his articulation blocked by the enormity of events around him and his own patent sense of inadequacy. "I am going to be quite frank to say," he told his dismayed administrators, that in time of crisis such as this, it is difficult to think clearly and to put the right kind of evaluation upon things that are happening so fast. I want to say at the outset that I don't have anything very definite to tell you. . . . The situation is far more grave than the public generally realizes. . . . It is going to require a lot of sacrifice. . . . I am utterly devoid of ideas. . . . I haven't come to anything very definite or concrete. . . . We ought to make plans for producing some of these other things. I don't know. . . . I just want to sat) I am at sea as far as any definite decisions are concerned. I am sort of provoked at myself at not having something in mind as to what to do.2 Wickard's verbal bumbling was, fortunately, only a surface obstacle to his action. He knew exactly what to do, and he set about immediately doing it. Production was the job. Control over price, labor, food imports, and allocation of materials must be grasped as quickly as possible. Administrative command of his shop was the first order of business. For the next week Sam Bledsoe and Bob Shields were seen scurrying in and out of the Secretary's office bearing large sheafs of paper and carefully rolled charts. On Saturday, December 13, announcement was made of the first wholesale reorganization of the Department since 1938. As portrayed in the USDA press release, the reorganization accomplished three results: it regrouped the many bureaus of the Department under eight major headings; it reduced the number of bureau chiefs reporting directly to the Secretary from nineteen to eight; and 8 Transcript of remarks by Secretary Wickard to bureau chiefs, December 8, 1941, in Wickard Papers.

The Wickard Rebellion

251

it created an eleven-man Agricultural War Board composed of the eight bureau chiefs plus three additional members. The eight men reporting directly to Wickard were Spike Evans, now head of a more or less combined AAA and Soil Conservation Service; Beanie Baldwin, Farm Security Administrator; Roy Hendrickson, chief of the newly created Agricultural Marketing Administration; Jack Hutson, raised to president of the Commodity Credit Corporation; Earl Clapp, acting chief of the Forest Service; Eugene Auchter, chief of all the research agencies; Al Black, Governor of the Farm Credit Administration; and Harry Slattery, Rural Electrification Administrator. The three additional men for the War Board were M. Clifford Townsend (who had been Lieutenant Governor of Indiana when Claude was a state Senator), Director of the Office of Agricultural War Relations; Howard Tolley, chief of the BAE; and Extension Director M. L. Wilson. These were the men, with but two exceptions, whom Wickard named as his general staff in the fight for food.3 One exception was Spike Evans. Wickard recognized that the AAA had been left in charge of the field forces, but that the Secretary had to supplant Evans's and the Farm Bureau's influence with his own command. In the reorganization, Evans was boosted to such an administrative height that the lines of authority, if necessary, could run directly from the Secretary's office to the War Board, thence to Wickard's hand-picked Triple-A Administrator, Fred Wallace (no relation to Henry), and straight out to the field forces. Evans would linger for another four months in his meaninglessly exalted position, then leave to become Governor on the Federal Reserve Board. The other exception was Howard Tolley. As chief of the BAE, Tolley had made a brilliant record, particularly on his 'Secretary's Memorandum No. 960, December 13, 1941, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, December 11, 1941; Interviews, pp. 228287; R. L. Webster, Diary, December 9-14, 1941 (Mr. Webster's diary, in manuscript, is in his possession in Washington, D.C.); Shields, Hamilton, and Bledsoe, Interviews.

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The Wickard Rebellion

production goals work. But his relationship to the Secretary had never outgrown the teacher-student status of earlier years. It was a constant reminder to Wickard that he ought not be telling men so much older and wiser than himself what to do —nor did Tolley make any great effort to let Claude forget that this was the situation. As a result, BAE economist Oris V. Wells became liaison between Tolley and the front office, while Tolley moved on loan for several months to Leon Henderson's OPA. In so far as he could safely do so, Wickard had now replaced all top-level Wallace appointees with men of his own choice. In Auchter, Hutson, Shields, and Wells he had found first-rank replacements. The seemingly unavoidable loss of Appleby, McCamy, Eisenhower, Perkins, Evans, and Tolley, however, had left the USDA with a serious lack of expert administrative talent. At Cabinet meeting on December 12, the President quipped about declaring war on Germany, Italy, and "all others who want to take us on." He canceled shipments of planes and food to other nations for a t'.vo-week period until American defenses could be shored up. The best he could say for the terrible defeat of MacArthur's forces in the Philippines was that they were giving a good account of themselves. When Cabinet met a week later, Roosevelt entered thoughtfully into a discussion of a "War Council" for the nations opposing the Axis powers. Secretary Hull read some proposals which he said were not only subject to policy questioning hut to constitutional questioning. The first proposal for the War Council was that the allied nations would work together to better use all their resources in a coordinative manner, and the second was that no nation would make separate peace. . . . The President indicated that there might be a declaration of policy which would

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not be binding but would be more a statement of objectives upon the part of the Administration. It was brought out that the Russians could not enter into any such agreement with us because of a previous treaty with Japan. After considerable discussion the President indicated that the matter should be given further thought and that negotiations were already under way for coordinated conduct of the war.4 The President's definition of a "War Council" was revealed to the Cabinet on January 2 when he announced the Declaration of the United Nations.

He said that he had debated a long time as to what term to use in referring to the nations opposed to the Axis powers and finally had decided upon the term "United." It was evident that the President was very jubilant about the Declaration. He told of the great number of difficulties encountered in getting signatures. Some of them, he said, were really amusing. The Russian Ambassador Litvinoff refused to sign because of the expression "Freedom of Religion," so the President called him back the next day and said that he would change the term to "Religious Freedom," and the Russian Ambassador accepted this term. He also told of the trouble of getting the consent of the British to have India sign, because they did not regard India as a sovereign power. . . . He regarded the Russian agreement to the pact as a real accomplishment, and pointed out how they could sign the Declaration without violating their neutrality agreement with the Japanese. . . . The President indicated that if we continued with our present plans for production of planes, tanks and guns, our combined airforces and other armament of the United Nations would be just a little ahead of the Axis powers a year from now. He said, "just a little ahead is not enough" and reiterated his determination to speed up production. He ' Wickard, Diary, December 14, 1941; "Account of Cabinet Meeting December 19, 1941," in Wickard Papers, a separate diary account.

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The Wickard

Rebellion

said that he had told Knudsen and others that they must get the job done, or someone else would be given the opportunity.5 Roosevelt's wartime organization of Democracy's arsenal had grown out of the remnants of the evanescent Advisory Commission in all fields but agriculture. The total resources of the nation were divided, according to best corporation practice, into managerial functions. The newspapers had dubbed these governmental "vice-presidents" as czars of this and that, although they rarely were the Cabinet members charged with advising the President in that particular area. Instead of appointing directors of metal, wood, leather, or cloth, Roosevelt had named Directors of Production, Transportation, Price, Preclusive Buying, and Financing. Thus each commodity had its service needs subordinated to war and scattered among the various czars. For most commodities it mattered little that their prices were set in one place, their labor supplied by another, that they had to apply for transportation to a third, while their foreign dealings were carried on by a fourth; because massive production of that commodity was the only necessity, and the armed forces were primary if not sole consumers. Wickard knew that food could not be dealt with in this manner. While 130 million Americans could have their consumption of rubber, metals, paper, leather, and clothing cut drastically or curtailed completely, every single one of them still had to eat. John Doe could patch up his tires, repair the old toaster, and make do with his 1939 overcoat, but his three meals a day had to continue. Food, therefore, was not only a first-line munition of war, it was the only absolutely necessary fuel which no part of the productive or military machinery could do without. Wickard recognized this fact, but his selfeffacement, his awe of the President, and his inability to wield the bludgeons of prestige and power prevented him from ' " C a b i n e t Meeting Notes, January 2, 1942," in Wickard Papers, a separate diary account.

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taking an aggressive stand on the separate Food Administration which Chester Davis had advocated many months before. And, with the outbreak of war in the Pacific, the Secretary was suddenly faced with the enigma of responsibility without authority. In his planning the Secretary had overlooked nothing. But in his doing he had been late to recognize that Japanese seizure of the Dutch East Indies would cause immediate critical shortages of fats and oils. How was he to replace huge American imports of South Pacific copra and vegetable oils? One method was to import all the fats and oils he could get from Latin America—but Milo Perkins and Henry Wallace handled foreign purchasing. Another supply could be obtained by cutting off domestic consumption—but this means fell within the authorities of the recently created War Production Board under Donald M. Nelson. All that Wickard had left was his "power" to request that farmers increase their production of oil-bearing crops such as soybeans and peanuts. But how was he to get farmers to shift from their traditional crops of corn, wheat, cotton, and tobacco? The only way Wickard knew was to give farmers a price incentive—and here he ran headlong into Leon Henderson, the farm bloc, and the President. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Leon Henderson warned the President that he could no longer leash the forces of inflation without legislative power and a unified price authority. Roosevelt then told Congress that they must not delay further the passage of the Emergency Price Control Bill, and hearings on the unpopular measure were resumed. In the meantime Henderson and Wickard had come to blows. Wickard believed he had an agreement with Henderson on two points: that Wickard was to handle agricultural prices, and that the Price Bill should contain a provision that no price ceiling was to be set on a farm commodity until that commodity reached 110 percent of parity. Within one week after Pearl Harbor, Henderson placed a ceiling on fats and oils without consulting the USDA, and

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he reneged on the 110 percent provision. Wickard was certain now that the Price Administrator simply could not be trusted. Irritated at Henderson's perfidy, the Secretary sat plotting in his office for the control of farm prices. Henderson, secure in his Presidential backing, ignored Wickard completely. On January 2 both Henderson and Wickard were called to testify before Congress on the Price Bill. As Wickard and Shields walked toward the Committee room on their way to the hearing, Henderson met them in the hall. He had heard that Wickard had been busy seeing Vice President Wallace and others, enlisting support for dual price control. Abusively threatening, Henderson warned Wickard not to double-cross him. Not in the least intimidated by Henderson's roaring, Wickard presented his views to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee:

It is a question in my mind whether the responsibility for production and the responsibility for price control of agricultural products should be separated. Price control can be used to expand production. Price control can also be used to restrict production. . . . Unwise price control, or other measures which restrict needed agricultural production, not only tend to defeat the war effort, but can induce inflation. The only really satisfactory remedy against high prices and inflation is adequate supplies. . . . We must have production and in certain instances, if there is a question of cost and a question of production balanced against each other, production must come first. . . . Of course farm prices will never average parity if they can't get above parity. That is why I favor the 110 percent of parity ceiling rather than 100 percent,6 Wickard and Shields offered Henderson a ride back to the OPA office after the hearing. By this time Henderson was * Statement of Claude R. Wickard before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee on H.R. 5S90, January 2, 1942, in Wickard Papeis.

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boiling mad. As he stepped from the car, he and Wickard exchanged a few more angry words. Suddenly Henderson doubled up his fist and drew back his arm. Shields grabbed him, thrust him out of range, closed the car door, and ordered the driver on. For the next five days Senate and House hearings continued. As a result of Farm Bureau pressure and the anti-labor sentiments of the farm bloc, the Bankhead Amendment was passed. It asserted that the Price Administrator could not set a ceiling price on any agricultural commodity without the prior approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. On January 7, Roosevelt sent an open letter to Senator Alben Barkley making it clear that the President opposed a split price authority. No sooner had word of the President's letter appeared on the government teletype than Wickard received a phone call from the President's secretary, Marvin Mclntyre, inquiring politely if the Secretary of Agriculture had discussed his position on split price control with the President. No, Wickard was forced to admit, he had not, but he would welcome an opportunity to do so. Wickard appeared oblivious of the fact that he was running directly counter to the President's plan for controlling inflation. Roosevelt still thought of the farm problem in terms of relief, and, not unreasonably, he considered the Congressional farm bloc, the farm organizations, and the Secretary of Agriculture as special interest pleaders who were out for everything they could get. He assumed farmers would stock the national larder in return for parity prices. But he was certain that the only way to stop inflation was to stabilize the cost-of-living index so that unions would have no reason to demand wage increases. The price veto implied in the Bankhead Amendment was silly, he told Ed O'Neal. "The proper relationship between the Price Control Administrator and the Secretary of Agriculture is consultation and not veto; . . . by being for the Bankhead amendment he merely puts every

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question up to me instead of having it worked out without bothering me." 7 Roosevelt's farmer squirmed, uncomfortable in his divided loyalty.

It is tough to oppose the President anytime, and impossible in wartime. In one way I feel more hurt than anything else that the President has the idea that I can't resist the Farm Bloc pressure when I think I have been successfully opposing them on many occasions.8 Wickard's preoccupation with inducing farmers to raise enough of the right kind of crops had led him to believe that he, and he alone, could inspire abundant production and keep farm prices under control by selling the Commodity Credit reserve stocks. Congress, reflecting Farm Bureau pressure for "parity in the marketplace," had assailed the Secretary for the past nine months on his practice of using the CCC stocks to keep feed prices near parity instead of allowing them to rise and push up livestock prices under the increased demand of an unfettered market. Here, Wickard felt, he had waged the President's war on the farm bloc and, filled with this word and mission he again went to the Hill on Friday, January 9, to testify before Clarence Cannon's House Appropriations Committee. Cannon went straight to the heart of the matter—the CCC stocks. If the Secretary stayed out of the commodity market, he asked, would farm prices rise? Wickard suspected they would. Did the Secretary know of anyone in the Departments of Labor or Commerce who was trying to hold down wages or industrial prices? No, he did not. Then, said Chairman Cannon, here is the situation: "The war could not be fought but for what the farmer produces . . . and he is the one producer who is not holding back; he is not striking. The fanner is the only man whose production is not being inter'F.D.R., His Personal Letters, ed. by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), Roosevelt to Watson for transmittal to O'Neal, January 20, 1942, p. 1274. •Wickard, Diary, January 9, 1942.

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fered with at all . . . and he has announced his willingness to accept and to enter into an agreement to limit his overhead, and accept a price of 110 percent of parity. Is there any other group, whether labor, railroads, transportation, finance, insurance or what not in America today that is not taking all the traffic will bear, with no kind of a limit?" 9 Having delivered himself of the farm bloc-Farm Bureau point of view for the record, Cannon then gave Congressman Malcolm Tarver the pleasure of asking the fatal question: "Do you feel that any price-fixing program can be fair to agriculture which does not vest some authority in the Secretary of Agriculture to protect agricultural interests and to assure fair treatment to farmers who have been offered incentives to engage in this new production program?" "Answering your question specifically," Wickard replied, "there ought to be sort of direct control between those who control prices and those who are responsible for production. I believe it is necessary to get the job done." 10 As Wickard was preparing to leave his office that evening, he learned that the Senate had passed the Bankhead Amendment. I was surprised and in addition a little frightened, because such a vote seemed to be a defeat for the President in which I was involved. . . . I am afraid many other members of Congress feel that, as Senator Duffy called me to say, "If 1 were the President I would, kick you out of the Cabinet." Above all I regret the reflection on the President in this most critical time. As I said today, I am filled with remorse.u The following afternoon, apparently at Bledsoe's instigation, Wickard called in two wire service newspapermen for what Bledsoe and the Secretary assumed was nothing more than a background briefing, not under any circumstances to be ' Statement of Claude R. Wickard before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations on H.R. 6709, January 9, 1942. 11 Wickard, Diary, January 10, 1942. "Ibid.

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printed. For thirty minutes Wickard unloaded his gripes about Leon Henderson. Production, he told them, was needed more than price curbs. On the basis of his experience, he added, he saw no way for OPA and USDA to work together satisfactorily on prices. Having thus divested himself of his irritations, Wickard felt better and thought no more about the interview. Late Monday afternoon the Secretary was called to the telephone. It was Ed O'Neal. "God Almighty, Claude," the Farm Bureau President exploded, "you're doing fine! Boy, you've got real he-man blood in your veins. We really admire your stand. More power to you!" Wickard had no idea what he was talking about. He soon learned. The Washington Star was carrying his off-the-record interview. Nothing I had experienced since I became a member of the President's Cabinet has shocked me so much. 1 realized that the President would be angry and that he was justified on the basis of the newspaper reports.12 Roosevelt's own press conference on Tuesday was flashed over the government ticker and carefully reported in the early editions. The President opposed the Bankhead Amendment because it would throw decisions back on himself. Would it give one of his subordinates a veto over him? a reporter asked. Chuckling, the President authorized a direct quotation: "No. I can fire either one." Another newsman reminded the President of Wickard's press interview. Roosevelt replied that the Secretary of Agriculture had sent him a letter saying that the press had misquoted him. "When was it dated?" they wanted to know. "Today," answered the President, joining in the burst of laughter.13 Wickard busied himself immediately writing other letters in an attempt to square himself with the President. "I think it is time that wc got together," he told Leon Henderson. "Perhaps Ibid., January 14, 1942. "Washington Star, January 13, 1912; Wickard to Roosevelt, January 13, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence. 15

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I should have gone direct to you in the first place. If I had foreseen developments, I would have done that. Newspaper reports to the contrary, I am not opposing the President and I have so informed him." To Senator Prentiss Brown (at the President's request) went an open letter from the Secretary repeating his complete willingness to abide by Roosevelt's decisions.14 Soon afterward Jim Patton and Bill Thatcher of the Farmers' Union reported to Wickard a conversation which they had with the President. Roosevelt had said he was pleased with Wickard's work, although the Secretary had messed things up a little on the Price Control Bill. The real messing up was my testimony before the committee, before I had actually gone to the President and said, Here, I would like to go up and testify to this effect. May I have your permission? I, myself, didn't intend to have any more publicity to the thing when I talked to these newspapermen, and that was an unfortunate misunderstanding between Bledsoe, the men, and me. I was not intentionally doing anything. . . . My anxiety about the food production was such, I suppose, that I let my anxiety influence my good judgment too much. . . . But it's pretty hard to excuse me for what I did, and I'd better not try Roosevelt started Cabinet meeting on the 16th with a solemn glance in Wickard's direction, saying that he wished he had an artist to paint war scenes—such as a field of wheat, or Claude and Leon fixing farm prices. "Or," Ickes added, "the Wickard rebellion." "Or," the President topped him, "a picture of Harold Ickes in his underwear which would be called 'They Stole Everything Else I Had!'" Wickard was vastly relieved to have the boss joke about his humiliation.16 " ard " "

Wickard to Henderson, January 13, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Wickto Brown, January 19, 1942, National Defense 5, Price Control, S.C. Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2441-42. Wickard, Diary, January 16-17, 1942.

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When the Emergency Price Control Bill was passed on January 30, the Bankhead Amendment was included as part of the law. Henderson could not set any agricultural prices without prior approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. Roosevelt had ironed this out to suit himself, however. In a memo

JANUARY

13, 1942,

WASHINGTON

Star

addressed to both Wickard and Henderson, he translated the Bankhead Amendment: In talking yesterday morning with the legislative leaders, I suggested an "out" which ought to satisfy all hands. A clause something like this—"The Price Control Administrator shall consult with the Secretary of Agriculture before fixing the price or prices of any agricultural commodity; and if there should be disagreement after consultation, decision shall rest with the President." F.D.R.17 17 Roosevelt to Wickard and Henderson, January 21, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence; Pub. L. No. 421, January 30, 1942, 77th Cong., 2nd Sess., Sec. 3 ( e ) .

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The war was going badly for the United Nations. Singapore, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies were in Japanese hands. Hitler's armies were not far from Moscow. Units of the German Navy had steamed up the English Channel while Churchill's air force had been unable to stop them. Wickard listened as the President rationalized these reverses in Cabinet on February 13. He first said that his so called appeasement of the Japs had proven advantageous because it gave us time to get ready for war. He defend[ed] his temporizing with the Vichy Government because he wanted to avoid an open break and [the] possible turning [of] the French Navy over to the Nazis. He said that the escape of the German battleships was not a military victory but one any ship could do four times out of five under the circumstances. He also lashed out at Wendell Willkie for suggesting that MacArthur be brought out of the Philippines to take command of the army. He said such a move would be an admission of cowardice and would mean Jap and Oriental lack of respect for white people. Stimson said that [there was] another reason for such action being disregardfed], which was we have a good man in command now. The President spoke about the British being "caught" using prccious shipping to maintain their commercial trade rather than the war effort. He indicated we ought to have someone studying the situation, apparently because we cant trust the British.1* If it was a period which strained the unity of the United Nations, it was also one marked by tension and conflict on the home front as the fiee forces of a democracy were wrenched suddenly into a high degree of centralization. The injection of new men and new agencies had upset established routines of old-line government procedure. Answering the call of patriotism (and the need of their board chairmen to have u

Wickard, Diary, February 15-16, 1942.

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"connections" in the capital) hordes of industrial vice-presidents descended on Washington. They were steeped in the time-worn prejudice that all federal departments were inefficient, that "new blood" could cut red tape and win the war in a swift, businesslike fashion. There was duplication, overlapping of function, tangled lines of authority, and lack of power where power was needed. These were the human and tactical realities with which every Cabinet officer had to deal. Claude Wickard was no exception. The Secretary had been shorn of all positive price control except for his ability to juggle market prices by buying and selling the food stocks which he held under Commodity Credit loans. On February 3, Wickard and Leon Henderson issued a joint press release to the effect that they were in "complete agreement" on objectives and would "pool resources" to prevent inflation. "Where prices get out of line," ran the release, "the OPA with the advice and assistance of the USDA will establish maximum prices." This was nonsense. For technical reasons, and in order to prevent Wickard from meddling in the price field, Henderson decided to set ceilings only on processed food, not on raw farm produce. For several days, as Wickard tried to explain that he needed some price ceilings inorder to increase production, Henderson pursued the frivolous fallacy that corn which hogs had eaten was an agricultural commodity, but the hogs themselves were not. Henderson was suspicious of Wickard's agrarianism which, in terms of price, seemed to mean "the higher the better." The President said, in no uncertain words, that OPA was to have complete control over prices, and Henderson meant to keep it that way. For Wickard the loss of means to smother the planting of unwanted cotton, wheat, and watermelons, and the loss of price power to encourage the production of soybeans, dairy products, and meat, was deadly serious. I didn't think I could carry on an agricultural program without price control over agricultural commodities, hut ap-

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parently I was supposed to do it. I don't like to get bitter about this, but I was supposed to carry on a production program, to get production, while somebody else told me how much steel I was going to get, how much labor I was going to get, and what price I was going to be able to pay for the products. And that's a heck of a situation for anyone to be in. And when something got scarce, then somebody said, "Well, where in the world's Wickard? What's he doing?" The only thing I had left in my hand was going out in this campaign from door to door asking the farmers, "Please!" That's all I had.19 But it was not the frustrations of price alone which caused Wickard to foam as he battled the obstinate Henderson. It was price plus agrarianism that raised the Secretary's hackles.

Now it may be that we would have gotten some kind of an increase just by appealing to farmers— "This is your patriotic duty." That wouldn't have lasted long however. They would say, "Well, why isn't it the wage earner's patriotic duty to work at lower wages, or the manufacturer's patriotic duty to give up all profits?" People ask, "Couldn't you have gotten production any other way?" They don't understand. Somehow 1 guess they thought farmers were just more patriotic, although they didn't say it that way. The farmers were just more apt to go along and do what the country asked. When it got down to a corporation, however, you had to put it on the line with profits plus.20 The pressure of inflation was steadily increasing. Agricultural price floors were pushing hard against farm price ceilings. Many crops had reached parity temporarily—all appeared to be headed for it permanently. Wickard went to Roosevelt on March 20, and again on March 23, with the admonition that he would be unable to prevent Congress from raising farm " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2 9 0 3 - 1 0 . p. 2723. Also, USDA Press Release, February 3, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Wickard to Henderson, February 27, 1942, National Defense 5, Price Control, S.C.

"Ihid.,

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price ceilings unless the President were willing to fix No. Roosevelt replied, labor deserved the 40-hour week. should be allowed to rise, but food prices must be kept The cost of living must b e stabilized before any wage could b e effective.

wages. Wages down. freeze

To me it is very evident that the President is not going to quarrel with labor more than absolutely necessary and he has many reasons for this attitude. Without question, labor has stood by him at election time as no other group has. He feels that labor has always been the underdog. He knows that labor could slow down the defense effort if they were to desert his leadership for John Lewis. He wants to revenge himself for the fight Lewis has made against him and his policies. If 1 were in his place I perhaps would not do differently.21 When Wickard was still Under Secretary, a British Purchasing Commission came to America to buy food and military armament. With the passage of the Lend-Lease Act and Britain's increasing need for U.S. farm produce, the agricultural part of the Purchasing Commission became the AngloAmerican Food Committee under the joint chairmanship of Secretary Wickard and an astute civil servant of the Crown, Robert H. Brand. Apart from the fact that Brand and Wickard immediately became fast friends, the Secretary was delighted with the international flavor of the committee meetings, and he attended with regularity. 22 Until the fall of 1941 the committee's work was carried on informally as Brand set forth England's food needs and Wickard filled his nation's market basket with all he could safely spare. But when the Russians became more or less part of the United Nations, the club-like atmosphere of the committee changed. Harry Hopkins and Premier Stalin had drawn up Wickard, Diary, March 26-27, 1942. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 469-70; Minutes of the British-American Food Committee and the Anglo-American Food Committee, April 2-14, 1942, in Wickard Papers. 21

a

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a Protocol which stated in much too definitive terms the amount of each war munition Russia was to receive via LendLease, and the comrades arrived in Washington not to discuss an equitable portioning of available supplies, but only to claim their share of the capitalist loot. Their argument had a certain validity: not only was the Ukraine now a wasteland of scorched earth, the U.S.S.R. was the only nation locked in ground combat with the enemy. It was not, however, so much a question of claim and counterclaim as it was a matter of politeness. Wickard rarely saw the same group of Soviet food commissioners twice. Then there was the irritating delay caused by the constant use of interpreters—even after the Russians revealed a perfect knowledge of the English language.

They simply walked in, all of them sober-faced, never cracked a smile, smart as they could be. They were pretty well informed fellows about our agricultural situation. They said, "Here is what we want." And they'd just sit there. There wasn't much negotiation to it. It was simply a demand. . . . Sometimes we got the idea that they were just darn, downright stubborn about asking for stuff, just because, well, somebody told them to get it, they went and got it.23 On March 26, Roosevelt had more to say about the Russians in Cabinet.

He started the meeting by saying that Russia was wanting England to give her assurance that she would be given two or three of the small Baltic states, and he indicated that he had told Churchill not to do so because it would only lead to demands for more land and perhaps to demand for [the] Russian half of Poland. . . . The President said that before the present Protocol expires July 1 for the sending of supplies to Russia he wanted the US to offer a new one with increases. He said that would be taken as evidence of good faith by the Russians. He also said that we were not shipping all the things agreed upon in the first Protocol and asked that the " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2 4 9 6 - 2 5 0 0 .

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shipments be expedited. I asked if it became a question of giving a certain foodstuff either to Britain or Russia which should be given preference, and he said "Russia."24 Late in May, 1942, Oliver Lyttleton, the British Minister of Production, and Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov came to Washington for talks with the President. When they departed they left behind them some good will, a new Russian Protocol, and the Combined Food Board. The latter was identical in every respect to the old Anglo-American Food Committee, but through the magic of Roosevelt's and Churchill's blessings it had achieved top-rank status among war agencies.2"' The establishment of the Foods Requirements Committee was quite a different matter. Wickard had written to Harry Hopkins in March, strongly urging that a unified food administration be created. He was joined by the food tradesmen and the members of the Combined Food Board a month later when he repeated his suggestion. The two agencies out of which would come most of the authorities which Wickard lacked were the OPA and the War Production Board. Don Nelson's War Production Board had almost as much to do with farm production as the Department of Agriculture. The great power wielded by WPB was that of priority and allocation of materials; wood for barns, steel for granaries and machinery, wire for fencing and electric lines. And Don Nelson, for administrative and bureaucratic reasons, had no more idea of giving these powers to Wickard than Leon Henderson had of releasing his price authority. Around the first part of May, Wickard began reading gossip notices in the newspapers to the effect that the Secretary of Agriculture would be named "coordinator" of the United Nations food effort. He knew these articles were not emanating from the White House or the USDA. Instead of finding out Wickard, Diary, March 2 8 - 2 9 . 1942. ® Brand to Wickard, May 30, 1942, Wickard to Roosevelt. June 2, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence; Roosevelt to Wickard, June 9, 1942, Food, S.C.; Leslie A. Wheeler, Interviews.

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where they had originated, however, he did nothing. On May 21 he was in New York to address a meeting of grocery manufacturers. Just before he started his talk, the chairman of the meeting handed him a telegram from Don Nelson announcing that Wickard would be named to head the Foods Requirements Committee. "Operating details," ran Nelson's wire, "will be handled by existing agencies so that it will not be necessary to set up an elaborate food administration." The Secretary was unable to conceal his astonishment, but he grinned manfully in awaiting press cameras and hurried back to Washington to call Nelson. "It wasn't a pleasant surprise," Wickard growled. "I thought you'd seen the telegram and knew all about it," said Nelson. The newspapers described the Secretary variously as food "head," "boss," and "czar." Nothing was further from the truth. Not even a member of the War Production Board itself, he was nothing but the chairman of a small WPB claimant committee which was staffed completely with men whose reputations or abilities were unknown either to Wickard or the general public. He was authorized to direct the production and distribution of food—subject to Nelson's supervision.

I didn't like it. But I wasn't in any position to get up and say, "I won't have anything to do with it." If I had, very probably they would say, "Well, we'll appoint a man who will have something to do with it " There he had me over a barrel. And the only thing I could do was just to take my paddling.26 Despite the issuance of the General Maximum Price Regulation which froze all except farm prices at March, 1942, levels, hourly wages and farm prices continued to spiral slowly upward. And the higher they rose, the blunter became Wickard's tools for getting the production increases necessary to * Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2600-2603; Diary, May 22-23, 1942; Associated Grocery Manufacturers of America Netvs Flashes, June 1, 1942; New York Times, May 24, 1942; Washington Star, June 5, 1942.

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feed the United Nations. The Secretary seemed to be fighting every major wartime agency in Washington. General Hershey's draft was wrecking the farm labor supply. Milo Perkins's B E W operations were interfering with USDA attempts to secure fats and oils. Donald Nelson's dollar-a-year men were allocating metal to the canners of dog food, but little for chicken brooders or combines. And the price tribunal was still in Henderson's office.

13: Public Law No. 674 The conservative power of the American Farm Bureau Federation was not to be underestimated. It rested partly on an intimate relationship between state farm bureaus and local offices of the Extension Service, and partly on political control of many rural Representatives and Senators—the Congressional farm bloc. Farm Bureau policy, as transmitted from rockribbed Illinois Republican Earl Smith to Alabama "bourbon Democrat" Ed O'Neal, was mistrustful of Roosevelt, bitterly antagonistic to organized labor, and rabid in opposition to all but the most innocuous of New Deal measures. When Claude Wickard was appointed to the Cabinet, Smith and O'Neal thought they had "one of their own" as Secretary of Agriculture. The past eighteen months had demonstrated their miscalculation. Wickard's allegiance was first to the American farmer and second to the President under whom he served. The Farm Bureau ranked a poor third. In February, 1942, with ill-concealed contempt for what they saw as Wickard's perfidious weakness, Smith and O'Neal decided to use the 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill as a means to strip the Secretary of his farm leadership, remove his authority over the CCC stocks, and dismantle the Farm Security Administration. It seems to me that the Farm Bureau and others are more anxious to gain some of their selfish objectives than to help the Department in its efforts to aid the farmers [to] make their contribution to the war effort. If Farm Bureau conservatives were determined to bend Wickard or break him, the liberals in the FSA wanted only to keep this Hoosier fanner at arm's length.

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I would say perhaps we knew in some respects less about what was going on in Farm Security than we did in some of the other bureaus. . . . As to why I didn't insist that they report to me so that I could know what was going on—I was pretty busy all this time. And if I'd insisted upon it, they'd have seized it as evidence of lack of a sympathetic attitude. They were that way. I would have become a "fascist" and that sort of thing. More important to Wickard than either right-wing or leftwing support was the farmer's welfare and Roosevelt's program:

I wanted the authority for Commodity Credit so that I could control com prices mainly, and wheat. We wanted to be able to sell feed grains so that farmers would find it profitable to increase production of hogs, milk, and poultry products; and also to do this without increasing the price to consumers, or you might say, breaking the ceilings which were being established by OPA. It was an anti-inflation measure on the one hand, and an increased production measure on the other.' The FSA was the aorta of the New Deal heart. When Roosevelt came to the White House, agriculture was plagued with two great disparities. The immediate and larger difference between agriculture's and industry's share of the national income had been remedied somewhat by the economics of an arms prosperity. The second disparity lay between the top and bottom rungs of the farm ladder, between farm owners and their tenants, laborers, and sharecroppers. Democratically designed to redress this inequality, the aim of Farm Security was similar in many ways to Wickard's vague concept of social parity: to raise the landless to ownership and first-class rural citizenship. Change and reeducation were unavoidable concomitants to the FSA program, and both roused the ire of the more prosperous Farm Bureau farmers, who liked things Wickard, Diary, February 10, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2618, 2 6 2 3 - 2 4 .

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the way they were. Ignorant, broken farmers provided plentiful cheap labor in the north and west. The sharecropper servitude of rural Negroes and poor whites had made cotton king of the south. FSA programs threatened both systems with 40-year loans at 3 percent interest, well-supervised rehabilitation loans to teach poor fanners to become good farmers, and many cooperative enterprises for the sharing of expensive machinery and purebred stock. Essentially an easy credit program, FSA looked after the interests of little farmers, while its counterpart, A1 Black's Farm Credit Administration, serviced loans to large operators with collateral and strong presumption of repayment. Nevertheless, Farm Security clients were alleged to have repaid nine tenths of the money loaned them. Those with passionate dedication to the service of the underprivileged had flocked to FSA banners, bringing with them true belief in a roseate future brotherhood of man. But when American attention shifted from a humane crusade of saving the less fortunate at home to the grim business of conflict abroad, industrial titans became national heroes and the liberals were thrust rudely aside. The cries of the unwashed were forgotten in the crushing logic of Harry Hopkins' dictum: "If it won't help win the war, to hell with it!" Gone was the magic of the militant stand and the exhilarating urgency of the cause as the former recipients of liberal good works began to build bombers and make a great deal of money. Into the gap left when the President became Commander-in-Chief flowed the conservatism of those who feared change. Devotion to the "movement" twisted into truculent defensiveness against the backwash of reaction. Taking refuge in such havens as Henry Wallace's Board of Economic Warfare, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Farm Security Administration, the liberals continued the fight in what could be only a rear guard action. A small coterie of them held minor positions in the Bureau of the Budget. Another group ran errands for the President as his "anonymous advisors." These men could

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not or would not believe that both the President and the Democratic Party were keenly responsive to public opinion, and that public opinion was more concerned with the war than with preserving New Deal social gains. Beanie Baldwin was one of them. Gardner (Pat) Jackson was another. Moonfaced Calvin Benham Baldwin had come up the hard way from the East Radford, Virginia, roundhouses of the Norfolk & Western to ownership of an electric sales and service company. Paul Appleby had called Baldwin early in the New Deal to help manage the Resettlement Administration, and from there he rose with distinction to become FSA administrator in 1940. Outwardly, Beanie Baldwin was affable, direct, and intelligent. Within him were the intransigent attitudes of a militant liberal—suspicion of wealth, rebellion against conformity, and refusal to compromise. Baldwin merged his own identification with that of the FSA and the program for which it stood. Shrewdly resourceful in using anyone who recited the patois of his truncated world, Baldwin was the implacable enemy of all who shirked their duty to the common man. His was the complete commitment to an absolute. "Pat Jackson was a wild hare, yoicksing a]l over the countryside," commented one of his friends. Wickard's view of him differed only slightly: He was out like a bird dog, searching the field. . . . The worst trouble with Pat was that he didn't obey commands like some bird dogs. He proceeded to flush his own game and take it up in his own manner, without any regard to what his superiors might say to him? Within Gardner Jackson, short, bushy-browed and squarejawed, was a wealth of compassionate benevolence. He was a bottomless well of warmth and affection; his motivation was saintlike in its purity from self-seeking. To this, by no means the standard equipment of the twentieth-century liberal, Pat had added a boundless portion of nineteenth-century humani'Wickard, Interviews, p. 2453.

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tarianism. But it would have been easier to snare a hummingbird in full flight than to grasp the intricacies of his volatile nature. Mercurial and capricious in detail, Pat's life was, nonetheless, consistent in direction. Pat's was an unending search for approval among the emotionally rebellious and the intellectually powerful. Unprotected by the hard-eyed cynicism of radicals with a "higher commitment," Jackson repeatedly suffered painful disillusion when those whom he admired fell from the grace of his expectations. Thus he was unable to understand that the gray realities of life existed somewhere between the blacks and whites of his conviction. As a newspaper reporter and small pressure group lobbyist he had fought the left-wing battles of his time—SaccoVanzetti, Bonus Marchers, sharecroppers, Spanish Civil War, and finally the C.I.O. When Lewis and Murray split over the 1940 election, Pat went with Murray, and soon thereafter Pat's friends were seeking a new job for him. Among his friends Jackson counted such people as Justice Felix Frankfurter, Milo Perkins, and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. One day in February, 1942, Wickard received a call on the White House phone. Did the Secretary have a place on his staff for Mr. Gardner Jackson? There was only one answer to any White House request and Pat Jackson was given a desk in Paul Appleby's office as his assistant. Sam Bledsoe, remembering that Wallace had once fired Jackson, assigned Pat the forlorn responsibility of attending to relations between agriculture and labor. As the weeks passed, Wickard's staff saw little of Jackson. His hours were irregular. He spent most of his time talking with various people around Washington. Bledsoe knew only that he was frequently seeing Jim Patton, president of the Farmers' Union, FSA Administrator Beanie Baldwin, and another newcomer to the Secretary's office, Herbert W. Parisius.3 • Bledsoe, Hamilton, Hudgens, Jackson, Parisius, Salisbury, and Shields, Interviews.

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Parisius, promptly nicknamed Tars," had worked in Wickard's office in 1940. After three months of the frantic grind, Pars found himself so over his head that he quit and returned to his Farm Security Administration field job in Wisconsin. Early in April, 1942, at the urging of Carl Hamilton, Wickard offered Pars another chance as a staff assistant to the Secretary, and he accepted it. Tall, slightly stooped and balding, Pars's outstanding physical characteristic was his high-domed, perfectly ovoid head—when he leaned forward he had scarcely any chin at all. Those who had known him before welcomed him back. Those who met him for the first time marked him as "a very nice guy." A former Lutheran backwoods pastor turned social worker, Pars's heart overflowed with the most decent of liberal and humanitarian impulses. Noncombative, kindly, and harrowingly honest, what he lacked in outstanding ability he made up in vigor and purposefulness to carry out the assignment for which he had been chosen.4 Wickard was doing his best to heed Bledsoe's warning that he must sooner or later make his choice between conservative and liberal support—between the Farm Bureau and the Farm Security Administration. He knew that the FSA regarded Bledsoe and Shields as enemies, and Hamilton as little more than weak representation for the Farmers' Union. The addition of Jackson and Parisius might serve to give Beanie Baldwin, Jim Patton, and the whole New Deal left wing a palpable sign that they had a sympathetic friend in Wickard. In so far as the two appointments were a gesture, they were neither wholly honest nor completely meaningless. Wickard looked with disgust on the rigid liberal dogma which was handed down from unknown priests. But the Farm Bureau's blind disregard of a million small, family-sized farms and O'Neal's greedy use of power made Wickard equally apprehensive. 4 Wickard to Parisius, April 10, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Hamilton to Parisius, April 16, 1942, Records &-5, S.C.; Bledsoe, Hamilton, and Parisius, Interviews.

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The Secretary's choice of supporters was necessarily limited to those who believed in Roosevelt's program of inflation control and ample production. In strictly farm terms, this meant primarily Triple-A. Wickard had placed the AAA in the key position to do the job, and he knew he could depend on the loyalty of its staff. If any other organization in or out of government would help him to feed the forces of freedom, he wanted their aid. However, if either liberals or conservatives as such stood in the way, he would fight them. And that was the basic issue in the spring of 1942 when the American Farm Bureau Federation, striking through its Congressional farm bloc at Roosevelt and the New Deal, sought to bar the passage of Public Law No. 674—the Department of Agriculture Appropriation Bill. Revising his 1941 production goals to ask for increases in nearly every crop but wheat, Secretary Wickard had called for the largest farm output in the history of the United States. His goals were set to achieve "full production" in so far as anyone in the USDA could define the term. Farmers must be lured from their habitual planting patterns to raise the specific crops which were needed for war. Although the Triple-A continued to think of exorcizing surpluses with crop curtailment and benefit payments, barring drought or flood the large massproduction farms had to be counted on for the bulk of United Nations feed and fiber. If Wickard concentrated his entire effort on the big farms, however, he knew he would be wasting both the land and labor locked in small family-sized holdings. But, to use the tiny farms in an effective way demanded a federal expenditure of funds to stock and equip them, as well as personnel to instruct the small farmer in the use of his new tools. "Full production," then, required that the Secretary have the price authority to make certain crops more attractive to raise than others, and that he have the money to invest in small farmers for truly "total" utilization of American agricultural resources. For the first he had to have control of the CCC

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stocks. For the second he needed additional FSA money. The Farm Bureau was determined that he should have neither. Smith and O'Neal, behaving like aggrieved citizens responsible for wringing what little efficiency or decency was possible from a venal bureaucracy, submitted a bill of complaints against the USDA to their cohort in the House, Clarence Cannon. The reorganization of the Department, they contended, had improved coordination of farm activities in Washington but not in the field. The Farm Security Administration was, in their view, engaging in indefensibly wasteful practices. To alleviate this unhappy state of affairs, the Farm Bureau advocated transference of some Triple-A, Soil Conservation Service, and FSA functions to the state Extension Services. On February 12, Secretary Wickard went to the Hill to refute these charges before the House Appropriations Committee. I think perhaps the Farm Security Administration has done more good and has brought about more improvements for the number of dollars expended or loaned than any other activity in the Department of Agriculture. . . . If you enable a man who cannot take care of himself to become self-supporting and enable him to take a proper place in the community, you have made an investment that will make a return not only to that individual but to our whole society. Later, after warning the Senate Appropriations Committee of forthcoming shortages in machinery and labor, Wickard struck a practical blow for the FSA. It seems to me this is not only a very poor time to decrease the activities of the Farm Security Administration, but it is a time when consideration ought to be given to extending and expanding [those] activities, not only from the family-sized farm of the small farmer but the migratory labor camp, so that we can more fully utilize the agricultural labor we have.6 ' Hearings before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, 77lh Cong., 2d Sess., February 12, 1942; Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., April 20, 1942.

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But the Farm Bureau's voice was louder than Wickard's, and the first round went to Smith and O'Neal. The House version of the Appropriation Bill passed, cutting the FSA appropriation in half and preventing any further sale of CCC stocks at less than full parity prices. Wickard surmised that the Farm Bureau had convinced enough Congressmen of Roosevelt's preoccupation with labor to make it clear that Congress would have to look out for the farmer. "I want parity in the marketplace!" Ed O'Neal rolled the grand phrase across Wickard's desk toward the Secretary. "The bill provides for a subsidy through parity payments," replied Wickard. "I'm against that," shouted the Farm Bureau leader. "I want parity in the marketplace. Labor doesn't get any subsidy from the government! Why does a farmer get subsidies from the government? Why do they have to go around every year with their hands out trying to get a fair price? I want them to get it just like everybody else gets theirs!" "Well, Ed, you've got to realize that what you're advocating puts us on the horns of a dilemma. Either we have to cut down production or we have to put prices through the ceiling. Which one do you advocate?" O'Neal paused for a moment, then he said it: "Go through the price ceilings!" "Will you so tell Congress?" "We are going to win, Claude," said O'Neal as he walked from the office.6 Far from certain that farmers generally disapproved of "parity in the marketplace," Wickard himself displayed a curious agrarian ambivalence on the subject of subsidies. For twelve years following the First World War American agriculture had attempted unsuccessfully to compete in the arena of supply and demand, all the while begging McNary-Haugen • Wickard, Diaiy, May 15-16, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2657-64.

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assistance from the government. During the ensuing nine years New Deal largesse had returned a measure of prosperity to the rural world. Tagged with such euphemisms as supports, benefit payments and ACP payments, the monies which farmers received from the Treasury were nonetheless subsidies— producer subsidies to prop their income up to that parity level which America assumed was the farmers' just economic due. With the sudden business upswing preceding the Second World War the mechanisms of supply and demand for farm products began once more to operate in rural favor. Prices rose toward parity of their own accord. By the summer of 1942 nearly everyone had enough money to pay a price for food which would guarantee open market parity. Wickard knew then that his inflation control through abundant production was wrong. He had to continue to try to control feed prices in relation to livestock prices in order to get production, but he could never hope for sufficient production to keep farm prices from going above parity. No conceivable amount of supply could meet the enormous unforeseen demands of swollen civilian purchasing power, the Russian population, and a United Nations war machine of unprecedented size. Inflation became a greater threat to the United States than Hitler's bombers. Decree and subsidy were the only weapons at hand. Within three hours after O'Neal left Wickard's office, a bill was presented to the Senate granting the Commodity Credit Corporation increased funds with which to absorb "trading losses." Here was the new kind of subsidy—a consumer subsidy to stop food prices from breaking through Henderson's ceilings. The CCC would buy potatoes, then turn around and sell them for distribution at less than cost. Thus a New Jersey shipyard welder would suffer no increased cost of living, his union would have one less reason to slow up production with a wage strike, and some of his inflationary excess purchasing power would be drained off in taxes to pav for the subsidy.

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Both Henderson and the President favored the subsidy mechanism. While Secretary Wickard abhorred Ed O'Neal's irresponsible demand for legislation which would risk runaway inflation and wartime production failure, Farmer Wickard still was capable of conjuring the golden dream of parity in the marketplace. He knew that equitable administration of any subsidy program was difficult; that money paid out in consumer subsidies frequently went into processor dividends, not producer overalls. Nevertheless, Claude Wickard donned the uniform of good-soldierism. Within an hour of his angry conference with O'Neal, the Secretary was before an NBC microphone defending his policy on the CCC stocks and, though avoiding the phrase itself, excoriating the proponents of marketplace parity.7 Wickard was worried. It was entirely possible that O'Neal could make good on his parting threat. Later that same afternoon in Cabinet meeting Wickard asked the President to call in Vice President Wallace and Senators Russell, Bankhead, and McNary. If the votes of Bankhead and McNary could be secured on the CCC stocks, Wickard thought his chance of defeating the Farm Bureau would be greatly increased. "All right," said the President, "bring them in." At 5:00 P.M. Wickard, Wallace, and the three Senators were seated around Roosevelt's desk in the executive wing of the White House. The President made a few pleasantries, then he complimented the Senators on their USDA Appropriation Bill work and said he hoped their report would be accepted. Bankhead and McNary appeared noncommittal. The President went on to say that he never made threats about vetoing bills, since it did not enhance his relationship with Congress. Implicit in what he said, however, was his serious consideration of vetoing the Appropriation Bill if it went through the Senate restricting 7 Wickard, Interviews, p. 2658; "Let the Ever-Normal Granary Help Win the War," radio address by Secretary Wickard, May 15, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

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sales of C C C stocks to 100 percent of parity. Nothing was said about the Farm Security Administration. Senator Russell glanced at McNary and turned to Roosevelt. "Well, now, Mr. President, I'd like to be able to say there is a certain level, 85 percent or so, below which you won't try to sell grain— wheat and corn." The President picked it up instantly. "Yes, that will be all right." McNary's eyes moved to meet the President's. "If that's the case," he said, "I think we can pass the bill." "Will it be all right to put in 85 percent?" Russell asked Wickard. Sure it was! I had no intention of selling below 85 percent of parity anyway. That was the first break. When they had that, both McNary and Russell seemed very pleased. We hadn't sensed what other people were saying in opposition to our stand on this bill. . . . It had never occurred to us before. . . . And so here somebody—we didn't know it—had very probably been saying up on the Hill, "Do you mean to tell me that the Secretary of Agriculture can sell these commodities at any prices he wants to and we have to make up the difference!"8 On May 20 the Senate Bill passed 55 to 25. As the bill moved into conference the Farm Security Appropriation, instead of being cut, was increased. Wickard's authority to sell CCC stocks at 85 percent of parity was intact. With Senate conferees set to support the administration and House Republican conferees taking a dogged stand behind the Farm Bureau, the USDA appropriation was headed for deadlock. Speaker Rayburn and Wickard talked it over and decided that two House Democrats, Clarence Cannon and Judge Malcolm Tarver, held the key to the impasse. "As Sam Rayburn put it," Wickard told the President, "if Tarver gets his hair set the "Wickard, Diary, May 17, 1942; Interviews, pp. 266.5-68; Wallace, Interviews.

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wrong way it is going to be too bad, and Sam and I both think that you are, perhaps, the only person who can make sure that this does not happen." The Secretary requested that Roosevelt invite Tarver to his office for a little chat.9 About midmorning on June 9, Wickard was summoned suddenly to the White House. Arriving at 10:15, he was ushered not into Roosevelt's office but into the President's bedroom, where he found Congressmen Cannon and Tarver dolefully eying the chief executive. The President was sitting up in bed. He wore light tan pajamas. I could not help note his thickset torso. . . . The President was in fine fettle and sharp witted. I wondered if the victory at Midway Island hadn't given him a little extra buoyancy. He spoke of his desire to see if a voluntary method of saving rubber in the areas of plentiful gasoline could not be worked out. He then made a complete analysis of his desire to keep down the cost of living and his battle with John Lewis and his fight to keep labor on his side. He said in effect "I am winning and now please don't upset my plans." 10 Well, the thought immediately occurred to me, "He's really putting on the act!" Maybe I shouldn't say that. But what would anyone have thought? Here was the President in bed! It wasn't that it was after ten; the President was known to read and do a lot of work in bed before he arose in the morning. He had breakfast in bed of course. But to call in somebody while you're still in bed, the President of the United States, is getting pretty doggoned intimate isn't it? Why sure! The President of the United States sends for two Congressmen to come to sec him while he's still in bed and undressed. That's being informal! That's really saying, "Boys, come hack to my bedroom now and let's sit down and talk this over." Of course I had never seen the President in bed myself. I took a look around the room, sort of awed by this whole business. I was ' Wickard to Roosevelt, June 3, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., S.C. 10 Wickard, Diary, June 11, 1942.

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hoping that that would have the same impression on the two Congressmen,u U n m o v e d by the cozy sociality of Presidential

chambers,

C a n n o n and Tarver returned to t h e Hill, unrepentant in their stand against the administration. T h e conference stalemate continued. T i m e was running out on t h e U S D A . E v e n though Congress would vote a continuing

JIN.Y

6, 1942,

WASHINGTON

Star

resolution which would allow the D e p a r t m e n t to function at the s a m e rate of expenditure until the n e w appropriation was approved,

increased

production

depended

upon

increased

funds. T i m e , too, was running out on S e c r e t a r y W i c k a r d . H e had an appointment to open t h e S e c o n d Inter-American C o n f e r e n c e on Agriculture in Mexico City on t h e 6th of July. On J u n e 15 W i c k a r d and Senator Russell held a short conf e r e n c e with Roosevelt. Russell said he was having a difficult time keeping S e n a t e conferees in line. T o protect his control u

Wickard, Interviews, p. 2689.

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of the CCC stocks, Wickard offered to compromise on a subsidy plan. He suggested buying farmers' feed at parity prices and selling it back to them at less than parity. In this way he would be paying the full parity price demanded by the farm bloc, and making sure that the subsidy money went to the producers instead of the middlemen. Roosevelt said it sounded like a subterfuge—and besides, the May 15 Senate bill permitting Commodity Credit "trading losses" had died in committee. Four days' reflection on the subsidy matter, however, apparently erased Roosevelt's distaste of the subterfuge. He wrote Wickard an executive authorization (pending Congressional appropriations to carry it out) to use CCC funds "for the purpose of making purchases for resale at a possible loss." Here was the President's intent that consumer subsidies should be part of farm policy, and that "parity in the marketplace" should not. 12 Reaching for some sort of Appropriation Bill settlement which might appease the Farm Bureau, Wickard hit on the notion of a 100 percent loan bill. Judge Tarver said that it was "communistic" and he would have no part of it. Within a few days Earl Smith called Wickard from Chicago to say that he too opposed 100 percent loans. Wickard asked him how he could demand marketplace parity on one hand, then turn around and fight a noninflationary measure which would guarantee full parity prices. Smith's evasive answer made it clear to the Secretary that the Farm Bureau was less concerned with prices than with politics and the hated FSA. It was Wickard's last attempt at compromise, and he departed for Mexico City. Paul Appleby, by virtue of his title as Under Secretary, became Acting Secretary of Agriculture. Two more weeks passed. No Appropriation Bill was forthcoming. Both administration and Farm Bureau forces held firm. The President was grimly determined to veto unless a u Roosevelt to Wickard, June 19, 1942, National Defense 5, Price Control, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, June 17-18, 1942; Interviews, p. 2720-21; Shields, Interview».

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sound solution to the question of CCC stocks was found. O'Neal had meant what he said about puncturing price ceilings. Paul Appleby summed up the matter in a letter to Roosevelt on July 14: The country does not yet understand the issue. The farmers are generally pretty happy and are not yet pushing the members of the House to act as they have acted. The fight is an organizational fight. If you should take the issue to the country, farm people will support you. During this period we cannot actually hope to stand on any ground giving less than parity, and can oppose successfully more than parity by accepting and standing for parity.13 Twenty-four hours later President Roosevelt traded the Farm Security Administration to the Farm Bureau in exchange for the power to control inflation. The USDA Appropriation Bill became Public Law No. 674. Wickard could continue to sell a somewhat limited amount of CCC grains for feed purposes at no less than 85 percent of parity. Roosevelt's formula of "market price plus payments equals parity" was reaffirmed. No USDA services would be shifted out to the field under the Farm Bureau's thumb. Parity, in or out of the marketplace, would play little part in the midterm elections. But the price tag was high. With $40 million cut from the FSA Migratory Labor Camp budget, and another $20 million from its Tenant Purchase program, Farm Security suffered nearly a 30 percent reduction in funds. The only government bureau directly concerned with the welfare of a million low-income farmers, and the only agency directly concerned with the rapidly worsening farm labor shortage, had been mauled. Counting heavily on that all-important vote from the White House, Secretary Wickard calculatedly had risked his Farm Bureau support—and lost. Apparently unaware that his limited backing of FSA had engendered not liberal love but radical contempt, Wickard shrugged off Public Law No. 674: " Appleby to Roosevelt, July 14, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., S.C.

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"So much for the appropriation bill. I won all I wanted on every front—or so it seemed." 14 Official Washington was surprised to read that Secretary Wickard had entrained for Mexico City, leaving his Department's Appropriation to the mercy of Congressional conferees. Ostensibly for the purpose of addressing an Inter-American Conference on Agriculture, his trip bore all the earmarks of an untimely Cabinet junket. Wickard's three-week absence from his desk, however, was necessitated by draft and war plant raids on a dwindling farm labor supply. In May, Roosevelt created the War Manpower Commission under the chairmanship of Paul V. McNutt. McNutt's capabilities were not exceptional and Wickard found War Manpower meetings dreary, discursive, and pointless. His repeated requests for easement of the farm labor situation went unheeded. As his mail thickened with angry rural complaint, Wickard decided to see what arrangement he could make with the Mexican government for the importation of peons to help harvest southwestern cotton and the California fruit crop. His mission was successful. A treaty was concluded on the basis that the United States would pay all transportation charges, guarantee a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour or its equivalent in piecework, and provide the same housing and sanitary conditions as were customary for American migrant workers. Drawing a half million dollars from the President's Emergency Fund to start the program, he turned its management over to Beanie " Wickard, Interviews, p. 2699; Hudgens, Interviews; Wickard, Diary, June 27-28, 1942; Pub. L. No. 674, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., July 22, 1942; Coy to Roosevelt, June 29, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence; Bledsoe to Wallace, July 11, 1942, Appropriations, S.C.; Bledsoe to Wickard, July 15, 1942, Secretary's Files, S.C.; Scott to Shields (memorandum of telephone call), June 27, 1942, in Robert H. Shields Papers. The originals of the Shields Papers are in Mr. Shields's possession in Washington, D.C. Copies of them are appended to his Oral History Project memoirs in the Special Collections Department of the Columbia University Libraries.

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Baldwin and the Farm Security Administration. When the Mexican agreement was announced, many farmers were grateful at the prospect of harvest help, while others speculated on the possibility of using the peons to flood their local labor markets and drive down farm wages. Wickard knew he was involved in a ticklish project—one slip in the plan and he would have an international incident on his hands. 15 Wickard had a three-day respite from work as he took the train north from Mexico to Indianapolis, thence to Fairacre Farms. What he found there augured ill for the Secretary of Agriculture and for the American fanner. Sections of fence had fallen. His machinery needed repairing. He had to have another harrow and a new manure spreader. But when he went to town he found that his implement dealer had nothing to sell. There were no hog rings, no fence wire, no welding rods or plowshare steel with which to make repairs, and, of course, no harrows or manure spreaders. All he could do was place his name on a long list with other farmers and wait his turn. Labor in Carroll County, as elsewhere, was difficult to find. Ann Wickard, completing her sophomore year at Purdue in home economics, was driving back to the farm every weekend to oversee its operation. They had two excellent hired men to do the heavy work, but the Wickards never knew when they might be drafted or leave for a high-paying job in some nearby war plant. Within his own family, too, Wickard could see the changes brought by time and war. Nora seemed not to be aging, although she was quite willing to let Louise do the cooking when she was at the farm. Jack's health was fast failing. He had recovered from a recent pneumonia attack, but he could not expect to see many more harvests. He said he had given some thought as to how he wanted "Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2648-53, 2777; Bledsoe to Shields (memorandum of telephone call), July 9, 1942, and Wickard to Shields (memorandum of telephone call), July 10, 1942, in Shields Papers; USDA Press Release, August 7, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

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to leave his property and asked me for suggestions. I told him that I had not given the matter much thought except that I felt that I should have the farm. For the first time he stated a strong preference for me to have the farm. I have often wondered why he has been so reticent in these matters and I am not sure I know now, but it is evident that he feels a little more kindly toward my receiving the farm than I realized.16 Louise and Betty were busy assembling a trousseau. The Wickards were pleased and delighted when Betty, after two years of working in an Indianapolis department store, had decided to wed. Her fiancé, lately commissioned Ensign Harry Robert Bryant, was scheduled for a Navy submarine chaser operation soon after their wedding in late August. Ann, too, was engaged. For a year and a half she had worn secretly on a chain around her neck the fraternity pin of Jean V. Pickart, whom she had met at Purdue. Her parents had welcomed Jean to family gatherings, but they were adamant that no wedding would be solemnized until Ann had finished college. Meanwhile, Jean received an ensign's commission and was ordered to a shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Claude wagged his head gloomily, as incapable as most parents of believing that his daughters were really grown and ready to make their own homes.17 "Wickard, Diaiy, July 22, 1942. " Ibid., May 13, 1942; Louise Wickard, Ann and Jean Pickart, Interviews.

14: "But Mr. President . . How I wish I could keep from getting so fatigued as I have in the past. Perhaps shorter hours and particularly less work at home at nights would help a lot. But already I find myself bringing home work because there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day at the office.1 Wickard had returned to Washington on July 21 to find his office in its habitual state of wild confusion. Bob Shields, his nose twitching in fastidious repugnance of the disorder, had withdrawn to the sanctuary of the Solicitor's office. Wickard had offered him the position when the previous Solicitor entered the armed services, and Shields accepted it gratefully. Although removed from the "glasshouse" itself, Shields continued to serve as one of Wickard's chief trouble-shooters and policy aides. Carl Hamilton and Catherine Loose still guarded the portals of the Secretary's inner office—Carl acting as Wickard's eyes and ears in the nonaction agencies. Pat Jackson slipped in and out of the office at odd hours—whence or whither bound, no one knew. Sam Bledsoe had placed Pars in nominal charge of the Office of Agricultural War Relations, and the ex-pastor appeared to be discharging his duties in workmanlike fashion. Lyle Webster had joined the staff several months earlier. A former newsman and fringe adherent of Wayne Darrow's clique, Webster was a high-voiced, heavy-set, genial person who evinced no outstanding talents or opinions in any direction. Originally assigned to budget matters, he suddenly found himself Wickard's chief adviser on labor. "When I started, I didn't know anything about labor," Webster admitted, '"but I 1

Wickard, Diary, July 2A-24, 1942.

"But Mr. President . . ."

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sure as hell learned. This was another one of Claude Wickard's difficulties, or perhaps it was Sam Bledsoe's—we kind of drifted into things down there. If you had your hand on a couple of letters, or had something to do with someone seeing the Secretary, the first thing you knew you were in charge. That happened all the time." 2 Paul Appleby looked out sadly from the Under Secretary's office where he spent his time writing a book on public administration. The bureaus of the Department were operating more smoothly than the Secretary's office. Roy Hendrickson was busily building his empire within the marketing service. Jack Hutson's Commodity Credit Corporation functioned quietly, if somewhat untidily, in conformity with Wickard's program. Eugene Auchter and Al Black carried out their research and credit activities with able loyalty. Howard Tolley had returned to the BAE, but he was seen in the front office scarcely more than once a month. His place had been taken by two cautious economic practitioners, Oris V. Wells and Dennis A. Fitzgerald. The one sore spot in the USDA was a large one— the Triple-A. Wickard's friend, Fred Wallace, quickly proved incapable of riding herd on the sprawling, clannish organization and was supplanted by Indiana's ex-Governor M. Clifford Townsend. Little change in the quality of Triple-A management was noted. In many parts of the USDA hummed a subtle undertone of dissatisfaction. No one could say exactly where tilings were going wrong, but few were willing to proclaim that all was well. Perhaps it was only the residue of a "Wallace wouldn't have done it this way" sentiment. Henry Wallace had been Secretary during an era of unprecedented national cooperation. The savage impartiality of the Great Depression overrode self-interest, banding the resources of a nation against a common enemy. War, during Wickard's Secretaryship, could bring no such concord of purpose. Prosperity bred competition. Unlike the universal * Robert Lyle Webster, Interviews.

292

"But

Mr. President

. . ."

misfortune of a factory shutdown or 19-cent com, quiet telegrams from the War Department brought a personal grief which could not be shared. Too, the Vice President was a unique individual. His penetrating intellect, his absolute mastery of every aspect of agriculture, and his lonely, inarticulate personality were qualities of leadership which inspired lesser men to follow. Claude Wickard was "one of us." So ill-concealed were his vanities, prejudices, and fears that "strong" men mistook his honesty for weakness and winced before a reflection of their own insecurity. Wickard possessed the integrity and judgment of leadership, but lacked conventional trappings of personal prestige and decisiveness to differentiate him from those who could bow only before the incomprehensible. In addition to Wallace's personal attributes, he had a Paul Appleby who was able to rule the day-to-day movements of the organization. If Appleby was wholly ignorant of human sensibilities, he thoroughly comprehended the formulation, execution, and implications of agricultural policy. Wickard had no Appleby. Sam Bledsoe was a shrewd tactician whose driving energy and swift adjudication of complex policy questions gave him an appearance of sure-footed ability. But Sam, as one of his colleagues said, had been a newspaper reporter, not an editorial writer. Despite Bledsoe's limitless belief in himself, he had neither the economic knowledge nor the administrative experience to deal with the intricacies of government farm policy. He thought in terms of front-page headlines— WICKARD SAYS or WICKARD NAMED rather than PRESIDENT'S PROCRAM FURTHERED. It could not be said that Sam had made mistakes, only that the Secretary had great need of an overseer who could do more. If Wickard had the slightest reservation about Bledsoe's work, however, he gave no outward indication of it. J list before Cabinet meeting opened on Friday [July 24] the Vice President came to me to say that 1 had done a good

"But Mr. President . . ."

293

job in Mexico City. As the President came in he looked at me and said something in Spanish which I did not understand. He asked the VP if he were not teaching me Spanish. The VP responded by saying that I had done a good job at the Conference in Mexico.3 While Henry Wallace enjoyed the faint thread of sadism which spiced the President's humor, these seemingly innocent exchanges stung Claude Wickard's uncertainty, serving always to remind the Secretary of his cloudy title to Roosevelt's farms. It was a situation unalterable by any of the three men involved. Wickard's want of confidence was a thinly healed scar over his back forty patrimony. Wallace, however much he attempted to divest himself of the USDA, remained Roosevelt's highest authority on agriculture. "I know New York and I know New England. I know the cotton south," the President repeatedly told both Wallace and Wickard. "But this thing you're trying to tell me about the corn belt I just don't comprehend. You talk about your cornhog ratio. It doesn't mean a thing to me." Roosevelt continued to think of agriculture as he had seen it near Hyde Park and Warm Springs—apple trees, woodlots, a few acres of truck grown by an independently proud Yankee family—or bursting bolls of August cotton nodding green and white over the red clay fields of Georgia. To Wickard's explanation of production planning and feed ratios, the President would reply, "That's something for you and Henry Wallace. If you agree on it, why I guess IH have to accept it." 4 I did not clear all my programs with Wallace. I did clear quite a few of the major ones with him. I felt that the President would want to check with Wallace. . . . That might be reassuring to the President, and I'm sure it was. Checking with Wallace didn't bother me a bit. I didn't feel beholden to him, or feel that I was any less the Secretary,5 ' Wickard, Diaiy, July 26, 1942.

' Ibid., p. 2748.

' Wickard, Interviews, p. 2747.

294

"But Mr. President . . ."

Wallace had bent over backward to avoid infringing on his successor's prerogatives. Wickard often called on the Vice President in Cabinet meetings for agricultural opinions, to which Wallace replied graciously and briefly, never succumbing to the temptation to go beyond the Secretary's point. Both men were beset by partisans who would tell Wallace how Wickard was wrecking the Department, or who would goad Wickard with flattering comparisons at Wallace's expense. Although Wallace was mildly disdainful of Wickard's lack of economic breadth, and Wickard was somewhat appalled by a premature liberal "Wallace for President" movement, they maintained a cordial working relationship. Wickard's pride did not prevent him from conferring with Wallace on farm policy. He only regretted that he had been unable to attain the same kind of personal rapport with Roosevelt enjoyed by Wallace and nearly every other Cabinet member. In two years of weekly association with the President, Wickard had never recovered from his original anxiety in the presence of "the Great Man." Awe and uneasiness always blanketed the Secretary's halting speech before a man who could project his genuine warmth of personality and cheering optimism to millions of Americans across three thousand miles of distorting radio circuits. Wickard knew the blame was his own, but he was powerless to compensate for it. Time after time, when his assistants thought a White House appointment would be helpful on policy decisions, he procrastinated. He said Roosevelt had enough to do without worrying about agriculture. Bledsoe pointed out frequently that Leon Henderson and Don Nelson, who were not even Cabinet members, had little hesitancy about taking up the President's time. Wickard would grumble something about not having specific recommendations to make and the subject would be dropped. T h e days of specific recommendations, however, were fast approaching. The President

spent quite a little time discussing

inflation

"But Mr. President

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control. He said that the congressional leaders had refused to undertake to get legislation for more effective control and that they had indicated that [they] wished he could find some power to do it under his existing powers. The President indicated he was going to do so if such powers were existent, as he thought they were. . . . There apparently have been some extremely heavy losses in the shipping to Archangel because of airplane attacks. Without question, things are not going well in Russia. It was little wonder that I thought that I detected a heaviness of spirit on the part of the President. He looked a little tired and gray. I guess none of us were exactly gay-6 Press headlines and war maps during the late summer of 1942, no matter how skillfully drawn or enthusiastically written, foretold an interminable future of conflict. Massive air raids over Cologne, smashing naval victories at Coral Sea and Midway, and the landings on Guadalcanal still left MacArthur more than 2,500 miles from Tokyo and Hitler's fortress Europe unharmed. Montgomery and Rommel continued their inconclusive see-sawing across the North African desert while the Russians dug in to defend Leningrad and Stalingrad. Lidice, Attu, Lae, the slot, the Hornet and Tulagi, B-17, Wildcat, KRation, guayule, and Mrs. Miniver were names in the public mind, bespeaking defeat, horror, hope, and the stiff upper lip. Impatient to taste their inevitable victory, Americans found instead that Washington was more concerned with the dull subject of inflation. Plagued by the anguished cries of a million housewives, Secretary Wickard viewed inflation as anything but dull. A hog panic had struck the northeastern seaboard. Pork suddenly disappeared from butchers' showcases. With fat warplant paychecks in their purses, women who had for years breakfasted their husbands on cereal and toast now wanted bacon and plenty of it. That was part of the trouble. The ' Wickard, Diary, July 26-28, 1942.

296

"But Mr. President

. . ."

Army, Navy, British, and Russians also wanted pork; heavy Lend-Lease purchasing accounted for more of the scarcity. However, the fact of the matter was that no real shortage existed. July and August were traditionally months of low hog marketings; piglets farrowed in the spring would not reach maturity until early winter. Abundant stocks of spareribs and loin roasts were on hand, but they were still rooting contentedly on midwestem farms. Searching diligently for other causes of the hog panic, the Secretary's thoughts gravitated easily toward his old antagonist, Leon Henderson. OPA retail ceilings had upset the distribution pattern, said Wickard, and pork was moving into areas where it brought greatest profit. Leon Henderson's swashbuckling bravado had worn thin over the grueling summer months. Less frequently was he seen in flamboyant sombrero, swinging his massive bulk to a rhumba. Wickard recognized the impossibility of Henderson's task as price czar, and he admired the distinction of OPA's accomplishment. However, he was equally aware of Henderson's mounting loss of popularity on the Hill. The January Price Control Bill contained two farm bloc stipulations: farm prices were not to be capped before reaching 110 percent of parity, and the Secretary of Agriculture was to approve ceilings before they were imposed. Wickard made no effort to contradict Senate suspicions that Henderson had failed to comply with either one. The OPA had by-passed Wickard's approval powers most satisfactorily by placing ceilings on processed food rather than raw farm produce. As a result, a few crop prices were being held below 110 percent of parity while most of them soared unhindered to dangerously inflationary heights. In the case of OPA wholesale and retail meat ceilings—and the lack of USDA livestock ceilings—packers had their profit margins ground to nothing between skyrocketing farm prices and Henderson's lid on the finished product. Wickard charged the larger processors with bidding livestock

"But Mr. President . . ."

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prices up beyond what they could get for the dressed meat under OPA ceilings in order to keep their trade channels open. This practice, the Secretary claimed, caused an uneven distribution of available meat and forced smaller packers to close their doors. A remedy to the pork panic was embodied theoretically in Secretary Wickard's powers as Chairman of the Foods Requirements Committee in the War Production Board to regulate priorities and allocations. A priority was a "hunting license," a buy-it-if-you-can-find-it permission given, for instance, to a meat distributor after he proved his prospective sales had something to do with the war effort. An allocation was a government decree ordering a meat packer, for example, to sell so much of his products to the Army, so much to LendLease, and the remainder to the city meat markets. It was assumed that priority and allocation of food, fertilizer, and machinery had been delegated by Don Nelson to Wickard when the Foods Requirements Committee was first formed. After the initial meetings Wickard discovered that Nelson had given him nothing. The Secretary, after listening to the various points of view represented in his committee, made all FRC decisions. Unfortunately, his decisions were reviewed and often reversed by WPB dollar-a-year men recruited from food processing and distribution industries. Agricultural allocation was Nelson's domain and he had no intention of sharing it. Meanwhile, pork piled up in Kansas City while the good ladies of Boston ate kidney stew. The Secretary was again left holding the ineffective half of a split authority. Exacerbated by Nelson's inaction and Henderson's indifference, Wickard inveighed privately against the businessmen who infested the government. It seemed to him they were interested only in maintaining their preferential trade outlets and "keeping that bright red label on a tin can so that the housewife will see it every time she goes to a grocery store." In less passioned moments of introspection, Wickard admitted

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."

the possibility that his pro-farmer bias might be as profound as their fealty toward big business, although he entertained no doubt of the qualitative difference. The Secretary's position was as ambiguous as ever. He was delighted to see farm prices as high as possible, yet he knew unbridled inflation would ruin agriculture. Subsidies, while unpalatable substitutes for that tantalizing vision of marketplace parity, were acceptable as the lesser evil and welcomed as price incentives for needed production. He held no brief for processors' profit margins, but civilians were howling for meat, packers could not get hogs, Lend-Lease was afraid to buy because the cost might rise further, and people everywhere were damning the farmer on the supposition that he was withholding his livestock for higher prices. There was nothing to do but use what power he had to start pork moving into neighborhood meatmarkets. Lend-Lease prices were again lowered and purchases temporarily reduced. Without compromising OPA ceilings, geographical price differentials were adjusted to draw meat from areas of glut to those of shortage. Meat packers who were in danger of having to shut down were given government contracts until the fall hog crop should come to market 7 As he served these palliatives to the press, the Secretary felt the frown of public disapproval. When things went wrong in the food department, the American people did not look to the patriarchs of price control and war production, whose esoteric doings were, for the most part, incomprehensible anyway. They glared at the man who (animistically) grew the crops, who hinted at scarcity and rationing, and who was providing them with less food than they desired at prices 7 Wickard, Diary, June 29-30, July 24-25, July 31, August 5-14, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2720-30, 2738-40, 2753-66, 2780-82, 2801-4; Bledsoe, Hamilton, Shields, Tolley, Interviews; USDA News Release, July 23, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Wickard Addresses: "Meats, Record Production, Record Demands," July 31, 1942, and "We Must Unite for Victory," August 19, 1942, ibid.; Wickard to Henderson, July 29, 1942, and August 13, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres. Price Administration," S.C.

"But Mr. Tresident . .

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greater than they wanted to pay. And that man, Claude Wickard, began to prepare his offensive strategy in the coming struggle for a centralized food authority. Franklin Roosevelt knew as well as anyone else that inflation could not be slowed until wages were frozen and food costs stabilized. Keenly conscious of the peril of marching too far ahead of his army, he waited for the pragmatic pinch of prices to muster angry support before he stormed the sacred walls of labor and agriculture. Wickard was in Mexico when the President asked Wallace, Henderson, Nelson, Frances Perkins, and Justice James F. Byrnes to outline a new price control bill. A courageous move to make just before a critical midterm election, few thought that Congress would act on it until after the votes were counted. In case he should meet resistance from the Hill, the President also called in his Jack-ofall-trades, Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, to prepare an executive order based on the premise that his war powers as Commander-in-Chief gave him sufficient authority to freeze wages and farm prices without further legislation. Rosenman met briefly with Wickard on July 30 to learn his views on effective inflation control. The Secretary pondered a moment, then he said, "The farm ceiling should be present prices or parity, whichever is higher." 8 The more he thought about it, the better Wickard liked the idea of reversing his stand on 110 percent ceilings. Farm prices ranged around 93 percent of parity in December, 1941, when Roosevelt, Henderson, and Wickard agreed that they should be allowed to fluctuate up to 110 percent if farmers were to gain parity income. The situation had changed drastically during the intervening nine months. Feed grains and cotton were, of course, below parity; they were kept there by • Wickard, Diary, August 1-2, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2741^14; Wallace, Interveiws; S. I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt (New York: Harper, 1952), pp. 356-57; Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper, 1948), p. 631.

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"But Mr. President . . ."

the Commodity Credit Corporation. By mid-August, 1942, while all farm prices averaged 107 percent of parity, the significant crops were headed for 112 percent. Hogs were selling for $14.00 a hundredweight, or about 120 percent of parity; the price of veal calves reached 123 percent of parity, lambs 130 percent, and beef cattle 132 percent. Rice and tobacco prices had broken 130 percent of parity. It was unlikely that farmers would fall short of parity income, but there was considerable danger that public resentment would force the President or Congress to trim those fat prices down. Labor was following the line that the minimum wage should be maintained and present high wages frozen where they were. Wickard thought the same formula should apply to agriculture. Reversing himself on 110 percent ceilings and calling for "present prices or parity, whichever is higher," involved no loss to farmers. Indeed, a very good thing might be made of it. The Secretary approached this happy chore with glowing altruism. The time had come, he said, to stop chaotic inflation. Perhaps no one in the Cabinet has made more public statements than I in support cf price controls. . . . Yet the impression has become prevalent that I am not helping to control inflation but may [be] doing things which make it difficult to stop inflation. . . . I have the conviction that the public wants something done but does not have the means of making the decision as to which group should take the lead in bringing about more effective control. I believe the farmers not only have as much at stake as any group, they also would be willing to take the first step. . . . I have become convinced that putting a ceiling on livestock prices and repeal of the 110 percent provisions of the price control act would be taken as a move upon the part of Agriculture to do the leading,9 With that, he called together his speech writers, acquired • Wickard, Diary, August 1 7 - 1 8 , 1942; Interviews, pp. 2 7 0 2 - 4 , 2 7 6 6 7 0 ; Wickard to Rosenman, July 31, 1942, National Defense 5, Price Control, S.C.

"But Mr. President . .

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radio time, and on Wednesday night, August 19, at 10:30 P.M., delivered his pronunciamento over the NBC Blue Network. "Day by day the hard facts of war are coming home to America," he began. "We can't fight this war with one eye on the flag and the other on our pocket books." "We must not allow . . . [our soldiers] to be mustered out of a war into an economic mess of our own making." The farmers, he said, were ready to do their part. The Secretary was ready to do his. He was prepared to approve livestock ceilings if a plan could be worked out whereby profiteering was prohibited, packers were protected from high prices, and farmers were protected from low prices. "With the necessary measures, such as allocation of supplies, the plan must facilitate a more equitable distribution of meats." Then came his grand concession. His thinking, he said, had changed about 110 percent ceilings: "Under present circumstances I believe it would be wise to repeal this provision." 10 This last ringing statement Wickard hoped would be the clarion call of statesmanship. Unfortunately, as he stood before NBC microphones, U.S. Rangers and British Commandos were staging a daring cross-channel raid on the French village of Dieppe, the first major Allied return to the continent since the Dunkirk humiliation. The Secretary's speech made Thursday morning's front pages, but it was pallid stuff beneath the heavy black bannerlines of the Dieppe sortie. In farm and government circles, however, Wickard's address was big news. His 110 percent reversal caught the farm bloc off balance. Ed O'Neal was probably blaspheming softly over his breakfast coffee. The President twice complimented Wickard on his address. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau wrote, "You certainly have 'guts' and that's what it takes right now." 11 10 "We Must Unite for Victory," Wickard address, August 19, 1942, in Wickard Papers. 11 Baltimore Sun and Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 1942; Wickard Diary, August 21, 1942. Morgenthau to Wickard, August 27, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

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"But Mr. President . .

Washington, Aug. 22.—Miss Elizabeth Jane Wickard, daughter of the Secretary of Agriculture, was married here this afternoon to Ensign Harry Robert Bryant USNR. The ceremony was performed in the apartment of the bride's parents at the Westchester. Because of the war, only the two families attended the wedding. The bride, given in marriage by her father, wore a period gown of ivory taffeta and an ivory veil of tulle. She carried a bouquet of lilies. Miss Ann Wickard, her sister's only attendant, was attired in green taffeta and carried a sheaf of white gladioli. Jean Pickart of Chicago served as best man. Ensign and Mrs. Bryant will make their home in Boston.

After they all left, I went out for a long walk. I just walked around the neighborhood. I hated to see Betty just leave. It was complicated, of course, by the war conditions. Bob was on his submarine chaser, and life was uncertain for them. They were brave about it all—braver than I was I guess.1For a week after Betty's wedding Wickard was absorbed in a series of conferences with Judge Rosenman, Attorney General Biddle, Bernard Baruch, and others, in an attempt to decide what the President should do about inflation control. Should Roosevelt ask for legislation, use his war powers, or both? Into this perplexing melee the Fresidenl dropped another consideration—a new board to superintend the entire economy. As for agricultural inflation, Leon Henderson suggested a modest subsidy of $75 to $150 million to keep food prices down. Baruch thought the President ought to requisition all farm produce and fix the prices for resale. Worst of all, Harry Hopkins and Roosevelt had fastened on the idea that farm prices should be reduced to parity. Listening to this agrarian heterodoxy, Wickard thought he had better arrive quickly at a specific recommendation for repealing the 110 percent provision without sacrificing "parity or present prices, whichever is higher." 11 News account paraphrased from New York Times and Washington Post, August 23, 1942; Wickard, Interviews, p. 2798.

"But Mr. President . .

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I finally came to the conclusion it could be done under the War Powers Act, which gives the President the right to allocate materials which are scarce and which are needed in the War effort. The Act gives him also the power to specify the conditions under which the products may be sold.13 And if the President should happen to delegate food allocations to Wickard, that would come very near to constituting a food administration. "I think we'll play hell with this move," said Bledsoe. Wickard was less sanguine. "I have a fear that Henderson or Nelson won't want to see this power of allocation given to me so that I can govern farm prices. It's just the same old problem of bureaucratic jealousy." 14 As he arrived in Washington from a New England trip, ordinarily placid, pipe-smoking Don Nelson was fighting mad. His War Production Board had been held responsible for small plant shutdowns and materials shortages. "From now on anyone who crosses my path is going to have his head taken off," he told the press. Wickard read Nelson's bellicose statements with grim interest. On Friday, August 28, the Secretary had lunch with Nelson and WPB vice-chairman William L. Batt. As Wickard described his difficulties with the Foods Requirements Committee, it seemed to him Nelson was uncertain and excited. The Secretary said that his own position was untenable. He had taken it for granted that the reason the FRC was set up in the first place was to increase and conserve America's food supply. This was what he was trying to do, but his decisions were being interfered with by WPB officials. Was he or was he not going to be given a free hand in food " Wickard, Diaiy, August 27-28, 1942; Wickard to Roosevelt, August 24, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., S.C.; Henderson to Wickard, September 3, 1942, in Wickard Papers. " Wickard, Diary, August 28, 1942; Samuel B. Bledsoe, Diary, August 27, 1942. The original of Mr. B W ' " • • Washington, D.C. An abbreviated History Project Memoir in the Spe _ .. Columbia University Libraries.

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"But Mr. President

. . ."

allocations? Batt offered sympathy and Nelson left. The answer was "No." 15 Early Monday afternoon Wickard slipped through the White House southwest gate to avoid reporters. He conferred a moment with Rosenman and Biddle. Agreeing among themselves that the allocation power was the best approach to farm price control, the three of them went in to sell it to the President. The President was a little skeptical at first, but when the idea was fully explained he gave it his approval and began to outline how he wanted his speech on Monday to be written. As we were breaking up I told Roseman [sic] that we had better plan to notify Henderson. So we went into the room fust off the President's office and started to discuss strategy. I served notice that both Henderson and Nelson would protest violently. Henderson was asked to come in and he and [David] Ginsburg came about three o'clock and we argued the whole proposition for over three hours. It was evident that Henderson was grasping for any argument to avoid having the President use my suggestion, which had been put into a draft for order.16 No decision was reached, and the contestants retired to their respective corners. Striding up and down in his office Wickard wondered what Henderson was planning to do. And Nelson. The Secretary thought he had better get to the President before they did. On Tuesday morning, a White House secretary called to say that the President would see him at 11:00 o'clock —along with Henderson, Nelson, and Rosenman. It wasn't long before Nelson and I were in an argument over the way he had failed to give me the power which I needed to run the food program and which the proposal presented to the President on Monday would give me. Nelson "Wickard, Diary, August 30-31, 1942; Wickard to Batt, August 29, 1942, Food, S.C.; Baltimore Sun, August 20, 1942; Bledsoe and Shields, Interviews. " Wickard, Diary, September 1-2, 1942.

"But

Mr. Tresident

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became very excited and jumped up and threw down some papers once when I mentioned that I was being hampered by his dollar-a-year men. Said he was getting tired of having good business men talked about when they offered the government their help. The President told Henderson and Nelson what he had decided. It wasn't long before Henderson started to argue with him. After half an hour it was evident to me that the President was weakening. Finally he said, "If Leon and Claude will agree that they can hold down the cost of living through subsidies as proposed by Henderson, I will consider it." "But Mr. President," Wickard broke in, "this doesn't take care of the main problem we re trying to get at. How are we going to get meats to the Army and to Lend-Lease and to the consuming centers? What about this allocation power?" "You two ought to be put in a glass cage and told to fight it out," answered Roosevelt. "Now, Claude, let's not bother the President about that," said Nelson smoothly. "Claude and I are going to get together Mr. President. Come on Claude, let's go ahead and settle it." I walked out of the meeting with Nelson. He had no more intention of getting together with me than anything. That was just a way of getting out of that meeting. We didn't sit down afterwards and talk. He went off to the WPB and I went back to the USDA. We had talked and that was it. Loyally covering the Secretary's forensic shortcomings, Bledsoe blamed Roosevelt for their defeat. "This episode," said Sam, "reveals clearly the President's weakness, his tendency to let things drift, his preoccupation with politics, and his lack of realization of what good organization means." 17 In a Labor Day address to the nation, Roosevelt revealed his decision—as usual, a compromise. He asked Congress to pass legislation which would give him the authority to stabi" Ibid., September 3-1, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2821-26; Bledsoe, Diary, September 2, 1942.

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. . ."

lize the cost of living. 'The purpose," said the President, "should be to hold all farm prices at parity, or at levels of recent date, whichever is higher. . . . In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility and I will act. . . ." 18 As soon as Wickard's bruised ego healed, he knew the President's timing was right. Much as the Hill detested the unpopular chore of antagonizing both labor and agriculture, many Congressmen would have been among the first to cry "Dictator" if Roosevelt had used his war powers. A delegation of allocation authority to Wickard would have brought others to the White House seeking similar dispensations. As yet, Wickard had no urgent need for distributive functions, although his bureaucratic acquisitiveness was being pricked constantly by his advisors. The pork situation would iron itself out with fall hog marketings. "Parity or recent prices," however, was a different matter. Farmer Wickard knew that production depended on price. It was difficult at times for the government administrator to distinguish between a glittering workbench and the tools necessary to do his job. President Roosevelt had failed to consult the Secretary of Agriculture on the final draft of his message asking for a new price bill. This oversight, if it was an oversight, caused the President some embarrassment and brought American farmers closer than ever to equality for agriculture. The Secretary had exacted from Roosevelt in return for the 110 percent repealer a promise to request a postwar farm price floor—a guarantee, as the President phrased it, that the farmer "would receive a fair minimum price for his product for one year, or even two years, or whatever period is necessary after the end of the war." Unknown to Wickard, the President also inserted another clause in his message suggesting that the parity formula be changed to include the cost of labor. Happy enough over Wickard's postwar cushion for agriculture, the farm bloc was " Bosennian, Working

with Roosevelt,

p. 358.

"But Mr. President . .

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jubilant about the inclusion of farm labor costs. Wickard thought he had talked Roosevelt out of any change in the parity formula when the Master of the Grange had first brought the idea to Washington, nearly a year before. The Secretary was wholly in favor of adding labor costs to the parity formula, but not at this time. Every farm price relationship would have been altered by the change, and consumers, having been led to believe that parity was the solid rock of rural justice, would be enraged to find the formula a slick panacea for ever changing conditions. On September 15, Farmer Wickard and the Secretary composed their views on parity and presented them to the Senate.

Farmers today are better off in terms of income than at any time in the past. . . . But prices tell only half the story. The Congress has set not only parity prices, but parity income as a goal under the farm program. . . . I think it is evident that one of the primary objectives in the struggle of agriculture has been, not only to reach parity, but to reach it in a manner that will enable us to keep it once it has been attained. The legislation enacted by the Congress and the increased demands due to the war have enabled us to reach the goal. We cannot keep parity, however, unless we direct our efforts toward that end instead of being diverted into a struggle to take advantage of a wartime situation.19 Two days later, Wickard, Harry Hopkins, Leon Henderson, and several others met with the President in his upstairs study.

At first he [Roosevelt] showed some reluctance to trying to make definite suggestions to Congress, apparently on the ground that he didn't want to be a party to framing the bill so that he couldn't veto it if it were too objectionable. He said to me "the country is behind us in this fight Claude." I agreed. I said he should clear up the inconsistency in his speech about including labor in parity. He said "Well, let's tell the Congres" Hearings before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Wickard statement, September 15, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

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sional leaders," and so we all set out to the Oval Room, and when we arrived he had Senators Barkley, Brown, and Wagner and Congressman Steagall come in. The President in no uncertain terms told Steagall he didn't want farm wages inplainest cluded in the parity computation. It was about the talk I ever heard the President use in addressing anyone. Steagall pointed out the inconsistency in the President's Labor Day address, but the President said, "Oh yes you can take one sentence and get any kind of meaning." Roosevelt's perfunctory disposal of his own error cost him five parity points. Upon returning to the Capitol, Messrs Barkley, Brown, and Wagner raised loan rates on the basic commodities (corn, cotton, wheat, tobacco, rice, and peanuts) from 85 percent of parity to 90 percent, and that was the way the bill passed on October 2. The parity formula remained untouched, but Wickard got his assurance that a postwar price collapse would not find the farmer holding the bag. All nonbasic crops for which the Secretary had asked increased production, already protected during the conflict by the Steagall Amendment, now were to be supported at not less than 90 percent of parity for two years following the end of the war. Although Wickard had lost five precious basic crop parity points in his fight to keep a price spread between feed and food, he willingly traded 85 percent loans and 110 percent ceilings for the capping of wages and his postwar farm price cushion. 21 At the time he signed the new price bill, President Roosevelt also issued an executive order creating the Office of Economic Stabilization. Justice James F. Byrnes resigned from the Supreme Court to take over, as Director, the odious task of setWickard, Diary, September 19-20, 1942. Pub. L. No. 729, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Octobcr 2, 1942; Wickard to Rayburn, September 11, 1942, National Defense 5, Price Control, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, September 21-26, 1942; Interviews, pp. 2732-37, 282846; Bledsoe arid Shields, Interviews; Fulmer to Roosevelt, September 21, 1942; Prices, S.C.; memoranda of various telephone calls in Shields Papers. 50 n

"But Mr. President . . ."

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tling high-level disputes—"assistant President" was the job description given in the press. Byrnes's ingratiating personality and his Senate reputation as the able conciliator from South Carolina made his appointment eminently acceptable throughout the government. Wickard, too, was pleased at the prospect of baring his troubles to less awesome judgment. Personally, I had no particular reason to think, or didn't at that time fear, that he would be anything but fair and impartial.22 " Wickard, Interviews, p. 2854.

15: Food Czar Yes, the program worked this year, but I face the future with considerable pessimism because of the factors which are beyond my control. I know that it is going to be very hard to explain why there is [not] going to be enough produced when we have so much now, but I also know that it is going to be even more difficult [to] explain why more wasn't produced after the pinch comes. That is why yesterday at the Cabinet meeting I described this year's production as record breaking; but 1 also said that I was afraid that [we] were not going to be able to maintain production, especially of meat and dairy products. The President expressed interest and asked if I didn't think that school boys and girls could do a lot to help. I said yes, in the places where unskilled labor was required, but not much where animal husbandry was needed.1 Consumer shortages, apart from gasoline tires, and a few home appliances, were felt most forcibly at the grocer)' counter. The only remedy was one which should have been provided at the time of the first price control bill—rationing. That, Wickard thanked the Lord, was Henderson's headache, not his. Because of the pork panic the Secretary had to request voluntary rationing. Processing plants were ordered by the Foods Requirements Committee to limit the supply of red meat which went into civilian distribution outlets to 2 % pounds weekly per person. This was a pound more than the British were eating and two pounds more than Hitler's minions were getting. Carnivorous Americans could continue to buyall the meat they could pay for. Anyone who purchased more 1 Wickard, Diary, September 11-13, 1942; Washington Post, October 11, 1942.

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than 2 y2 pounds per week, however, was forcing someone else to eat less. The neighborhood butcher became an object of fawning adoration. Wickard went on the air several times to plead that wealthy meat eaters do with fewer roasts and steaks, and to advise everyone to eat more chicken. Far more serious to Wickard than the minor discomforts of civilian dining were mounting production shortages and the Secretary's administrative inability to deal with them. No sooner had he proclaimed the rationing of farm machinery to ease labor shortages than word began to circulate that Roosevelt was planning to establish a food administration, probably outside the USDA. This would be a mistake, Wickard wrote to Harry Hopkins on September 21. Hoover's World War I food administration had succeeded neither in increasing production nor in restraining prices. The Department of Agriculture is the mechanism to do the job, he told Hopkins, if we can just get the power to make it work: Of course farmers cannot be expected to keep up their production if they are going to be further deprived of labor, machinery and materials essential to production, as now seems to be the prospect. In this connection, however, it might be pointed out that chief responsibility for scarce materials is in one agency; manpower in another; transportation in still another, and so far as I can see are likely to remain there. This illustrates the entire point I am trying to make. A food administration, superimposed upon existing agencies, still would not have complete authority, and would be likely to cause more delay and fumbling until still another change would be necessary. He outlined for Hopkins his tripartite apparatus—the USDA, Combined Food Board, and the Foods Requirements Committee. The functioning of the latter, he said, had been a disappointment to him. Endless delays and bickering within WPB had blocked his decisions. Wickard admitted that WPB obstructionism might stem from fear that he was about to make

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profound changes in the food industry. It was obvious that "undercover work of speculative and other interests" was being carried on to promote mistrust of the Secretary.

The proposal to set up a separate food administration is, on the part of some few persons at least, a screen to hide their

DECEMBER 8 ,

1942,

WASHINGTON

Star

opposition to other proposals which would interfere with established business practices. If I thought a separate food administration wouhi accomplish the desired results, I would be for it. I don't think it will accomplish the desired results, and considerations of false modesty will not prevent me from speaking out against it.2 As Wickard wrote to Hopkins, a crisis in farm labor threatened to cripple the entire food production effort. The Secretary already had done everything within his power to prevent it. His treaty with Mexico had brought hundreds of field "Wickard to Hopkins, September 21, 1912 (two letters), in Wickard Papers; Wickard, Diary, September 30, 1942.

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hands to California and the southwest. He had worked constantly with Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey in urging lower rural draft quotas, and in providing for use of conscientious objectors and interned Japanese-Americans as farm laborers. The FSA was transporting thousands of small marginal farmers from the scrub-covered rocky hills of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia to the huge truck and dairy farms of New York and New Jersey. But, as he pointedly told Congress in September, responsibility for obtaining farm labor was in the War Manpower Commission and the War Labor Board, while responsibility for producing the machinery to replace the loss of nearly two million farmers was in the War Production Board. Nevertheless, his view of the situation was far from clear. "By and large," he said, "most farmers are going to get by this year on existing labor supplies although they are having a tight squeeze in certain areas." Despite 1942's bumper yields, "it would be foolhardy to assume complacently that this production can be repeated again next year." He suggested a six-point labor program to retain experienced managers on farms, a training program for inexperienced workers, the transporting of marginal farmers to the mass production farms, the recruiting of farm help in cities and among rural women and children, and greater utilization of the men still available in farm areas. In any case, there must be a recognition on the part of all responsible agencies in Government that unless we find some way to deal with the farm labor problem and other problems of farm production satisfactorily, we must find some way, in the not too distant future, to deal with a shortage of food. Food is just as much a weapon in this war as guns. I hope that we come to this realization in time to prevent still another instance of "too little and too late." 3 * Hearings before the House Committee on Agriculture, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., Wickard statement, September 23, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Secretary's Memorandum No. 9 7 5 - 2 8 , November 11, 1942, W a r I—I, S.C.

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Farm labor was another symptom of the farm problem. In most people's minds, farm workers were unskilled laborers, nice fellows who pitched hay or chopped cotton. True, agriculture used many such workers. But the real shortage had occurred in skilled help, for farming had become an operation as demanding of aptitude and technical knowledge as arc welding or cabinetmaking. Moreover, the craftsmen of the land were supervised by farm managers who were often the owners of the farm. Where factory wages had drawn the hired men from wheat and cornfields, the draft was taking a startling number of skilled tenants, managers, and owners—the men upon whom America depended for production of what, almost too late, was coming to be recognized as the second most important munition of war. Labor unions had united industrial workers to attain labor's "parity." Farm laborers had no unions. Theirs was the classical economic world of supply and demand. As a result, rural wages were lower than those of any other segment of American society. While war plant workers were bringing home between $75 and $100 for a 48-hour week, the farm worker was making about $56 for a 60- to 70-hour week. Well, asked the urban Congressman, why don't farmers raise wages and they'd get sufficient labor? If they did, they would up their production costs and send food prices sky high! Then why don't they work overtime like other war workers? They were working from dawn to dusk, just as they always had. President Roosevelt revealed his own ignorance of the subject in an argument with Henry Wallace at Cabinet meeting on October 2 when the Vice President tried to explain that the lack of skilled milkers and handlers were causing dairy-men to sell their herds. Roosevelt snorted that the dairymen were defeatists, that they had no ingenuity or imagination; and what's more, said the President, farmers weren't working like they did twenty or thirty years ago. Farmers, answered Wallace with his quick, knowing smile, were coming closer to working as

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they did thirty years ago than any other group. The labor problem, he added, was ten times more important in farmers' mind than recent price squabbles. One week later Wickard ran into the President's irritated misapprehensions. He seems to have the idea that high school boys and girls can make up for the labor shortage. He even suggested that the children quit high school. It seems to me that he does not entirely see the farm labor problem in its true light, especially, as I told him, when children won't help us if we do not keep the managerial type of farmers on the farm. I said that it was going to be difficult to explain why we do not protect agriculture when we still have horse races, baseball, picture shows and other things as usual. I am becoming alarmed about the President's attitude toward agriculture Mrs. Roosevelt, too, had taken the farm labor problem to heart. Dorothy Thompson had given her a splendid idea for recruiting a "woman's land army" to harvest the crops. Such a force was said to have great physical and spiritual values. Wickard cast a wary moral eye particularly on the former and shuddered at the thought of farm wives coping with hundreds of manless women scattered daily over their husbands' land. Aside from this consideration, he doubted that any unskilled army of females could supplant the hired men, irrespective of the aid which women were said to have contributed to England's wartime farming. 5 Most pressing was the dairy labor shortage, and it was apparent that similar problems would soon arise in livestock and poultry. The War Manpower Commission stirred uneasily on the issue of farm wages. McNutt bucked this hot potato over to Wickard by naming the Secretary chairman of a committee to "study" the problem. At that moment the Arizona cotton controversy erupted in full fury. By the terms of Wickard's Mexican Treaty for the importa' Wickard, Diary, October 13, 1942; Wallace, Interviews. Wickard to Eleanor Roosevelt, February 27, 1942, Employment 1, S.C.; Wickard, Diary, October 17-20, 1942. 5

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tion of peons, he promised to guarantee them the housing facilities and wages customary in the area where they were to work. A large amount of long staple cotton was raised in Arizona. Wickard, the United States Employment Service, and the War Manpower Commission had translated Arizona's prevailing picking wage of 3 cents per pound into an hourly minimum wage of 30 cents per hour, and on that basis the treaty had been concluded. Arizona cotton growers requested that 1,500 Mexicans be sent to help in the cotton harvest, but when the peons arrived they refused to pay the minimum wage. They said the FSA administrator had no right to tell them how much they had to pay for labor. Suppose one of those lazy Mexicans (to many cotton growers, all Negroes and Mexicans were congenitally lazy) refused to work, or failed to pick ten pounds of cotton in an hour (even the laziest worker could pick more than that under average circumstances), were they supposed to pay him 30 cents anyway? Yes, answered Beanie Baldwin. And Wickard backed him up. The Farm Bureau seethed with anger. Ed O'Neal told the press that the long staple cotton used in making parachutes was rotting in Arizona fields in protest of Wickard's "socialist" policy. "Farmers just cannot pay wages like that," said O'Neal. "Besides, the department is trying to force the farmers to provide toilets, baths, hot and cold water, and all that red tape stuff." "Privies, not toilets." Wickard shouted back at him in a wage stabilization meeting, "at the rate of one for each twenty-five workers!" Was that "socializing" agriculture? "A man in your responsible position should exercise some caution in his remarks to the press." " Unhappily, the Arizona cotton controversy became a liberal •Washington Post, October 30, 1942, November 7, 1942; Roosevelt to Wickard, November 9, 1942, and Jackson to Roosevelt, November 4, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Jackson to Parisius, August 13, 1942, Aari. War. Rel., S.C.; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2 8 5 6 - 6 5 ; Jackson, Parisius, and Webster, Interviews; R. L. Webster, Diary, October 16, 1942, December 13, 1942.

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"cause." Pat Jackson, busy enough with his efforts to achieve some sort of farmer-labor coalition between the Farmers' Union and the C.I.O., took time to give his friend Drew Pearson a left-wing answer to O'Neal's fatuity. Jackson also saw that a sheaf of material reached the President. Roosevelt referred it to Byrnes. It is quite evident to me that I am in for a lot of grief in attempting to settle the matters of farm labor which no one has dared to touch. Friday night [October 16] Byrnes announced that he turned over the responsibility for farm wages to me. There is no backing, out now.7 Wickard's decision on Arizona cotton comforted no one but Allied airmen who needed the parachutes, and they could not have cared less what happened to the Secretary of Agriculture. O'Neal was furious at Wickard's stubborn conclusion that the minimum wage should stand and maddened that the FSA would continue to administer the Mexican treaty. To the undying disgust of the liberals, however, the Secretary "surrendered on principle" by allowing long staple cotton loan rates to be raised 3 cents per pound. Striking at the farm labor problem generally, McNutt and Wickard soon afterward issued a joint directive from the War Manpower Commission, putting into effect most of the Secretary's six-point labor program. Nothing was done about taking children out of high school or recruiting a woman's land army. Split authority had worked expediently to deal with labor, although Wickard knew the remedies offered were only temporary.8 In the meantime, machinations from another quarter were intensifying the drive for a unified food authority. On Saturday morning, October 17, Wickard was handed a copy of a proposed executive order, purportedly drawn up by Don Nelson, for the installation of a complete Food Administration within Wickard, Diary, October 18, 1942. McNutt-Wickard Directive on Manpower Stabilization, November 10, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Wickard to Byrnes, October 14, 20, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., Econ. Stabil., S.C. 7

8

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the War Production Board. This order even gave Nelson the power to direct the Secretary of Agriculture in the field of production. At first Wickard was astonished. Certainly, in his mind, the New Deal was not so dead as to give either Nelson or his dollar-a-year men hope that the captains of industry had been reinstated with full privileges. Then the Secretary became furious. He called Director Byrnes immediately and asked to see him. Their appointment was set for Monday. Wickard spent the week end covering large pads of yellow foolscap with his round, angry scribbling. By Monday afternoon his venomous excoriation of Nelson, the W P B , and food businessmen generally had been reduced to stiff but still smouldering government prose.

It is my considered opinion that Mr. Nelsons proposal to put a Food Director in the War Production Board, with full powers over existing agencies, would increase—not decrease—confusion and duplication of effort in the food field. In this connection, I am sure that unbiased observers are of the opinion that much confusion and duplication with regard to food now exists in the field over which the WPB has exercised jurisdiction Therefore, I recommend that, under the general direction of the Director of Economic Stabilization, the Secretary of Agriculture be given power to coordinate the efforts of other agencies operating in the food field and to eliminate such confusion and duplication as now exists,9 Enclosing his own executive order for the President's signature, Wickard gathered up his papers and went to see Byrnes late Monday afternoon.

He told me in strictest confidence that he had talked to the President about it, but that the President had said he had not received any letter from Nelson. He said he wondered why Nelson wanted to have the administration of food. The President also told Byrnes that Leon Henderson had asked him for 'Wickard to Bvrnes, October 19, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., Off. Econ. Stabil., S C.

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job as food

319 administrator.

Byrnes

indicated

that

the

President would not take action until there was time for further study.10 After making certain that his friend, Harold Smith, Director of the Budget, had a complete dossier on the matter, Wickard sat down and dictated a scalding letter to Don

Nelson.

Studding it with such epithets as "delay, confusion, dissension, and incompetence," the Secretary said he would never approve putting the whole program in such hands. On Wednesday the two combatants met on neutral ground at W a r Manpower meeting. Nelson said he was shocked at Wickard's outburst. I told him that I was shocked when he said he wanted

by the purpose

asked that I drop into his office after the meeting power Commission

to see if we couldn't

come to an understanding. way he had approached

of his letter

me to handle food many times.

He

of the Man-

talk things over and

I told him that I was hurt by the

the matter, and I did not indicate that

I would drop in to see him—which

I did not do.11

On Thursday, without consulting either Wickard or Nelson, the President decided the issue in a memorandum to Byrnes. I agree that food as a general problem should be coordinated. Food, however, is essentially an agricultural product—except fish— and the people most concerned with food are you, Henderson and Wickard. The War Production Board has plenty to do without taking on the responsibility of running all the problems of food. Here is a thought for you to play with: Set up a Food Coordinator in the Department of Agriculture (what would you think of Herbert Lehman to head it on January first?), give this Coordinator a Committee with representatives of State, War, Navy, BEW, Lend-Lease, WPB and Henderson. This Food Coordinator would be responsible for the production and processing of the food itself, and would carry out requisitions put in by Army, Navy, WPB, etc. Wickard, Diary, October 22, 1942. Ibid., October'24, 1942; Wickard to Byrnes, Wickard to Roosevelt, October 29, 1942, Organization 1, S.C. 10 u

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He could not fix prices—wholesale or retail—without the consent and approval of you and Henderson. I have had no word on this from Don Nelson. Keep these papers until the thing comes to a head further. F.D.H.12

Fish! What did fish have to do with it? And did the President mean to place his Food Coordinator in the USDA under Wickard, or over Wickard? Was he really thinking of a Food Coordinator who knew as little about farm production and food processing as Governor Lehman of New York? The President, apparently recalling Herbert Hoover's two authorities during the first World War, was confusing two different kinds of food administrators: one to handle relief food and clothing for the peoples of American-occupied European countries, the other for domestic management of food production and distribution. Wickard learned in Cabinet on October 29 that Roosevelt thought Hoover had been an excellent "food administrator." Secretary Stimson reported that Hoover was anxious to be of use to his country during the present conflict. Roosevelt shook his head; he couldn't see how Hoover would do, since the former President refused to speak to him. He then asked Wallace. Hull, Wickard, and Nelson to meet and suggest the name of someone who could handle the foreign relief administration of food and clothing. As the four men met on November 4 in the Vice President's office in Washington, a giant armada of American ships was steaming silently toward the North African coast. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was preparing to leave England for Gibraltar to take command of landings at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. North of Washington in Albany, New York, Herbert Lehman watched the national midterm elections turn into a political donnvbrook which would shake eighty Democrats out of Congress and replace his ten-year Governorship u Roosevelt to Byrnes, October 22, 1942, F.D.R His Personal Letters, cd. by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), II, 1357-58.

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with that of an ambitious young Republican, Thomas

E.

Dewey. Completely aware of coming events in North Africa and the President's espousal of Lehman, there was no confusion in the Vice President's office about the man whom they should recommend or the job he was to undertake. Don Nelson suggested

Herbert

Lehman.

Wallace,

Hull,

and

Wickard

readily agreed. 1 3 On November 11, Wickard received a short note from the President: I expect to have a meeting shortly in regard to food. I am not inclined to go along with the idea of WPB that food control should be placed under the WPB. It should be under the Secretary of Agriculture. Therefore, I wish you would be thinking about some form or organization which would be set up under you but which probably should have a Director or Administrator at its head. Harold Ickes believes that he should have somebody in the new set-up to handle those things which are in the field of the Department of the Interior—especially food fish—and I think there is merit to that suggestion. I wish you would talk with Harold Ickes in regard to the obtaining of a much larger fish catch. I am sure it can be done, in the field of the small fish, of the pan fish and other varieties which are found next to the shore and which can be caught from rowboats or small motor boats with very little equipment. F.D.R.14

Here were the fish again. Wickard had never had anything whatsoever to do with fish; that had always been Ickes's domain. However, the thing which caught Wickard's eye was Roosevelt's opening sentence. Another meeting with Nelson and Henderson would not accomplish any more than it had before. Wickard hastened to the White House to confer with Judge Rosenman. To Wickard's surprise, Rosenman showed him a letter which Byrnes had sent to the President advising "Wickard to Roosevelt, November 7, 1942, Exec. Off. Pres., S.C.; Wickard, Diary, November 10-14, 1942; Wallace, Interviews. " Roosevelt to Wickard, November 10, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

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that a food administration be organized in the Department of Agriculture. Bymes's letter contained most of the same arguments which Wickard was employing in his own correspondence with the President. It appeared that Roosevelt was about to raise food to "Administration" status, and Wickard was greatly worried about his own position in the change. Meanwhile the Vice President was receiving a steady stream of advice on the subject—as though he had something to do with it. Fanners' Union President Jim Patton and Pat Jackson told Wallace that the food administration ought to be in the USDA, but if Wickard were not strong enough to handle it, a new Secretary should be named. Patton said he thought the Grange and the Farm Bureau wanted Don Nelson to handle food in the WPB. Several days later Senator Lister Hill of Alabama agreed with Wallace that the USDA should continue to run the food show. Unlike Wallace, however, Hill believed Wickard was inadequate. On November 16, Budget Director Harold Smith told Wallace he thought no food administrator should be appointed, but that the work on food should be done in the USDA. That same day, Senator Harry Truman complained to the Vice President about the farm labor shortage in Missouri and about the way Henderson had set prices. Wallace told him that food administration powers in the USDA would help straighten out the situation. Wallace said lie thought Wickard could do the job with increased authority, but if he could not, the President should appoint a new Secretary of Agriculture. 15 On November 17 Wickard had a fifteen-minute talk with the President.

He told me first about his decision to appoint Gov. in charge of feeding reoccupied Europe, and he said had the evil thought of having Hitler come to a Jew on knee in order to avoid starvation. . . . J asked if would be under the State Dept. and he said yes, now, " Wallace, Interviews.

Lehman that he bended Lehman but in-

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dicated he later might have him operate directly under him. He then told me that he had been pressed to name a big food industry man as food administrator but he had decided against such a move. He said he thought such a man might well come from West of the Mississippi and that he should be under me.16 Two days later Wickard brought to Judge Rosenman a draft of an executive order which would give him complete food authority including rationing. I explained that I did not aspire to rationing and would delegate this to Henderson. I explained that I wanted to organize the Dept. into two branches: first, a Production Administration, and second, a Distribution administration. He indicated the President was only thinking of the latter and that the President was going to insist on a Food Director in the Dept.17 Meanwhile Henry Wallace had been to see the President. It seemed clear in Roosevelt's mind by this time that two separate food administrators were under consideration. He and the Vice President agreed that Lehman was an excellent choice for the foreign relief post. But perhaps Senator Truman had said more to Wallace, and Wallace said more to Roosevelt than was reported, for soon after he talked with the President, Wallace wrote a short note to Chester Davis at the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, saying: "If you are approached authoritatively on being Food Administrator under Claude, please do not turn it down without giving me an opportunity to talk to you about it." Davis wired an immediate reply: "Hope you will do everything possible to prevent such a proposition being made to me. Writing tomorrow." In his letter which followed the telegram, Davis left no doubt that he would not like to serve in any capacity "under Claude." He "Wickard, Diary, November 21, 1942. Senator Herbert Lehman, in a telephone conversation with the author on November 1, 1955, said he remained in Albany until he resigned as Governor in December to take over OFFRO; that he knew of no confusion in the President's mind about his job; and that there was never any question of Lehman's serving under Wickard. 17 Wickard, Diary, November 22, 1942.

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did not say he would not accept the Food Administration, but he did offer this advice: "I think the situation calls for the assumption of the title and the function of Food Administrator by the Secretary of Agriculture himself. To handle it he should divorce himself completely from the operation of the regular bureaus and the activities of the Department of Agriculture which should be carried on by the Under Secretary. The Secretary should take under his immediate direction the action agencies of the Department through which the food program functions." 18 Wickard first learned that Chester Davis was back in the running when he received another brief memo from the President on the 19th. Dear Claude; If we make Chester Davis Food Administrator under you, what would you think of giving him Schindler of Missouri as his first assistant? Schindler's work will be over in January, and 1 hear he is too good a man for us to lose. F.D.R.19

I was quite shocked and I called Byrnes and found to my surprise that he was supporting Davis. I went to see Byrnes after Cabinet and told him the Farmers' Union would be very much upset and intimated that all the labor people might also be aroused. Byrnes said that we couldn't permit such groups to influence us. He said several things indicating his sympathy for the Farm Bureau and also his distaste for labor. He blamed labor for not getting out to vote in the election and said when labor had a full belly it forgot its friends. I also got in touch with Roseman [sic] and told him that I was afraid that Davis would not fit into the Dept. He called me Saturday morning to say that the President had said he wouldn't make a decision until I had talked with him. Roseman also indicated that the President had indicated an interest in my plan to reorganize " Wallace to Davis, November 19, 1942; Davis to Wallace (n.d.); and Davis to Wallace, November 23, 1942, as quoted in Davis to Myers, October 12, 1943, USDA History Unit Files. " Roosevelt to Wickard, November 19, 1942. in Wickard Papers.

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the Dept. into Production and Distribution Administrations.20 Roosevelt was in a waspish mood during Cabinet meeting on the 20th. Condemning the jealousies and back-biting of interdepartmental warfare, he bluntly told his Secretaries that more had been lost through these tactics than in all the strikes since the war started. Wickard squirmed uncomfortably. Competition for civilian control in North Africa was a particularly sore point. He said only two Depts. had any standing in that area, the army and the State Dept. He said all other agencies must work through the State Dept. He said he was damned tired of the bickering and would ask the Dept. heads to fire those who insisted on carrying it on. Evidently some of his remarks were directed at the V.P. and Milo Perkins' BEW.21 The creation of the Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations with Lehman at its head, plus a rumored order to make the USDA all-powerful in the food field, made it clear to Milo Perkins that his Board of Economic Warfare would be rendered nearly useless. It was a sad day for liberalism. His patron, Henry Wallace, nodded in philosophical agreement. But, said Wallace, "I cannot help feeling that while the President, in the over-all picture, has done a truly magnificent job, a better job than any other man could possibly have done, and a better job than any other President of the United States has done, nevertheless his system of administration during the past year has mounted confusion on confusion. Fortunately the public doesn't know—and never will know—how bad it really is." 2 2 "Is it worth it, Claude?" Louise would ask as Wickard came home night after night, tense and irritable. "It rightfully belongs in Agriculture," was his stubborn reply.23 On Monday, November 23, the Secretary had lunch with 20 a a

Wickard, Diary, November 23-24, 1942. Ibid., November 24, 1942. Wallace, Interviews; Washington Post, November 22, 1942. Louise Wickard, Interviews.

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Roosevelt at the President's desk in the White House Oval Room. As he entered the room to keep his appointment he greeted Don Nelson, who was coming out of the President's study. "I was just talking to Don about a number of matters," Roosevelt began their conversation, "and at the conclusion I said that I thought that the Department of Agriculture ought to handle both food production and distribution. He agreed. So that question is settled so far as Don is concerned." Wickard was happy to have the President think so, but he doubted that it was settled in Nelson's mind. The important thing at the moment, however, was Roosevelt's acquiescence to Wickard's two-headed administrative plan.

The conversation drifted as to who would be head of the Distribution agency. The President said that he icasn't sure that Chester Davis would be the right person, although he was being advocated by some of his advisors. I did not say much, because it was evident that he was not going to insist on Chester's appointment. He asked me who I preferred to Chester and I said Marvin Jones. He said, "Well, his name has been mentioned, but Justice Byrnes thinks that Judge Vinson v)otild be a better man." I said that I didn't know him and that he had not been identified with food or agriculture. He asked me once if Marvin Jones could make good speeches. I assured him that he could. I told him that I wasn't sure that Jones would take the job but that there was [a] little chance if he personally appealed to Jones. He promised he would do this on Tuesday.24 If Milo Perkins feared the death of New Deal liberalism, to Pat Jackson and the small assortment of New Dealers scattered through the White House on both Roosevelt's and Byrnes's staffs the torch of the 1930s burned brightly still. Marvin Mclntyre. David Niles, Wayne Coy, Ed Prichard, and Ben Cohen were counted cronies to the cause by Jackson. "For God's sake," they told him, "you ought to get up to see Sam " Wickard, Diary, November 27-28, 1942.

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Rosenman right away! Tell him who's who and what's what in the Department of Agriculture, what all the interests are, and how this War Food thing should be personnelled in the top level from your vantage point. Sam Rosenman knows nothing about it. The President has asked him to draft the whole plan and program by reason of the fact that he comes to it without any preconceptions. You ought to give him some preconceptions. It would be just stupid to have guys put in who won't do what we have to do." 2 5 Pat Jackson was playing a glorious role and loving every minute of it. Sam Bledsoe was using him to garner left-wing support for Wickard as food administrator. The White House coterie were using him as an aggressive fighter to keep alive the tenets of New Dealism. The Farm Security Administration was using him to save the life of agrarian liberalism. Fully aware that he was a cat's paw for all three, Pat's primary concern was for the social and economic rights of small farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers. Naturally, those whose advice he heeded were Farm Security Administration men—Beanie Baldwin, Pete Hudgens, and Jim Maddox. Farm Bureau attacks had weakened the FSA; Baldwin had doubts that he could continue to muster sufficient power to keep O'Neal at bay, and he knew he could not depend on Wickard to save him. The one way that FSA might sustain itself through the tide of reaction which had accompanied the war was to entwine its program completely in war production. Howard Tolley, working with great diligence over his BAE statistics, propounded the view that farm production could be increased nearly 10 percent by granting small farmers FSA-administered nonrecourse loans with which to buy hogs and dairy cattle. "Full production" became the FSA battle cry, and they sent Pat Jackson forth to get it. The first step in Jackson's plan was to instill in the gentle, FSA-minded pastor in the Secretary's officc. Herbert Parisius, 28

Jackson, Interviews.

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the notion that he had the makings of a great administrator. Perhaps Pars had hidden managerial capacities; if so, he revealed them to no one but Jackson, Baldwin, Hudgens, and Maddox. Pat's second step was a lengthy conversation with Judge Rosenman which was held Thanksgiving Day on a train en route from New York to Washington. By then it was common knowledge that Wickard, desirous of the Food Administratorship himself, planned to appoint directors of production and distribution to carry out his program. The real New Dealers, Jackson explained to Rosenman, wanted the Food Administration placed in the USDA. As Production Director, he said, a strong man was needed—one who could get "full production." Fortunately such a man was ready to assume the task —Herbert Parisius. Tacit in what Jackson told Rosenman was the liberal belief that Wickard was too weak for the top job. Strangely, Jackson had no feeling about Farm Bureau-backed Chester Davis for the position. The FSA candidate for Food Administrator was Marvin Jones. 2 6 At the same moment that Jackson was reminding Judge Rosenman of New Deal responsibilities, Thanksgiving services were concluded in the White House and the President motioned Henry Wallace to sit down beside him for a talk. Wallace was most concerned about the increasingly difficult position in which liberals were finding themselves. He said he understood an executive order was forthcoming which would give B E W food export controls to the USDA under a Food Administrator. Roosevelt told the Vice President he need not be concerned about that because he was planning to get Marvin Jones to run the Food Administration in Agriculture. "Mr. President, it might be better to give the power exclusively to Claude Wickard—or to put Marvin Jones in as Secretary of Agriculture in order to avoid misunderstanding between the two." " Bledsoe, Hudgens, Jackson, Parisius, and Tolley, Interviews.

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"No, Henry," answered Roosevelt, "I just couldn't think of replacing Claude as Secretary of Agriculture." 2 7 One block from the White House was the ungainly twostory brick art gallery which housed the United States Court of Claims. There was no more contented judge on it, or any other court, than the soft-spoken Texan who had doffed his distinguished career on the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee for the judicial robes of the Claims Court —Marvin Jones. A fifty-five-year-old bachelor, Judge Jones lived the life of a man's man, enjoying occasional hunting and fishing trips, a few evenings of poker with the Texas Congressional delegation, and frequent journeys west to see that his mother was comfortable in her small Amarillo home. Byrnes's call to Jones asking that they meet to discuss the Food Administration came as no surprise. The Judge had read of this possibility in the newspapers. He was surprised, however, at some of the things Byrnes said. The President wanted Jones to become Food Administrator. An executive order would be worded and administered in such a way that the Secretary of Agriculture would have no authority over anything that Jones wanted to do. Jones was to report to the President, not Wickard. The Secretary would be left in charge of the non-action agencies of the Department. "I think the President should appoint the Secretary of Agriculture as Food Administrator," said Jones. "Well, 111 recommend that the President appoint you Secretary of Agriculture if you want me to." "I don't want to be Secretary of Agriculture, but I think it ought to be under one head so that there will be no possibility of friction. The Secretary of Agriculture should be the Food Administrator." Marvin Jones's refusal to accept the position was really more * Wallace, Interviews. "The President never said to me or in my presence anything that would indicate that he had less than full confidence in Wickard. He always spoke of him in warmth and confidence." Frances Perkins, Interviews.

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a refusal to leave the Court of Claims than anything else. He said he would do anything the President required of him, but that he would prefer to stay where he was. If Chester Davis were appointed either Secretary or Food Administrator, Jones said he would go to the USDA and help him, but not Wickard. He said he had nothing against Wickard, he simply did not know him well enough to work alongside him in such an awkward arrangement. "He may be all right," Jones told Byrnes, "but I fear that I might run into difficulties that might embarrass both the President and you. And the Lord knows you have had enough troubles as it is. I feel very strongly that 1 might have some difficulty." 28 On Friday evening at 6:00 o'clock, November 27, Harold Smith telephoned Wickard: "Come on over. I want to talk to you about the food set-up." The Secretary called Bob Shields and together they drove to that architectural monstrosity west of the executive mansion which contained the Budget Bureau. As they entered his office, Smith grasped Wickard's hand. "Well, you're it. The boss has decided you're it. You wanted it. Now, God bless you, go to it. I don't envy you." 20 Taking Pars and Bledsoe with him, the Secretary set out the following afternoon for the 1942 series of goals meetings in Denver, Chicago, and Memphis. Labor and machinery shortages had farmers in a quarrelsome mood, and the meetings were certain to be unhappy ones. Meanwhile, Shields promised to send daily bulletins to Denver, and the Secretary turned as much of his attention as he could to the War Board committee chairmen congregated in the Shirley-Savoy Hotel. Announcing the 1943 food production goals set by the USDA, Wickard told them that the sky was the limit on everything but wheat, rye, and barley. "We are meeting here to launch the most tremendous farm production drive in history," he said. "The out28 Judge Marvin Jones, Interviews. Judge Jones was perhaps remiss in his memory in saying that he knew little about Wickard. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Grover B. Hill was a close and constant friend of Jones. " Shields, Interviews.

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come of this drive may determine how soon we shall win the war. It may have a lot to do with the kind of peace that will follow." His appeal met with grumbling opposition from the western fanners. They wanted to know where the labor and machinery to produce this huge crop was coming from. Secretarial assistant J. Joe Reed took Wickard's place on the podium, giving the audience a somewhat factual accounting of labor and machinery distribution. The farmers were squirming and mumbling. Suddenly, up from his seat leaped Parisius. Breathing the fire of backwoods pulpit oratory, he brushed Reed aside and belted his resonant baritone voice into the backmost seats— "Now this cannot go on this way! Let's think over a few basic things first and see if we can't come to an agreement on joint responsibility in the war effort. No matter how big or how small you are, or what the commodity is that you deal with, the principle is the same thing for all people in a Democracy fighting Fascism." Pars paused dramatically, then he raised his arm and pointed straight at Secretary Wickard. "This is my chief. I will stay with him. And in times like these, you must stay with himF' Cued over a lifetime of circuit rider revivals, the westerners were ready to "come forth" after Pars's exhortation. Wickard, too, was impressed with Pars's unveiled possibilities.30 The next stop was Chicago, where Pars repeated his stentorian pronouncement with similar success. After the Chicago meetings, Wickard took two days off for a quick visit to Fairacre Farms. Shields's telegrams and letters had been encouraging. A food order had been approved by Budget. Marvin Jones definitely had refused the job. Listening to the radio on Friday evening, December 4, Wickard learned that the food order had reached the President's desk. Paul Appleby called him Saturday to say he thought it would be signed. Late Sunday night Wickard was back in Chicago making his way from Union to Central Station where he could catch a train for Memphis. As he hurried across the Loop his mind "Parisius and Salisbury, Interviews; Denver Post, December 2, 1942.

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picked out from the sound of city traffic the cry of a newspaper vendor shouting something about food. Even before I bought the paper I saw on the stands that my name was clear across the headlines—WICKARD N A M E D FOOD C Z A R . When 1 went to buy the paper I was so startled and surprised by it that I stood there and the fellow had to ask me two or three times what I wanted. I finally said, "Oh, excuse me. When you see your name in the paper you wonder what you've done." He looked at me but I didn't enlarge on my remark. I think he thought 1 was kidding him. I realized after31 wards it was a rather inappropriate remark. "Wickard Named Food Czar!" the newsboys hawked. T h e name spread blackly over every newsstand in the Loop. And the man himself, alone, unrecognized in the swirling grit of Chicago's wintry streets, stuffed the Tribune in his overcoat pocket and trudged self-consciously down West Jackson in search of a taxi. Early the next morning, as the Secretary's pullman was being drawn through a maze of yard switches on the outskirts of Memphis, a letter was being typed in the White House. Mv dear Mr. Bvrnes: I have approved an Executive Order which vests in the Secretary of Agriculture the responsibility for and the control over the nation's food program. The order provides that in the event of any disagreement arising between the Secretary and anv other officer or agency of the government in the administration of the provisions of the order, such disagreements shall be submitted to me or my agent for final decision. In addition to your duties as Economic Stabilization Director, I wish you would also serve as my agent with respect to the above. Sincerely, F R A N K L I N D. R O O S E V E L T

32

"Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2930-31; Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun, December 7, 1942; Shields to Wickard, December 2, 1942, Food, S.C; Wickard, Diary, December 6-7, 1942; Smith to Biddle and Biddle to Roosevelt, November 28, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence. " Roosevelt to Byrnes, December 7, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence.

16: The Secretary Is Jittery I have been given this undertaking when the going is getting rough, first because food scarcities are increasing and second because WPB and OPA have delayed taking the action that is necessary to meet food scarcities. In other words I have been given a job which may prove to be almost impossible from the standpoint of satisfying the public and it is going to be exceedingly difficult to avoid being a scapegoat. . . . I would have lived a lot longer and I would have been a lot happier if I had not taken on these new responsibilities. But, as I have said so many times, the Secretary of Agriculture must be given the entire job in food, and in order to make the proper contribution to the war effort I would do my best until it was proven that I was not capable of doing the job.1 Sam Bledsoe and Pars arrived back in Washington the day after Wickard on December 9; Pars to return to his War Board duties, and Bledsoe to resume tactical command of the Secretary's staff. Bledsoe had not been in the office more than an hour when he discovered that his authority was gone. Mixing his metaphors in stuttering anger, he railed against the new regime: "I found that Shields had picked up the ball and was going at a great rate down the field with it, and I was sitting there behind home plate without a glove. . . . The caravan had passed on and left me at the water hole, to put it mildly, and I was furious." Unknown to Bledsoe, Pat Jackson had been tirelessly busy making the FSA point of view known around the White House and Budget Bureau. Via Ed Prichard, Byrnes had suggested to Wickard that he employ Fred M. Vinson to help hirn reorganize the USDA. Wickard balked. 'Wickard, Diary, December 10-11, 1942.

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Wayne Coy of Budget called the Secretary to advise strongly that Bledsoe be kept away from the Food Administration. Wickard complied. Shields had become the most important man in the USDA under the Secretary.By the terms of the President's food order, Wickard was "authorized and directed to assume full responsibility for and control over the Nation's food program." The Secretary was to ascertain requirements for food, carry out a program to produce it, assign priorities and make food allocations, and take steps to see that proper and efficient distribution was insured. Succeeding sections of the directive emasculated this bold language. Wickard had to "consult" with OPA on rationing, "jointly determine" allocations with WPB, and "collaborate with" other agencies for labor, machinery, foreign purchasing, and transportation. All differences of opinion were to be settled by Justice Byrnes. Bob Shields had helped to write the original directive, and it was he who settled its terms with Henderson and Nelson. Production goals, said Shields, didn't mean anything unless the Secretary had the labor and machinery to get them. "This order gave Wickard a better bureaucratic stance and, in addition, gave him unquestioned authority to state what he did need and, after he was told now much he could have, gave him the authority to say whether it was to go into milking machines or into tin pails or what have you." 3 The next step was to reshuffle the USDA into giant Food Production and Food Distribution Administrations whose activities would encompass nearly every Departmental agency except the Forest Service, the research bureaus, and the Rural Electrification Administration. Wickard named Roy F. Hendrickson to head the Food Distribution Administration. It was, ' Bledsoe, Jackson, Jarrett, Parisius, and Webster, Interviews. 5 Shields, Interviews. Also Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2956-61; Wickard, Diary, December 11-17, 1942; Shields to Wickard, December 8, 1942, in Wickard Papers; Nelson to Roosevelt, December 9, 1942, Patterson to Wickard, December 10, 1942, Nelson to Wickard, December 11, 1942, Forrestal to Wickard, December 15, 1942, and Wickard to Roosevelt, December 16, 1942, Food, S.C.

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despite FSA opposition, a natural and obvious choice. Hendrickson had run the USDA distributive bureau, the Agricultural Marketing Administration, with aggressive competence for over a year. His agile mind and his well-schooled proclivities for bureaucratic empire-building placed him far ahead of any other contenders for the position. He shook the Secretary's hand on the 10th and went eagerly to work. The selection of a Food Production chief was more difficult to make. As Wickard ran down the list of available candidates for the new post—Chester Davis, Jesse Tapp, Norris E. Dodd, Dillon S. Myer, Harry Schooler, Beanie Baldwin, Cliff Townsend, Fred Wallace—they all seemed to have fatal defects of questionable loyalty, too much strength and ambition, or too little ability. Before the food order was signed, Sam Bledsoe had suggested John B. Hutson. But when Hutson made it known that he would accept only if he could retain his presidency of the Commodity Credit Corporation, Wickard turned to the hero of the Denver goals meeting, Herbert W. Parisius. The Secretary had no idea that anyone else was promoting Pars, and the decision to name the former preacher was entirely Wickard's. On the morning of the 10th Wickard called Pars to his office and told the dumbfounded assistant, "You're it. You're the man." His orders were to reexamine both farm and Department operation and come up with ideas for an efficient organization which would produce more food. "We have to bring these elements together. That is the purpose of the food order, and you know how serious things are. So we are going to have to move and move rapidly." "One of our guys," said Pat Jackson, cheerfully clapping Pars on the back. No sooner had Parisius posed with the Secretary for newsreel pictures than both Wickard and Shields were seized with doubt about his appointment. Hedging his bet as best he could, Wickard promptly named Shields, T. Roy Reid, and Cameron

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Garman a committee of three to help Pars prepare his reorganization. If Pars had any intimation that he enjoyed less than Wickard's full confidence, he gave no sign of it as Jackson, Beanie Baldwin, and Pete Hudgens moved in to assist him.4 Wickard "consulted" with Leon Henderson and Justice Byrnes about rationing on Wednesday the 16th. Shortages of one food or another were appearing all over the United States. Rationing was an obvious necessity. The earliest that OPA could possibly have coupon books distributed and the public educated on their use would be February for canned fruits and vegetables, March for meats. Wickard quailed at the thought of a rationing education program. Each press mention of the word "ration" cleaned grocers' shelves of sugar and condiments. But the national chaos of immediate rationing was the alternative. Three months delay was unavoidable. Byrnes assigned Wickard the unhappy task of announcing the rationing program. Within six hours of the rationing meeting Leon Henderson announced his departure from OPA. Byrnes accepted his resignation without hesitation and named ex Senator Prentiss Brown to succeed him on January 20. To the business community and the press Henderson was the national whipping boy. Since it was now apparent that unforeseen agricultural needs and tardy rationing had brought a crisis in food, the continuance of unified price authority seemed unlikely. The OPA chief quit. Now that his enemy had fallen, Wickard could say with fervor that no other man could have done his impossible job as well. The Secretary had a sort of gritty admiration for Henderson's unabashed ability if not his colorful, posturing bluster, and he feared that with Henderson's leaving he, Wickard, would become the bull's eye in the target of public disdain. ' Wickard, Interviews, p. 2942; Cameron Gannan, Jackson, Parisius, Reid, and Shields, Interviews.

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While Wickard sat in Cabinet meeting on Thursday, dourly cautioning the President that distribution of food would get worse before it got better, Pars was explaining his reorganization plans to Shields. America would be divided into nine production areas similar in outline to the Farm Security regional districts. For his Deputy Administrator, Pars had come to the conclusion that Beanie Baldwin was best suited. Shields nodded in meaningless approbation, then hastened to warn Wickard that he had better find out what Parisius was doing. The Secretary is jittery and jumpy, thought Sam Bledsoe."' Parisius was sitting in his office working late the next afternoon when the Secretary asked him to come to the front office. Wickard, wheezing and coughing with the onslaught of a severe cold, focused his bleary eyes on Pars's outline and chart. The integration of field services into regional offices seemed sound enough. There was, perhaps, undue emphasis on farm credit. The administrative chart looked all right except for the name of Beanie Baldwin. He closed Pars's folder of papers wearily and told him to go ahead with field integration —but he could not use Baldwin as his Deputy Administrator." As soon as Pars left, Wickard was driven home to the Westchester Apartments in the Secretary's car. Louise called the doctor immediately. Burning with fever and choked with chest congestion, Wickard was in no shape to continue the pace of the past ten days. The doctor left orders that he was to remain at home in bed for at least a week—probably more. Shortly after Wickard rejected the Baldwin appointment, Pat Jackson was in Henry Wallace's office telling the Vice President all about it. Wickard, he said, was not strong enough to manage the Food Administratorship. If the Sec6 Parisius says Shields gave definite approval of the plan. Shields says he definitely disapproved the plan. Parisius and Shields, Interviews; Bledsoe, Diary, December 14, 1942. 'Wickard, Interviews, p. 2990; Parisius, Interviews; Parisius to Wickard ( n . d . ) , USDA History Unit Files.

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retary was to go all-out for "full production" he needed good men such as Parisius and, particularly, Beanie Baldwin. Pars was devoting ever)' day and many sleepless nights to the retooling of the USDA machine for "full production." Baldwin, Jackson, and others from the FSA office were with him constantly. On Monday the 21st, Parisius met with three efficiency experts from the Budget Bureau and the committee of three which Wickard had named to help him. Pars reported that "the plan was endorsed without qualification by everyone." 7 Two days before Christmas Shields and Bledsoe drove out to the Westchester to see the Secretary. They found him propped up in bed glaring at them from behind his abraded nose. Shields warned that Pars's plan was nothing more than a Baldwin scheme for FSA dominance of food production. Bledsoe added every detail he knew of the plot to save the Farm Security Administration. Parting outside the Westchester, Shields and Bledsoe shook their heads. Wickard gave the impression of a man who had little comprehension of what Parisius meant to do. The Wickards' Christmas was miserable. Claude gnawed his lips and knitted his problems. Louise, with her habitual cheerfulness, injected what little Yule spirit she could into the holidays. Betty was in Washington with her parents, but Bob Bryant was on naval patrol. Ann was in Pascagoula with Jean Pickart. Claude was immersed in his cold and his failing reorganization. He spent Christmas Day writing a speech and mulling interminably over the problem of Beanie Baldwin. To the Secretary, Baldwin was a powerful, untouchable millstone. He had strong White House backing and a large liberal following. On the other hand, Baldwin's name attached to a project before Congress provoked the rabid blindness of the Farm Bureau and the creeping conservatism of wartime 7 Garman, Parisius, Reid, Wallace, and Shields, Interviews; Parisius to Wickard, January 13, 1943, in Parisius Papers. The Parisius Papers are appended to Mr. Parisius's Oral History Project memoir, in the Special Collections Department of the Columbia University Libraries.

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legislators to cut or deny appropriations. Unless Wickard was prepared to lose whatever liberal support he thought he had, Baldwin had to b e placated. If the Secretary expected Congressional backing for his Food Administration, Baldwin had to b e neutralized. About nine o'clock on Christmas night Wickard got out of bed, put on his clothes, and drove in the freezing cold to Roy Hendrickson's home. "It's not coming through the way I'd planned at all," he told Hendrickson. Pars's show, dominated by FSA, simply wasn't getting off the ground. Would Roy accept Baldwin as a high-ranking administrator in Distribution if Wickard could get him to move out of FSA? Hendrickson was a seasoned administrative campaigner with all the toughness of his years, and he recognized in Baldwin a threatening, intractable rival. However, he gauged Wickard's extreme agitation against the improbability of Baldwin leaving FSA under any circumstances, and grudgingly agreed. Wickard called Baldwin from Hendrickson's house and said he wanted to talk with him. Baldwin told him to come on out. 8 Beanie

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Routed by a subordinate and unable to fire him, Wickard returned to the Westchester bearing only one very obvious generalization. 8 Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2969-76. Hendrickson, in his interview, said, "I don't remember agreeing to take Beanie Baldwin, but I'm very hazy about that. I know damned well I wouldn't have taken Baldwin."

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It was apparent to me that he was looking on the new reorganization of the Department as an opportunity to put the Farm Security Administration in almost complete charge of the production efforts in the field. . . . I left Baldwin feeling very much depressed not only because of this strife but because I could see the liberals of the administration getting 9 out their knives for me. Wickard's stillborn mission of Christmas night had done his cold no good. He awakened the morning of the 27th feeling much worse, barely able to talk, and scheduled for a nationwide rationing broadcast at 8:00 P.M. over all major networks. Throat sprays and a heavy medicinal dosage got Wickard to the USDA broadcasting booth. For those capable of understanding his short statistical section of the speech, Wickard foretold the startling triumph of farm production if current production goals were met. Despite the enormous drain on American food supplies by the armed services and the allied nations, civilians at home should have no less than 90 percent of all the eggs, milk, potatoes, and fresh vegetables, and well over 100 percent of all the red meat, poultry, citrus, and cereals they had eaten during the years 1935-39. No one would starve. Everyone must do without many of the foods they might want. Seeing that each person received his fair share of food depended upon proper distribution, and distribution had to be achieved by rationing. "Rationing" was the word heard from one end of the country to the other, not "plenty." 10 The attainment of current production goals was the business of Herbert Parisius. His accomplishments to date had consisted mainly of devising unacceptable administrative charts. On Christmas Eve, he too had retired to his home with a cold. Wickard, exasperated by the delay, thought it ' Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2976-77; Diary, December 28-30, 1942. 10 Wickard, Diary, December 31, 1942; "The Nation's Food S u p p l y Rationing," December 27, 1942, in Wickard Papers.

Above: the Secretary confers with Herbert W. Parisius, Director of Food Production (left), and Roy F. Hendrickson, Director of Food Distribution. Below: a speech to the nation, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Vice President Henry A. Wallace.

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was time for an understanding with Pars, and he went to the ex-pastor's house around nine o'clock the night of the 28th. For five hours the two men talked. At last, Wickard comprehended the full scope of Pars's proposed reorganization. Unwittingly Parisius had allowed himself to be so influenced by the apostles of FSA that his plan was the complete implementation of "full production" according to the liberals' definition. Howard Tolley's figures were the commandments of the new religion. They showed that medium and large-sized farms were producing about all they could. Any production increase must come from small farms. The family-sized farmer, having no ready cash, needed non-recourse loans for the purchase of stock and equipment with which to grow the piojected increase. Since the Farm Credit Administration made no such loans, it would be necessary to centralize USDA credit functions in order that FSA could have access to money with which it could make nonrecourse loans under its supervised credit facilities. Dividing the country into nine regions, more or less coterminous with the twelve FSA regions would, according to Pars, relegate all the nearly autonomous agencies of the USDA to the single task of war production. Fewer regions, by-passing the four regions and fortyeight state organizations of the immense Triple-A organization, as well as the Soil Conservation and Farm Credit Districts, would provide a more efficient, highly streamlined administration at lower cost with less personnel. Since small-farmer credit and farm labor, both of primary concern to FSA, were the keystones of Pars's plan, it seemed reasonable to him that Beanie Baldwin should play a leading role in the new regime. Contrary to the suspicions of Baldwin, Hudgens, and Jackson, Claude Wickard believed sincerely in the aims of the FSA. The broadest possible democratic base in rural society could be had only through the broadest possible economic well-being of small farmers. Helping the small farmer through supervised credit to become a responsible producer was good

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citizenship and good business. Keeping the family-sized farm from being swallowed up by large landholders made sense to Wickard so long as the little farmer was not a continuing public liability. But, at some point (who could say exactly where), this practice of aiding the little man in 1942 became "social reform" during wartime. Yes, it was true that industrial corporations were making huge profits. So were some of the great corporation-owned farms. But these were mammoth pools of assured productive resource. A million tiny farms also represented an enormous productive potential, but it was far from certain. During a war, Wickard reasoned, you put your chips on a sure winner, not on a 20-to-l shot. That nonrecourse loans would raise the production and living standards of many small farmers could not b e doubted; that small farmer increases would be commensurate in amount to the tax money expended was dubious. Had all other considerations been equal, Parisius's plan had great administrative merit. But Pars's astonishing naïveté blinded him to the blunt fact that all other considerations could not be ignored. His "full production" scheme was perilous nonsense designed by Baldwin primarily to save the life of the Farm Security Administration. Farm Bureau attacks on the FSA had increased in intensity. No one knew how much longer Wickard or anyone else could forestall the day when Congress would cut off the magnificent New Deal project altogether. Baldwin saw a chance to so enmesh the programs of the FSA with the war effort that Congress could not possibly separate the two. By making Parisius and his Food Production Administration a captive of FSA, Baldwin hoped to realign the field administration so that no single USDA agency would be all-powerful. He sought to combine the credit resources of the Department into one till, so that FSA would have equal access to it. His aim was to place sufficient accent on "full production" so that FSA clients would become integral parts of all USDA programs. Whether Baldwin was playing for the life of the FSA, continued aid to the less fortunate, or personal

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power for himself, his gambit was well planned and stood in a fair way of succeeding. Baldwin knew Wickard's Farm Bureau and Congressional support was weak. From court gossip brought in by Pat Jackson, he learned that Byrnes had opposed Wickard's appointment as Food Administrator. If the Secretary's grasp on the Department was this uncertain, reasoned Baldwin, he would not risk anything which would cause unfavorable publicity. The moment that Claude Wickard appointed Parisius, he set and armed the booby trap which could wreck his Food Administration. The only flaw in Baldwin's web was his over-estimation of Wickard's tactical sagacity. The Secretary had no idea of the snare which lay ahead of him. 11 Unaware that her father was facing a crisis in the Department of Agriculture, Ann Wickard arrived in Washington on the 29th from Pascagoula intent on her own problems. Through her mind ran a single perplexing theme: My dad always said, and my mother agreed with him, that a girl should have a college degree if possible and should also be able to work so they could earn their living in case of necessity. This didn't seem reasonable to me. I wanted to get married. Ordinarily it probably would have seemed reasonable to me, but at that time Jean was in the Navy and, for all I knew, he was going overseas, and, well. . . . Louise was dismayed at the thought of upsetting Claude with this on top of everything else. Both she and Ann knew how he would react. Wickard's show of temper and earnest preach11 Wickard, Diary, January 1 2 - 2 0 , 1943; Interviews, pp. 2 9 8 4 - 3 0 6 3 ; Parisius to Wickard, December 28, J 942, in Wickard Papers; Parisius to Wickard, January 13, 1943, in Parisius Papers; Bledsoe, Hamilton, Hendrickson, Hudgens, Hutson, Jackson, Jarrett, Parisius, Salisbury, Shields, Tolley, Webster, and Williams, Interviews. "The Story of Parisius," in Gardner Jackson Papers, was read by the author with interest. An anonymous, mimeographed, undocumented administrative "case study" used at Amherst College, it purports to demonstrate that behind the strife surrounding Pars's plan was conflict between the "Restrictionist" Triple-A and the "Expansionist" FSA. The author of the "Story" made the error of relying too much on the lacerated memory of Mr. Parisius, whom he apparently had interviewed. The Jackson Papers are in the possession of Gardner Jackson, Washington, D.C.

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ments availed him nothing against the determination of his daughter. Louise, sympathetic to both daughter and husband, mediated. Several wretched days of argument brought an unhappy compromise: Ann could marry Jean Pickart in February if she promised to commute between Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Lafayette, Indiana, to complete her college degree at Purdue. Claude knew his impossible terms were little more than face-saving capitulation, but he could not deny Ann his blessing on the most important choice of her life. 12 Within the USDA too there was a subtle leakage of Wickard's authority. When Shields was forced out of action by illness, Sam Bledsoe had moved back into the pivotal administrative position. Never pretending to have the administrative genius of Paul Appleby, Bledsoe had kept the USDA internal organization rocking along without undue grinding of gears until the two-week period following the food order. His slipshod inattention to detail, however, had long since released the competitive urges of the large administrators. Teamwork, always more practiced within each agency than between agencies, was now a nearly forgotten ideal. For those men in the upper echelons of Agriculture who remembered the spirit of common purpose permeating most of the New Deal, the Department had become a sorry place to work. Able economist Preston Richards waived draft deferment rather than stay in the USDA. Morse Salisbury, Wickard's information chief and long-time press advisor, was looking for another job. Mordecai Ezekiel and Louis Bean had asked to be loaned elsewhere. And there were many others. To Secretarial assistant Stanley Williams it seemed that the Department was drifting out of control. His love of order prompted him to do something about it. Shortly after Christmas he and Cameron Garman drafted a Secretary's Memorandum which would create an "administrative assistant" to the 13 Wickard, Diary, December 31, 1942; Interviews, pp. Louise Wickard and Ann Pickart, Interviews.

3048-51;

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Secretary similar in function to Bill Jump's idea of the career assistant secretary. It envisioned a man above both party and Departmental politics, whose management of the USDA internal machinery would free the Secretary for policy decisions. Two days after Christmas they carried their proposal to Jump himself and asked him to take the position if the Secretary would assent to it. Jump's reply was characteristic: "I'm not a seeker and I don't want it. I don't think it will ever come to pass. I've got a pain in my stomach and I don't know what it is, and I've got to go to the hospital to have an operation, but if you can get that signed, I'll go along with it." Jump's eyes wavered momentarily. The pain in his stomach he knew was pancreatic cancer. Williams and Garman took the memo to Bledsoe. Sam discussed the matter without enthusiasm in the Budget Bureau and the whole thing was dropped. 13 Up and down the Mall there were uneasy glances toward Agriculture. A colleague in difficulty left strong men poised in doubt. Beanie Baldwin and Howard Tolley dropped in for a purposeful chat with Wallace on the 30th. It was absolutely essential that the USDA gear itself for full production, they said, but Wickard's fear of the Farm Bureau was causing him to hold back. Baldwin told how he had spent four hours with the Secretary talking about the need for an all-out full production program. 14 It seemed to Wickard that the President was very tired during the final Cabinet session of the year. The first half of the meeting was taken up with a discussion by Cordell Hull about U.S.-British affairs in North Africa. When the President asked me to report I brought out that I was going to have to go before Congress to ask for more Lend Lease funds. I pointed out that wc not only have food shortages and rationing in prospect in this country but we also are approaching the British level of diet. . . . At this juncture the Vice President asked me if I had made all the decisions " Williams, Interviews.

" Wallace, Interviews.

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for 1943 farm production which would bring about maximum production. 1 said I didn't know how to get more without having more machinery, labor, etc., made available. The President spoke up to say that he was getting tired of having people blame the draft when no farm boys were being drafted. I tried to get an opportunity to tell him all farm boys were not being deferred but he continued by telling me that he didn't think we had an adequate farm labor program and he said we were going to use more boys and girls and that we would also have to get a Woman's Land Army organized. . . . I said that the British only had 30,000 women in the land army and I was positive we had relatively more women working on farms in this country. The President disagreed with me by saying on the basis of acreage he thought the British were using more women. It was evident to me that the President and others were getting an unfavorable report on the conduct of the Dept.'s activities. 1 suspicioned that some of these reports are coming from the so-called liberal group who are dissatisfied because I won't turn over the administration of the Dept. to them. 1 found later that I was not far wrong when the President sent me a copy of a memo he had received the day before Cabinet meeting from Lach Carrie in criticism of our production efforts.™ Lauehlin Currie was one of the President's "anonymous advisors." His farm expertness was slight; his interest in agriculture sudden. Currie and Pat Jackson's good friend Wayne Coy occupied adjoining offices in the Budget Bureau. Not one of the suggestions which Currie listed in his memorandum to the President (raised goals, instigation of new labor and production programs, a woman's land army, fully-producing familysized farms, straight line organization) was in any way prejudicial to the Bald win-Par isi us plan. Henry Wallace followed up his pointed Cabinet queries Wickard, Diary, December 31, 1942; January 6 - 7 , 1943; Wallace, Interviews.

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about full production with a telephone call to the Secretary on New Year's Day. Would Mr. Wickard be kind enough to send him the latest figures on available food supplies, and would he kindly appear in the Vice President's office on January 4 for a discussion of the Lend-Lease question? Wickard sent him the figures that afternoon and, at 10:00 o'clock Monday morning he joined several other men whom he did not know around the Vice President's desk. Lend-Lease was only the bait which sheathed the barb. He immediately began discussing the question as to whether we were doing our utmost to produce food. I rather resented having a committee appointed to investigate this problem and I also was a little provoked to have him appoint a committee to investigate food distribution. I felt that I hadn't got started on my new food order before I was being investigated. The VP rather accused me of being defensive and insisted on going ahead.16 Short of suggesting that the Secretary of Agriculture be summarily fired by the President, Wallace's investigation was the strongest lack-of-confidence move which could have been made. Neither Roosevelt nor Byrnes had any warning that the Vice President would do such a thing. Baldwin's extraordinarily effective campaign to force Wickard to "liberalize" the production program threatened now to unseat the Secretary altogether. For three days the Vice President's investigators rummaged through statistical records in Wickard's office while the Secretary buried his apprehension and wounded pride in a full schedule of meetings. Early Thursday afternoon Wickard reported to Wallace's office to learn the results of the probe. Roy Hendrickson and Byrnes (at Wickard's request), Stettinius and Dean Acheson were there. For the entire afternoon Wallace shot questions at Wickard and Hendrickson about production and distribution. "Are you getting all you can?" he asked 10

Wickard, Diary, January 7 - 8 , 1943.

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repeatedly. "The need is going to be terrific. Are you getting all you can?" Wickard's affirmative replies apparently fitted the information uncovered by Wallace's investigators. The Vice President was satisfied. He said the distribution report would be helpful in forthcoming Lend-Lease testimony. The production report he thought ought to be somewhat modified, then taken up with Byrnes "to see if a useful purpose might not be served by having the various Cabinet members sign it—and the President approve it—so as to make an administration policy." Nothing of the sort was ever done. The two reports disappeared from sight and Wallace forgot his investigation. But the damage was done. No one else in government circles forgot it. 17 "The internal situation here is bad," said Bledsoe. "Parisius has proved a disappointment. The New Dealers are spreading poison. At last I have risen to the place where I am worthy of their notice. 1 am somewhat disgusted and am looking around for something else." 18 Parisius had been back at work for two days when, early the morning of January 8, he was called to the Secretary's office. Wickard said, "Look at this Pars," and handed him a copy of the Washington Post. Centered on page 1 Parisius could sec the headlines: FOOD SYSTEM DELAY LAID TO WICKARD—SECRETARY CHARGED WITH FAILURE TO C O M P L E T E ORDER FOR REORGANIZATION. Wickard watched Pars carefully as he read reporter Ben Gilbert's one-sided, FSA-slanted analysis of the USDA conflict between "those in the Department who believe that our food production goals are not high enough versus those who feel that present goals are adequate." Parisius, wrote 17 Robert L. Webster, Diary, January 4, 1943; Hendrickson, Interviews; Wickard to Wallace, January 1, 1943, Agl. Adj. Program 4 - 2 , S.C.; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 2997-3012; Lauchlin Currie to Roosevelt, December 30, 1942, in Roosevelt Correspondence; Roosevelt to Wickard, December 30, 1942, ibid.; Fitzgerald to Bledsoe, January 8, 1943, Record Croup 16, Office of Agricultural War Relations, General Correspondence 1943, Director; Wickard to Roosevelt, February 11, 1943, Agl. Adj. Program 4-2, S.C.; Bledsoe, Hamilton, and Jackson, Interviews. ,a Bledsoe, Diary, December 31, 1942; January 4, 1943.

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Gilbert, had a plan ready "some time ago" but Wickard had failed to act on it. "Newspaper talk," shrugged Pars, tossing the paper back on Wickard's desk. His open face gave no hint that he knew the source of the article. Wickard eyed him narrowly, quick with the dreaded certainty of what he must do. Whether it was Pars or Pat Jackson, the FSA had gone too far. Wickard's second guess was correct. "It wasn't intended to blow Parisius out of the water at all," Pat said later. "All I had in mind when I gave it to Gilbert was a straight out story critical of Wickard. This is a perfectly true story of what was going on there." 19 Parisius presented Wickard with his final plans on Monday, the 11th. In spite of the Secretary's continued gentle refusals, Pars's basic ideas on reorganization remained the same. He first wanted to centralize all USDA credit facilities under Beanie Baldwin. "No," said Wickard. Congress would not grant funds to any project administered by Baldwin, but if Pars wanted to combine credit functions under a Farm Credit Administration man he could go ahead. Next, Pars wanted nonrecourse loans on livestock for small farmers. "No," said Wickard. An ignorant farmer could maltreat his cow or let his hogs run under the fence. The scandal which might result from nonrecourse livestock loans could bring down the whole administration. However, nonrecourse crop loans would be all right. Parisius rose from his chair, his voice shaking with righteous indignation. "If you aren't any more interested in getting production than that, if you're going to be a glassy-eyed banker, I'm through!" Wickard's jaw tightened, but he kept his control and Pars calmed down. The last point was the reorganization of the field forces to do away with the War Boards and the Triple-A Committees. "No," said Wickard for the third time. The War Boards and Triple-A Committees served the medium and large farmers who produced 90 percent of everything grown. They had been responsible " Jackson and Parisius, Interviews; Washington Post, January 8, 1943.

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for breaking all production records thus far, and they would so continue. Tearing up those organizations in the middle of a war would be suicidal insanity. However, Pars could go ahead with reorganization plans on the Washington level so long as all FSA coloring was kept out of it. When Pars left, the Secretary sat at his desk, running one massive hand over the other— A glassy-eyed banker! Wickard called Byrnes early Tuesday morning. I knew it was going to be an explosion and 1 wanted to warn him about what was going on. Byrnes was a little disturbed— and I was too—to have something blow up in your face before you even got the thing going. I think he just expressed a little uneasiness and seemed pretty sober about it. Apparently I had just picked somebody I shouldn't have. Bledsoe shook his head. "The Secretary fumbles and bumbles." 2 0 That afternoon one of Wickard's assistants called Parisius. "Hold on to your chair," he told him, "the Secretary has decided to turn the entire credit matter over to Governor Black. He has made up his mind and this is final." On Wednesday, while Wickard and Cliff Town5end were lunching together in the Secretary's office, Justice Byrnes was talking with Marvin Jones at the Capitol. Wickard's food administration had bogged down and Bymes needed an agricultural assistant in the Stabilization Office. Would Jones accept the position? Jones said he would see if he could get a leave of absence from the Court of Claims. Parisius was at home Wednesday night, agonizing over a letter to the Secretary. "You have made your final decision," ran his second draft. "This decision is, of course, completely in line with the happenings of the last month. I regret very Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3 0 1 3 - 2 3 , Parisius, Interviews; Parisius to Wickard, January 13, 1943, in Parisius Papers; Wickard, Diary, January 1 2 - 2 0 , 1943; Webster, Diarv, Januarv 11, 1943; Bledsoe Diary, January 11, 1943.

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much that I must place the complete responsibility for this move on your shoulders. There remains no other way. Upon your request, I shall sign, at once, the necessary papers making my resignation official and formal." Then he went to bed without signing it. 21 On Thursday afternoon Wickard invited Jack Hutson in once more to offer him the Food Production job. "I feel just like I did last time, Claude," Hutson told him, "that I'd rather continue the work of Commodity Credit. But 111 tell you what I'll do. You have Cliff Townsend here. He is very highly regarded out in the corn belt. I know he makes a very good talk, and if you will put him in this job—to front for it—111 move my office over if he wants me to, and do what I can on the internal administration." 2 2 That night Pat Jackson and Paul Sifton of the Farmers' Union went to Pars's home. No indeed he didn't ask us to come out—we just went. Pars was obviously a very miserable guy. Paul and I just wouldn't let him talk. We just lectured to him that he could save his soul, and he could call his soul his own, if he just couldn't possibly stay on any longer. Did he want to resign? Well, we had to work hard to make him agree that this is what he really ought to do—resign! Then we finally got down to the business of the statement that we had brought out already written, and going over that with him, and finally getting him to agree to most of it. 23 Carl Hamilton wrote Pars a letter telling him that Wickard wanted him to accept one of the top War Board jobs. Instead of mailing the letter, Carl decided to drive out the morning of the 15th and deliver it himself. From the moment he arrived it was apparent that Pars was determined not only to resign but to do it with a flourish. "Don't do this to Claude," Carl begged him. "Please don't make a public issue of this thing. 11 Parisius to Wickard, January 13, 1943, in Parisius Papers; Jones and Parisius, Interviews. " Hutson, Interviews. " Jackson, Interviews.

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Now let's plead illness—that that's why you're stepping out— not because there's this difference." Pars's resolve had stiffened during the night. I will not do that kind of dishonest thing. Sure I'm sick. But that isn't it. Don't blame onto sickness something that is cooked up somewhere or other and through some one or other and that has brought about a parting of the ways. I can't go on. And a position in Agriculture is simply impossible, not because of pride, but I suppose pride has something to do with it, but when you get into an untenable position, you don't perpetuate that. You don't let them stick you in an office somewhere and live on gratuities. No self-respecting, decent person would do that.

Carl Hamilton returned to the Department with a copy of Pars's resignation. He knew what he would find in the Washington Star that night—PARISIUS ASKS SUCCESSOR TO OUST " M O N E Y LENDERS WITH C.I.ASS EYES"—but the press blast lasted only a day or two. Pars, betrayed by his naïveté, forsaken by his FSA friends, and mangled emotionally by his thirty-six days as Food Production Administrator, dropped into obscurity. Cliff Townsend, backed by Hutson, became the new production chief, confirming Baldwin, Hudgens, and Jackson in their belief that Wickard would sooner or later sell out to the Farm Bureau. "In my opinion Wickard deliberately decided to let Farm Security get killed," said Pete Hudgens. "He deliberately decided! We didn't have a friend. We didn't have a friend!" Wickard learned during the day that Marvin Jones had begun work in Byrnes's office. The Secretary applauded. No longer would he have to suffer the smart intellectual arrogance of Byrnes's assistant Ed Prichard, whose savage mimicry of the Secretary made Wickard the butt of every corn-fed gag in the White House. Jones would not be one of Pat Jackson's "guys" and he could be depended upon to understand both farming and Wickard's difficulties with Congress. Desperately clinging to the one bright thought of an incredibly dismal day, the Secretary tramped wearily out of the Department of

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Agriculture into the leaden gloom of Washington winter to his waiting car. 24 At home that evening the Wickards were sitting in their living room talking when the telephone rang. It was New York calling. Louise answered. It was Bob's father. His son was at sea—Betty had been stricken with acute appendicitis—he had rushed her to the hospital—they were operating now. . . . Louise caught the midnight train to New York. Claude stayed by the telephone through the morning hours, held three perfunctory conferences at his office in the forenoon, and left for New York at 2 : 0 0 o'clock. (Senator Harry Truman complained to Vice President Wallace that Wickard had apparently left town in a deliberate effort to avoid testifying on the manpower situation.) By the time Claude reached Betty's bedside she was groggy from anaesthetic but out of danger. Her father was prayerfully relieved, but Betty's deliverance had brought to a climax the punishing tensions of the past five weeks. Louise wired to regret her inability to attend a White House luncheon and remained in New York with Betty. Claude re21 Hamilton to Parisius, January 14, 1943, Parisius to Wickard, January 15, 1943, Wickard to Parisius, January 15, 1943, and statement by H. W. Parisius, January 17, 1943, in Parisius Papers; Wickard, Interviews, p. 3069; Bledsoe, Hamilton, Hudgens, Jackson, Jones, Parisius, and Shields, Interviews; Spade, January 22, 1943; Time, January 25, 1943; Wallaces' Farmer, January 16, 1943; Washington Star, January 16 and January 24, 1943. Mr. Parisius went overseas with Governor Lehman's relief organization a few months after leaving the USDA, acting with great courage and distinction under enemy fire in North Africa. At the end of the war he held a minor position in the Department of Commerce under Henry Wallace, and soon thereafter he retired from public service. Herbert Parisius's astuteness during the winter of 1942—43 may be questioned, but his personal motivations were of the highest order. Despite certain matters which the author has taken it upon himself to deem errors in judgment, Mr. Baldwin too was on the whole an able and dedicated public servant. It has been said that certain employees of the Department were Communists during some of the period covered. In so far as these charges were aimed at high-ranking officials they have never been proven, and the persons involved were by and large effective in performing their duties and acted in the best interests of the Department during their tenure.

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turned alone to Washington on the 18th, dispirited and unable to sleep. The continuum of his home life had been broken at an unfortunate moment. Had Louise been there, household chores would have been attended to as no maid could possibly do them. Menus would have been planned with care to tempt his lagging appetite. The multitude of little ways in which Louise complemented his life he began to appreciate by their absence. To his diary he confided a sense of fate and his wrathful hatred of the "so-called extreme liberals" who he assumed were determined to destroy him. And then he resolved to act. 25 Wickard called Sam Bledsoe into his office on January 23. Their conversation was brief and to the point. "Do you want to fire Pat Jackson?" "Yes," Sam answered slowly, "I want to fire Pat Jackson." "You fire him." Bledsoe called the personnel chief and told him what he wanted. The personnel man, fearfully aware of that bible of government employment, the Civil Service Regulations, cleared his throat and said, "Well. . . "Listen," Bledsoe barked, "I didn't bring you in here for a lecture on the Civil Service. If you don't know how to get rid of him, I'll get somebody who does." Personnel returned soon afterward with the documents neatly drawn and signed for the abolition of Jackson's job. Grimly clutching the folder of papers, Bledsoe motioned for Pat Jackson to follow him into the small office next to Appleby's. There he handed him the dismissal. "What you have been doing in this, if I had had my way, you would have been fired long ago. You're always boasting about the people you know at the White House, aren't you? Take your case up there. You're wasting your damn fool time with me." " W i c k a r d , Diary, January 24, 1943; Interviews, p. 3051; Louise Wickard, Interviews; Henry Wallace, Interviews

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"I don't suppose it's necessary to ask if the Secretary would change his mind?" "No, he won't change his mind." Sam appeared to have relished the task. "Nobody wanted any part of Mr. Jackson and so I had to do it . . . I thought he had it coming to him." No one in the office disagreed that Pat had it coming, but Bledsoe admitted to the disagreeableness of the deed only privately— "An unpleasant experience," he wrote on January 24, "and one that made me resolve to work my way to freedom." It was a cruel blow for Pat Jackson. His very selflessness and genuine decency had, for a second time, led him to assume the motives of others were as pure as his own. The Tightness and humanity of his cause had again separated in his mind the Means from the End. I certainly did not think that I was dynamiting Claude Wickard. I don't know about Beanie. Certainly as far as I go, there was no wanting to undo Wickard as Wickard at all. I had no personal feeling about him other than I had no means of communication with him actually. I'm sure that the motivation as far as I experienced it was purely the business of "We can help the small against the big and, at the same time, help production." It's running against all the realities—it's romantic—but the small against the big was essentially it. And this is really what it was. 26 Although the constant press of work in the Secretary's office continued, recovery from the upsetting Jackson episode was slow as the reins of administrative authority fell slack. Wickard, thrashing about in the mire of his bogged production drive, was becoming more suspicious, more insistent that everything of importance pass through his own hands. Hutson and Hendrickson were going in to see the Secretary with papers in their pockets, and coming out of his office with Wickard's signature on them. John Thurston and Stanley Williams ran a check on outstanding Secretary's Memoranda and found con* Jackson, Interviews; Bledsoe, Interviews; Bledsoe, Diary, January 24, 1943.

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flict and duplication in more than fifty percent of them. "Our whole internal situation still seems very bad to me," commented Lyle Webster. "Sam Bledsoe doesn't seem to be as aggressive as usual and our office doesn't seem to be on top of the work of the Department. Maybe we can pull out of it." 2 7 President Roosevelt returned from his surprise flight to North Africa. On Friday, February 5, he described the trip to his Cabinet.

He said that it was absolutely necessary for him to go to Africa. . . . He said that the American and British staffs had not decided on the 1943 Campaign and that it seemed impossible for them to do so without getting them together under his and ChurchilTs personal watching. He said that they did work a plan for 1943 at Casablanca. He also said that it was agreed that Churchill would look after Turkey and that he would look after China. He said that the military people had not included action in China until his insistence that planes be made available . . . The President indicated we would have [to] take more direct action against Japan than retaking island by island. Roosevelt asked the Secretary of Agriculture to remain after Cabinet. When everyone else had left the room, the President turned to Wickard and requested that he put Pat Jackson back on the payroll.

I told the President Jackson was intolerable. The President said no one was intolerable, because some use could be found for him. I replied that the only use Jackson ever was was to feed the columnists like Drew Pearson. I said he never did any work, that I took him back in the Department after Wallace had fired him because I was told that he wouldn't be there but a short time because he would be given a job elsewhere. . . . I said, "Pat Jackson's a troublemaker to me. He's caused trouble in my Department." The President kept on insisting, but the more he insisted, the more I resisted. I argued with him equally * Webster, Diary, January 27, 1943; Williams, Interv iews.

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violently. I didn't realize that I got as loud as I did. I simply told him I couldn't do it. If he had said, "Either you do it or get out," I'd have gotten out. Of course I would have. It was that serious. . . . I suppose that [I] should have been less vehement in my remarks, but if I had let the President force Jackson back on me I would have lost the respect of many people in Washington, particularly the newspaper men who used Jackson as a source of information. I also would have appeared to have lost my fight with the extreme liberals who have been trying to bring about my downfall ever since I have taken steps not to their liking. I hope this, my first little tiff with the President, has ended.2* "Wickard, Diary, February 8 - 9 , 1943; March 15-16, 1943; Interviews, pp. 3132-38.

17: Full Production I knew that it was going to be impossible to avoid criticism, because there just wasn't enough food to go around, and the American people had never had that experience. When I say there wasn't enough food to go around, I didn't mean anyone was going to starve. It just meant they weren't going to have the same diet they'd had before. Butter was going to be rationed. We knew it. Red meats were going to be hard to obtain. Fats and oils were going to be scarce. Canned goods were going to disappear off the shelves. Sugar was going to be hard to get and rationed. In January of 1943 we were facing the most acute situation that America had ever faced so far as food was concerned, and there was almost hysteria on the part of the American consumers.1 Two years earlier, nearly everyone but Chester Davis and Henry Wallace had said Wickard was insane for trying to increase production while the Ever-Normal Granary bulged with surplus. One year before, Wickard's request to produce food stockpiles was blocked by both Congress and the President. By January, 1943, so great was the demand for food that no conceivable amount of production could satisfy it. Good weather combined with Wallace's Granary, Wickard's planning, and the farmers' hard work had produced bumper crops for two years in a row—the greatest per capita farm output the nation had ever known. Neither Wickard nor anyone else had foreseen that wages would rise to a point where most Americans could afford to buy every food that suited their taste; that the United States would mount and feed an army of eleven million men; that Britain and Russia would in one year receive 'Wickard, Inteniews, pp. 3034-35.

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through Lend-Lease 2 billion pounds of meat, over 700 million pounds of dairy products, 187 million pounds of grain and cereal, and well over 60 million pounds of fruit and vegetables. And now that the food pinch had come, Secretary Wickard was in grave difficulty. Wallace raised the question: Had the Secretary achieved "full production?" Wickard truthfully answered "Yes," and the Vice President's investigation had not contradicted him. Nothing had happened during the past year to change Wickard's idea that farmers, like most other businessmen, would respond to the call of patriotism with greater alacrity when there was cash on the drumhead. Roosevelt's policy and menacing inflation allowed only one possible price-raising mechanism—the agrarian-hated subsidy. Scanning his 1943 goals, Wickard discovered that he had erred twice; he had underestimated the need for high-protein livestock feeds, and it was now apparent that more beans and potatoes would be needed for human consumption as substitutes for scarce meat and dairy products. To pay for increased production of beans and potatoes, the Secretary found ample justification for using Section 32 funds which were earmarked for promoting increased domestic consumption of farm products—a tacit admission that these were indeed consumer subsidies. But in subsidizing oil-bearing crops for livestock feed, he needed an enormous Congressional appropriation which would mean an endless debate over the merits of "parity in the marketplace," likely to last until planting season was past. Rather than risk facing the Farm Bloc with an open question, Wickard went to Byrnes and Marvin Jones with the proposal that he first announce the new program, then ask Congress for the money. Byrnes and Jones agreed and Wickard returned to the Department for a press conference in which he proclaimed an "Incentive Payments" program for increasing farm production. Bonuses of between $8 and $30 per acre in the needed crops would be paid for exceeding the assigned goals. "All rates of

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payments under the 1943 agricultural conservation program are, of course, dependent upon the actual amount of appropriations by Congress." As I expected the press in a number of instances called the payments "subsidies." Byrnes did not like this and called me to ask the press to call them "incentive payments." I pointed out that some had used this term. He also said that the farm organizations did [not] like it because I did not notify them. I said time did not permit. I could have said that they would not have approved anyway. As I was afraid, Congress seems to [be] very critical and I am sure that I am in for some real trouble trying to get appropriations to cover the plan.2 Clarence Cannon, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, let the Secretary wonder what was going to happen for two weeks. Then he hailed Wickard before a gathering of his subcommittee and started to work on the "incentive payments." "We were not consulted before you committed the Government, were we?" "No, Sir." "You have committed the Government to the payments and then come down to us and said, 'We promised the farmers this and you have to appropriate for it.'" "No, Sir. I didn't feel that I was obligated to, and, in the second place, we had arrived at the time when I had to make a decision as to whether we were going to try to increase production or not." "We were right here to be consulted," Cannon reminded him, "you could have called us on the phone and we would have been glad to have welcomed you at any time on 30 minutes notice. . . . But now then, the real reason you are coming in here and asking for this $125,000,000 is not that you want to subsidize the producers but you want to subsidize the consumers." • Wickard, Diaiy, February 1, 1943; USDA Press Release, Januarv 26, 1943

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"No, Sir. We want to increase production to carry on the war. "It is to prevent raising the prices to the consumer, that is the real reason in back of this." "You are stating an opinion which is not mine," replied the Secretary. "I am stating it as a self-evident fact and not as your opinion. . . . You could very easily secure the same effect by permitting the natural law of supply and demand to become operative. All you have to do is turn the thing loose. . . ." Of course, much of the feeling on the hill is generated by the farm bloc which wants to obtain increases in farm prices. They have bitterly assailed the administration including me for not letting prices advance to consumers because [the] laborer's income has increased so much. I share their opinion that the industrial workers can pay a lot more for food than at present. But of course I cannot come out in the open to make such a statement because of the criticism I would receive from the White House for not standing by the President's policies. Of course I am sincerely trying to keep down inflation and hope that the administration succeeds, but 1 am of the opinion labor is receiving better income than the farmer.3 Weakened by his ambivalence on "parity in the marketplace," and caught in the crossfire between a "fundamentally agrarian" farm bloc and a "labor-loving" President, the Secretary of Agriculture was forced to appeal for war food production on a basis of nothing more than "Please." Within the next few days Congress rejected not only his "incentive" appropriation, but also his request for funds to carry out an effective farm labor program. Despite the fact that he had admittedly underestimated the 1943 production goals to a minor extent, Wickard's difficulties 'Ibid., March 1, 1943; Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., February 12, 1943; Webster, Diary, February 19, 1943; Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3113-20.

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in January were not a result of faulty production planning; they stemmed from his inability to coordinate all phases of agriculture simultaneously. He knew what had to be done and he had said so. But the fact was that new machinery could not be had for any price and parts to repair the old went for extortionate prices. Fertilizer and livestock feeds were scarce. Distribution of available food supplies had been fouled badly by OPA's dilatory establishment of rationing. American housewives were hoarding everything they could get their hands on. British and Russian Lend-Lease purchasers, hearing of the possibility that U.S. production might not match the demand, suddenly found shipping space for foods which hitherto had been used for other materials. The British became so alarmed that Roosevelt had to cable Churchill his personal assurances that their food rations would not be cut.4 The steady beat of press criticism against Secretary Wickard began to be reflected in the councils of government. The prestige which clothed his office took on the threadbare sheen of shiny serge as the clamor gained momentum. He faced the arrogant disrespect of the junior members of Byrnes's staff every time he entered the White House. The contumely shown him on the Hill bordered on outright indignity. Cotton Ed Smith, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, baited the Secretary without mercy. At a food supply hearing on February 16 he drawled out his contempt: "Mr. Secretary, let me ask you, what do you consider the most important, the sine qua non of our winning this war . . . ?" "You want me to say 'food'?" "No, I want you to tell the truth. I don't give a darn what you say." (Laughter.) 5 As Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, John 4 Roosevelt to Churchill, March 20, 1943, Combined Food Board, Correspondence and Reports 1941—44, National Arcliives, Washington, D.C.; Boosevelt to Wickard, January 6, 1943, in Wickard Papers. ' Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, U.S. Senate, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., February 16, 1943.

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Bankhead's treatment of Wickard differed from Smith's only in its acrid subtlety. Quizzing the Secretary on the labor situation, he appeared to be politeness itself. "Have you anything further you can tell us about your plans and the preparations you have made, or the progress or the failure to make progress? I know you have failed to make progress at the House. Just tell us now, as all being interested in the same proposition, as we are." "All right," answered Wickard. "Since I appeared before you a month ago, I have become increasingly alarmed about our inability to get enough farm labor to reach the goals we have established for farm production this year. I am more alarmed today than I was yesterday, and so on." "You have reached the point that some of us originally occupied." 6 From the corn belt, field information man Porter Hedge reported the Secretary's popularity was at its lowest point since he took office. "The hell of it is," said Hedge, "the Secretary is blamed for about everything." "He's the 'Food Czar.' Why hasn't he rationed meal? Why hasn't he obtained deferrment for essential farm workers? If we need so much more food, why hasn't he seen to it that we have had the machinery to produce it with?" And so on ad infinitum. This type of criticism comes principally from the professional type of critic, but there has been so much of it fanners have become confused, too. But that's enough of the dark side. This doesn't mean that farmers are going to fall down on 1943 production. Opinion generally seems to be that farmers are going to do their best to exceed their goals; that this year's production will exceed last.

Hedge's comment bore testimony to the curious anomaly that, although Wickard's personal staff swarmed with former newspapermen who were presumably experts in public relations, the American people were still unaware that OPA continued to handle rationing, that the War Manpower Commission had " Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee U.S. Senate, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., March 2, 1943.

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responsibility for deferring farm workers, and that only the WPB could allocate steel for machinery.7 Nevertheless, Wickard's mail from the plain citizens of rural communities showed that many fanners were still behind him. For every letter such as one he received from Omaha, Nebraska ("Dear Sir; I see from the papers there is talk of throwing you out on your ear. I hope they do. And the AAA programme on top of you. Yours respectfully."), Wickard drew four others imploring him, "For God's sake! stay in the buggy!" Resignation was not in Wickard's mind at any time. But, once more, he was coming home night after night tense with anger and frustration. Louise would listen in complete sympathy, and then do all she could to make his few hours at home as relaxed as possible. The public outcry was getting to her too. Women who were complete strangers would accost her in grocery stores and berate her husband for food shortages. "That wasn't the worst of it. It was just one problem after another. I knew that Claude was right and that he would be vindicated, but nobody else could see it. We seemed to be fighting a losing battle by ourselves. This doesn't bring back any memories that you'd want to cherish very long.'' And right at the end of one of Wickard's hardest weeks, on February 20, came Ann's wedding. The ceremony was performed in the Wickards' apartment with only Betty and Bob Bryant and a few members of Louise's family present. Afterward there was a brief reception attended by Mrs. Roosevelt and several Cabinet members. The bride and groom departed for a brief honeymoon in Biloxi, Mississippi, thence to the Pascagoula shipyard where Jean Pickart would be stationed. The members of the wedding and honored guests made their way off to a party at the Mayflower Hotel which had been provided by one of Wickard's close friends. Claude and Louise ' Porter Hedge to Carl Hamilton, March 20, 1943, Agl. Adi. Program 4 - 2 , S.C.

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remained at the Westchester. "Last Saturday," Wickard wrote in his diary under date of Friday, February 26th, "Ann was married. It was a day of mingled sadness and happiness for her mother and me. Another epoch has ended for us." 8

In Friday's Cabinet meeting Harold Ickes started a discussion which lasted for over a half hour. He told about his inability to get labor on his own farm. I immediately joined in by telling about a survey which we had conducted through the County Agents at the request of Sen. Bankhead and which would indicate between 20 and 30 percent reduction in 1943 production. I explained that this had a lot of overstatement in it but that on the other hand 1 was afraid the farm labor situation was much more serious than we had admitted. I did not know that some members of Congress had been to see the President that morning about reducing or releasing the army for farm work. He showed more concern about the problem than ever before. . . . In the whole discussion I mentioned the attitude of Congress toward the Administrations policies. The President once remarked that we are going to have to give Congress something to do. I told him during the remarks that Congress and the people were looking for an easy way out of the war. 1 said that every time Russia wins a battle on the War Front we lose one on the Hill. The President said that was a good phrase and should be repeated in Congress some time. Finally the President said "Well, what are we going to do about farm labor? You," addressing McNutt and me, "are like the chiefs of staff. You are always complaining about shortages and difficulty but have no plan."9 Under the circumstances, Wickard's admissions that there might be a drop in production, and that the labor situation was "more serious than we had admitted," were not exactly heart* Wickard, Diary, February 26; Louise Wickard, Interviews; Pickart, Interviews. ' Wickard, Diary, February 2 3 - 2 4 , 1943.

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ening to the President. Wickard, fearing that Roosevelt might hear the conclusions reached by the Bankhead survey, thought he would break the bad news himself and wait for the March Intentions-to-Plant Report to reveal what he hoped would be more optimistic figures. Without justification or precedent, the farm labor problem had come to roost on Wickard's doorstep. Labor was not, and never had been, the obligation of the Department of Agriculture. As a tactical matter the Secretary should not have accepted it. But since neither McNutt's Manpower Commission, the United States Employment Service, nor General Hershey's Selective Service had shown marked inclination to deal with farm labor, Wickard had been forced to take it by default. Apart from some statistical analyses in the BAE, the only labor work which had been done in the Department was the migratory worker program of Farm Security. Because Baldwin's organization knew more about labor than any other USDA bureau, Wickard had also assigned him administration of the Mexican Treaty and responsibility for transporting marginal farmers to areas where they could better serve as hired workers. Lacking adequate funds, statistics, or personnel, the FSA had started from scratch in the fall of 1942 with Major J. O. Walker heading the bureau's work, and ex-newsman Lyle Webster acting as the Secretary's labor advisor. By February, Major Walker had acquired an office and two secretaries, but he had accomplished, as far as Webster could see, absolutely nothing. Within another FSA office, Mexican Treaty importations and the movement of marginal farm workers were proceeding on a small scale. In mid-February, Congress had denied Agriculture the funds to carry out a more aggressive labor policy, not because Congressmen were aware of Major Walker's shortcomings, but because of the Farm Bureau's unalterable determination to wreck the Farm Security Administration. Ed O'Neal had a bill pending for turning the entire labor program over to the State

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Extension Services. Wickard spent the afternoon of February 26 in the White House attempting to explain all this to Harry Hopkins, Samuel Rosenman, and Justice Byrnes. "I can't say we are going to have enough or not enough for farm work," he told them, "because I don't know what will be left after the army and war plants get through taking people. I know I will get what is left." He reminded them that Congress had refused to appropriate for a labor program. Rosenman told him not to insist on FSA doing the job if that would get him the necessary appropriation. Wickard protested. "Every liberal in town will start yelling if I agree to take labor transportation away from Farm Security!" "Go right ahead," they said. "Do you know who is going to be blamed if we don't have enough farm labor?" asked Hopkins. "Yes. I will." "No. They will blame the man upstairs." On March 1st, Wickard announced the creation of an Agricultural Labor Administration and the appointment of Wayne Darrow to head it. Attempting to beat O'Neal to the draw, the Secretary split the labor program in half, assigning interstate matters to Darrow and each state program to the state Extension Services. Wickard knew this unhappy compromise was another in a long series of seemingly innocent expediencies which would slowly bring what remained of the New Deal to its knees. 10 Claude and Louise appeared at the White House on March 4 for the brief services commemorating the tenth anniversary of Roosevelt's first inauguration.

After the service Louise and I shook hands with the President. He asked her if Claude was still alive and she answered "Yes, and kicking." He asked me "How are tjou? All right?" 10 Wickard, Diary, March 3-11, 1943; Webster, Diary, December, 1942 to March, 1943, passim; Darrow, Interviews; Townsend to State War Board Chairmen, March 1, 1943, War 1, S.C.; Secretary's Memorandum No. 975-35, March 13, 1943, War 1-1, S.C.

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I said yes. When I told him about some of my Congressional problems at the Cabinet meeting that afternoon he said, "They are throwing baseballs at you are they not?" He went on to explain that he was reminded of the Colored fellow with his basehead in a sheet at the fairground whom people bought balls to throw at. He said Don Nelson was the first fellow they put in the sheet. He said Paul McNutt had been in a while, and now I was in it,u As the President told his disarming homily, Wickard was calculating his chances on continued command of that allimportant vote from the White House. He fretted over having raised his voice to the President in the matter of Pat Jackson. During the past five months, while Roosevelt's nose had been buried in Mediterranean war maps, Director of Economic Stabilization Byrnes had indeed become "assistant President." Although the Cabinet continued its weekly meetings, which by this time included all manner of wartime emergency administrators, the President's official family was one step removed from the head of the household. Harry Hopkins, Samuel Rosenman, Marvin Mclntyre, and Harold Smith, once helpful channels to and from the Oval Room, now were barriers to shield the busy Commander-in-Chief from minor logistics such as food supply. The assistant Presidents reserved their approbation for Secretaries who could manage their own affairs without bothering any part of the White House. Wickard's position under these circumstances was impossible. He was unable to discharge his responsibilities unless someone with executive power would arbitrate Agriculture's conflicts with agencies holding part of the food authority. Instead of abritration, however, Byrnes's staff began to initiate farm policy. On March 8, Secretary Wickard was called to the White House to show why ceiling prices should not be placed on live hogs. Taking Sam Bledsoe and Jack Hutson with him, Wickard reported to the East Wing at 11:00 A.M. u

Wickard, Diary, March 12-13, 1943.

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They seated themselves around a table, Byrnes, his assistant Don Russell, and Wickard on one side, Marvin Jones and the Secretary's aides on the other. Watching Byrnes's face as Wickard growled his verbose and detailed opposition to the proposal, Jack Hutson had a sense of grim foreboding. I could see that Mr. Byrnes was getting very impatient. I felt that Mr. Wickard was going a little bit far, but there was nothing much I could do about it. I felt that he was droiling the conversation out, magnifying the difficulties a little bit. Finally, Mr. Byrnes, who is a very nervous and impatient type of man, got up and whispered something to Don Russell, and walked out of the room. . . . It was during the conference that I realized that Byrnes's people were very impatient about the thing, and they were going to do something about it. I knew Mr. Byrnes acted very quickly. 12

Three days later the entire corps of "assistant Presidents"— Byrnes, Hopkins, Rosenman—augmented by Admiral William D. Leahy and Bernard Baruch, were sitting as an ex officio tribunal on farm labor to hear the testimony of the Secretary of Agriculture and that of his new labor chief, Wayne Darrow. Having been given less then fifteen hours to prepare for the inquisition, Darrow had done his best to gather what little statistical data the FSA could give him in order to please Baruch, who, Wickard had warned, was a stickler for figures. No sooner had Wickard launched into a cloudy analysis of the obstacles besetting the USDA labor program, than Darrow became uncomfortably aware of the "court's" hostility. They were cutting him off short. They were treating Claude like it seemed to me that the Secretary of Agriculture shouldn't be treated. I knew he had had some difficulties there, but I wasn't prepared for thai sort of thing. Bat I didn't have much time to think about that because as he got under fire and got interrupted so much, he kept saying, "Well, Mr. Darrow here can give you these things. . . . " I did no good on the figures and I kept trying to get away from them to what the big thing was—namely; that yes, it is a serious situation; yes, there are things that probably should have been done, but we're not licked. I was convinced that they didn't want to get any good " Hutson, Interviews.

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news. They didn't want to find out really what the situation was . . . the purpose of the meeting was to crucify Claude Wickard, and . . . I was the agent of crucifixion so they poured it all onto me. "Well, Mr. Darrow," concluded Hopkins, "I know the President will be very glad to have your report. I think he will probably want to go on the air tonight and tell the people of the United States that we do not have a farm problem." "Yes, indeed, Mr. Darrow," added Baruch, nodding his head, "that's just the way I heard it." As the story of Darrow's experience was whispered discreetly about the Department, the despondency in the Secretary's office deepened. Lyle Webster said he felt discouraged, "but it may be just a phase we are going through. . . . Sam very low on whole set up and wants us to put up more fight. Our only hope." Bledsoe's observations were anything but hopeful: "The Secretary is wilting. Poor man. Things go badly and I am looking for an exit more and more." 13 At the White House Justice Byrnes told Marvin Jones that he had made up his mind. "Claude Wickard isn't getting along very well. We're going to have to get a new administrator. I think it's just too much for one man to handle the whole administrative department and a war food job too. I think they're going to divide it. I don't think anybody could do that whole job. I think we're going to go back to the original idea of having a separate War Food Administrator and putting him under Agriculture." Into the East Wing of the White House on Thursday, March 18, filed the members of the Stabilization Committee, Wickard's Cabinet colleagues—Frank Knox, Henry L. Stimson, Don Nelson, and Harry Hopkins. From what Byrnes had told him, Marvin Jones had some idea of the committee's probable decision, and he was not surprised when, after an hour of debate, they called him for consultation. "Have you definitely decided that you're not going to keep 13 Darrow, Interviews; Webster, Diarv, March 4 and 12, 1943; Bledsoe, Diary, March S and 12, 1943.

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Claude Wickard?" Jones asked. "I'm inclined to think that Claude is a very good man for the place." "We have definitely decided that we're going to get a new man for War Food Administrator." "Well, if you've definitely decided that, I have a man in mind who's the best man in the United States for that position —Chester Davis." Fearing that they might try once more to give him a job which he did not want, Marvin Jones spent fifteen minutes extolling the virtues of Chester Davis. When the vote was taken, Jones had sold his product. Although Byrnes and the President discussed the possibility of Spike Evans for the position, it was Davis's name that Byrnes recommended to Roosevelt.14 As Byrnes's committee was rendering its verdict, two of Wickard's key men were obtaining permission to leave on field trips. The first was Jack Hutson. A long-time administrator sensitive to the mutabilities of Washington officialdom, Hutson knew, without being told, that something unpleasant was about to happen. He had scheduled an address in Texas and he requested a few days of rest in the Rio Grande Valley afterward. "Well, it's been quite busy," Wickard said. "But I recognize that you have been carrying a heavy load—OK." The other departure was that of Bob Shields. He told the Secretary that he had some marketing agreement problems in California and probably would not be back for a couple of weeks. They talked for a few minutes, somberly avoiding what was best left unsaid. Shields told Wickard where he could be reached and they parted. As he left the Secretary's office the thought flashed through Shield's mind, My God, both of us sort of acted as though this was a farewell of some kind.15 Late Thursday afternoon General Watson, the President's 14 Jones, Interviews; Byrnes to Roosevelt, March 18, 1943, in Roosevelt Correspondence. 16 Hutson and Shields, Interviews.

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secretary, called Chester Davis in St. Louis and asked him to come to Washington on Saturday. Friday, March 19, was the day when the eyes of the business world turned to the Department of Agriculture. Early that morning armed couriers brought heavy, locked steel boxes into a protected room down the hall from the Secretary's office. There a group of bonded statisticians were gathered for the annual tabulation of sealed crop estimates from every farm county in the United States. At 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon the top-secret results of the Department's most guarded mission would be released to waiting reporters, and across the nation would flash word of America's anticipated food resources as determined by the Intentions-to-Plant Report. Senator John Bankhead and the Farm Bureau had, one month earlier, carried out their own preliminary survey ahead of the official USDA Report. Using data supplied by dutiful county agents and Farm Bureau-Extension Service crop reporters, they found exactly what they had expected to find— that there would be a marked decline in 1943 production. Why? Because Roosevelt's Democratic policies had denied farmers labor, machinery, and above all, parity in the marketplace. This news, given to the press at a time when Americans were being frightened daily by headlines predicting every doom short of famine, gave rise to rumors of Wickard's resignation or replacement. Justice Byrnes, by no means an enemy of the Farm Bureau, was greatly disturbed by the Bankhead Report. So was the President. Knowing the conditions under which the report had been compiled and issued, Wickard was skeptical of its validity; but there was only one way he could refute it, and that was with the Intentions-to-Plant Report. Most everything hung on this, as I saw it, including my job. 1 would either be vindicated or 1 wouldn't be. This was the place where 1 would really see. Cabinet meeting was scheduled for 2:00 o'clock that afternoon. Not even the Secretary of Agriculture could see the results of the government report until 3:00 o'clock. Wickard

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left word as he departed for the White House that the Intentions-to-Plant Report should be delivered to him in the Cabinet room. I don't seem to recall much of what other people reported at Cabinet. I don't recall much of anything up to my report. There was a clock on the wall. I faced the clock. I didn't have to look very far to see what time it was. I felt tense. I felt pretty nervous about it. Down underneath I thought everything would be all right. Still, you couldn't be sure. You just couldn't be sure. The die was cast in that report, and I knew it. As Roosevelt went around the coffin-shaped table calling on each Cabinet member in protocol order, Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Biddle, Walker, and Knox briefed him on the week's events in their departments. Wickard kept his eyes flickering to the mantel clock beneath Woodrow Wilson's portrait. It was 2:30. Then 2:40. Harold Ickes finished his recitation on fuel and Interior at 2:55. Roosevelt turned to Wickard. The Secretary took a deep breath and started leafing through the prepared material before him, hoping to stall his remarks until the USDA messenger could arrive. I told him that our livestock production reports showed large increases in everything except sheep, and that poultry production was expanding quite phenomenally. . . . The President was surprised at the large increases in livestock production. He asked that I send him some figures. I then told him that the Intentions-to-Plant Report would be out in a few minutes. Somehow Wickard managed to prevent the discussion from movng on to Commerce. It was after 3:00. The Secretary's intensity had communicated itself to the others. Some were sitting straight-backed in their green leather Cabinet chairs. Others were leaning forward, watching. There was a knock. The Colored man brought it in by the door close to where I wis sitting and handed it to me. It was in a manila folder. It wasn't sealed. Everybody knew what I had. I don't know

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whether I shook or not, but 1 was prelty fast in opening it. I didn't waste any time in getting it open. I suppose I very rudely rattled the papers trying to get the thing out so that I could look at it. 1 remember that 1 was very glad to see that man show up. Oh I could hardly wait until I got the thing! Without knowing fully what he was saying, Secretary Wickard read the figures aloud as his eye moved down the pages. Hogs, up 24 percent; Eggs, up 16 percent—double the production goal; Chickens, up 20 percent—again, double the production goal; Milk, up 1 percent; Cattle, up 5 percent; rice, soybeans, flaxseed, oats, barley—all showed increases. Only peanuts, potatoes, and sugar beets were down. It was, as Wickard had hoped, complete vindication of his production planning. I looked around the room. I was struck at the time by the fact that the President didn't look at me. I didn't know what to think of it. There was no question but what he was thinking about it, because there was such a silence in the room. He was looking o f f , but I knew his mind was on it. Other people were looking straight ahead too. I didn't understand that. Some one questioned the validity of the report Vice President Wallace answered that the report was absolutely reliable. "Well," said Roosevelt, "why was Bankhead's report so bad?" "The county agents," replied Wickard, "like a lot of other people, thought they had better not be too optimistic or they wouldn't get anything. Bankhead had asked for it. They knew what he wanted." I was very happy about the whole thing. 1 don't know but what the Cabinet meeting broke up soon after that. I don't remember that there was much more said and, as far as I was concerned, the Cabinet meeting was over. As I said, down inside I said to myself, This is almost too good to be true. As quickly as he could get away from the White House, Claude and Louise caught the late afternoon train for Philadelphia to spend the week end with Betty and Bob Bryant.

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Sam Bledsoe cleaned up his desk and left for Chicago to scout possibilities for a new job. 1 6 Chester Davis slipped unobtrusively into Washington on Saturday morning and went straight to the White House. "The President opened up immediately with the statement that he was 'in trouble' with the food administration, and wished me to take it over." Roosevelt said that the entire Department of Agriculture would be turned over to Davis with the exception of the Farm Credit Administration, the Rural Electrification Administration, the Forest Service, and the research bureaus. "I told the President that I did not see how such an organization could function satisfactorily; that the Secretary of Agriculture would certainly resign, or, if he did not resign, which the President believed would be the case, he would be at least an offended and unwilling cooperator. . . . I told him that my previous experience in trying to work with Wickard had been extremely unsatisfactory, and that I saw no reason to think it would be better now." "This will be entirely different," Roosevelt told Davis. "You will have my full backing and all the authority you need to do the job. You will be reporting directly to me." Davis gathered that the President thought Wickard would not resign and relinquish the satisfactions of Cabinet rank. After leaving Roosevelt, Davis discussed briefly the details of the new executive order with Justice Byrnes and Marvin Jones, then took a cab to National Airport. He had not committed himself to undertake the War Food Administration. Singularly unimpressed by the obstacles of split food authority which had plagued the Secretary for nearly two years, Davis appeared to be mainly concerned about the unfeasibility of a two-headed Department of Agriculture. "It will not be humanly possible," he wrote Byrnes from St. Louis, "for the Secretary and his friends to give the proposed Administration " Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3158-68; Diary, March 21-23, 1943; Bledsoe, Diary, March 19, 1943; USDA Press Release, March 20, 1943, in Wickard Papers.

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close and friendly cooperation; on the contrary, he and his friends will hope for it to fail." 17 The Wickards returned to Washington late Sunday night, totally unaware that Chester Davis had been in town. Claude was refreshed by the week end in Philadelphia and eager to get to work. Early Monday morning he called the White House for an appointment to talk over with the President his previous week's farm machinery memorandum. A White House secretary called back shortly to say that the President would see him on Tuesday at 1:00 o'clock for lunch. When I sat down by his desk he started the conversation by telling me that the administrations food program had not been well understood and that I had not gotten the food program explained so the public could see what had been accomplished. He then said that the Army had been building up too large stocks of food and that some one should have gone into this situation some time ago. He then became critical of the way we had failed to recruit a women's land army. He said we should have a million in the land army. I was not sure whether he included boys also as members of the army. Perhaps not, because he described the one-piece suit which the members of the army, should have as a woman's uniform and work suit. He said that we shouldn't provide a hat because the girls wouldn't wear them anyway. Then he informed me that he wanted to establish a food production and distribution administration in the Dept. of Agriculture. He said that he wanted the person in charge to report to him and to me also. I said that I recognized that I had to have help in order to carry on the food job. The President reiterated his desire to establish the food production and distribution administration about like it had been established last December in the Dept., but that he wanted a new man in charge. I asked 17 Davis to Myers, October 12, 1943, USDA History Unit Files; Byrnes to Roosevelt, March 20, 1943, in Roosevelt Correspondence; Marvin Jones, Interviews.

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if he had some one in mind. He mentioned Chester Davis. I asked if he thought Chester would accept the job and he said he didn't know but in wartime it was pretty hard for him to refuse. He mentioned Spike Evans as another man for the job. I was a little mystified by his proposal.1* Roosevelt was as gentle as possible in disposing of his disagreeable business—almost too gentle. Wickard carried back to the Department a confused impression of Chester Davis returning to the US DA in something like his former capacity as the Secretary's Triple-A Administrator—except that he was to report directly to the President. Wickard thought this curious, because nearly everyone but the Joint Chiefs of Staff now reported to Byrnes. Only in talking it over with Carl Hamilton and Roy Hendrickson that afternoon did he begin to grasp the implications of what had happened. Neither he nor the President had broached the fatal question. Was this, in effect, a request for his resignation? Early the following morning Byrnes telephoned Chester Davis. He said Roosevelt had talked with Wickard. News of the impending change would leak quickly out of the White House and Davis must make up his mind. Had Byrnes and the President considered Davis's letter? Too late for that now, replied Byrnes. When could Davis take over? Davis said he would call back. Later in the morning Wickard called Byrnes. He said he had talked with the President the day before and that Roosevelt wanted to put someone in charge of the food program. "I'm not quite clear just what the relationship between this man and me will be." "I was afraid he wouldn't make that clear," answered Byrnes. "This is what the President wanted to do last fall, to put in a food administrator, an independent man. You talked 18 Wickard, Diary, March 2 6 - 2 8 , 1943; Wickard to Roosevelt, March 18, 1943, in Wickard Papers; Watson to Roosevelt, March 23, 1943, in Roosevelt Correspondence.

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him out of it. Yes, sir, there will be a food administrator and he will report to the President." "Does this mean I'm to resign?" "No. Positively not." "Well, there are stories that I am." " W e can't pay any attention to them." 19 Chester Davis reached Byrnes from St. Louis soon afterward to say that he would arrive in Washington on Monday to take over the War Food Administration. At noon the announcement started coming over the government teletypes Unaware that a whole new executive order had been written and still perplexed about what the President expected of him, Wickard wired Davis his congratulations and added, "I am glad to join forces with you in our vital wartime task." Department of Agriculture administrators, bureau chiefs, and even some of Wickard's personal staff were scurrying for safety. The economics of unpaid mortgages and the stakes of ambition outweighed any chauvinistic considerations of loyalty. For those who remained, a pose of detached cynicism was their protection. "I have been going through an experience I do not relish," said Lyle Webster. I am seeing a public man forced out of office by one of the cruelist, dirtiest pieces of work that can be imagined. The executive order came out yesterday and it was the final blow. It gives Chester Davis CCC, Extension Service and practically everything else. The Secretary apparently still wants to stay, although I can't see any reason for him doing it. Everyone who thinks he will stay is very worried about Department organization, but I think the whole question is academic. The Secretary will have to go—and soon. Sam Bledsoe and Bob Shields came back today. Secretary gave Sam the impression he is going to stay on, but Bob Shields indicated the Secretary was beginning to consider resigning. My guess is he will reach a decision by Monday. Sam very disgusted. Office today like a morgue. All of us wondering where we go from here, as we assume our work in Secy's office is about done.20 "Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3180-86; Diary, March 31, 1943. 30 Webster, Diary, March 27, 1943.

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Sam Bledsoe was in Memphis when he heard about the change. He caught the night train to Washington, arriving in the Secretary's office on Saturday morning. " T h e r e was Wickard, by himself. He looked pretty bad. W e sat down. I know tears were in my eyes and I suppose they were in his. I said, "Well, you've done the best you could. In my opinion this was not warranted. I don't know the genesis of it—we both know part of it—but time will vindicate you.' W e talked on and something made me wonder. Wickard said something about 'What shall I do?' "There's not any question as to what you're going to do, is there?" "Well, I don't know." Bledsoe was incredulous. "Aren't you going to quit?" Wickard said he was talking it over with Louise. Sam became impassioned almost to the point of demanding that he quit. " I f you stay here," he told the Secretary, "youll b e less than nothing. Don't take this slap in the face. You don't deserve it!" T h e r e was no reply. Bledsoe rose. "I don't give a God damn. There's one I know of here that's going to quit. I'm going to quit! My advice to you is that you quit too, and get out of here. I f you stay here, you're going to sink into obscurity, and nobody will recognize what you are. If you get out of here, you will b e recognized as one of the great leaders in agriculture. Get out to Indiana and get between those plow handles, and say in your statement that this will b e one place where you know you can do something!"

21

B o b Shields had flown back from California at Chester Davis's request to work, as U S D A Solicitor, on the legal end of the food administration. After reading the new executive order and talking with the Budget Bureau men who wrote it, Shields called Davis in St. Louis to warn him that he had been granted even less control over food than had been given to Wickard. Davis said Byrnes had led him to understand that 51

Bledsoe, Interviews.

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conflicting authorities were to be transferred and consolidated in the War Food Administration. Unready to impart the facts of life about the "assistant Presidents" to his new boss, Shields merely said he would leave an unsigned memorandum on the subject at Davis's hotel. Then he went to make his duty call on the Secretary. He told Wickard how sorry he was that things had worked out as they had, and was amazed to hear that the Secretary might not leave the Department. "Well, Claude, how can you stand to stay here under these circumstances? I think you will prove yourself a much bigger man if you resign. You've been publicly kicked in the teeth and I don't see how you can, in good grace, stay here. It seems to me that you've got to resign!" That night Claude wrote Ann: We received your letter on Thursday and it contained some good news for a day which was otherwise one of bad news. . . . As you may surmise, these are trying days for your mother and me. I just don't know what to do about my work. I suppose I should not be too hasty in reaching a decision and therefore I won't be able to say anything definite for a while. I am jvst thankful for the fact that no one has been able to point out my mistakes, and I have a very clear conscience 22 about everything that I have done. Louise understood her responsibility of refusing to acknowledge the feeling of failure which her husband's world seemed determined to thrust upon him. "I remember when he came home and told me about his conference with the President. He was terribly hurt. 'What do we do now? Where do we go from here?' W e discussed whether or not he should quit as Secretary a long time— whether he should resign, get out—or whether he should stickto it. One day I would think he should resign and the next "Shields to Davis (telephone call), March 27, 1943, in Shields Papers; Shields, Interviews; Wickard to Ann Pickart, March 27, 1943, in Pickart Papers.

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day I would think that he should stay. W e went over that and over it and over it again and again."

Of course I was shocked and hurt. I went to the office every day but I kept away from reporters. It was the worst blow in my career. I was questioned by everyone that I met as to whether I was going to resign and this was a question which I considered daily . . . Nothing in my entire life had so shaken me. I have asked myself over and over again, Why did the President do as he did? I can point to record breaking yields since I have been Secretary. I can also point to the fact that there are indications of another record breaking year if we have average weather. There has been little criticism on the distribution of food under my direction. I think the answer is to be found that the opposition to this administration seized upon the food shortages and the fear of more shortages to frighten the people and to discredit the administration. . . . But in looking back I scarcely can see where I should have taken a different course. I do think however that I have not been very successful in picking executives for some of my most important positions. I made some bad choices without question. And I didn't do a good job of selling what I have accomplished.23 Under no circumstances would Wickard have resigned with a newspaper blast against the President or anyone else. But the matter of whether or not to resign at all had to be faced.

When a fellow's done a good job, when he's satisfied with what he's accomplished and has no regrets, why get angry and quit in a huff and have everybody say, "Well, what else would you expectF" Then too I had a personal problem. Where else would I go? What else would I do? Go back to the farm? My father and mother were still living, and I couldn't have taken it from them. . . . If I had made a failure of my efforts, there isn't any question but what I would have resigned. If I had " Louise Wickard, Interviews; Claude Wickard, Diary, March 3 0 April 6, 1943.

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thought in my own mind I'd made a failure of the job, I'd have wanted out and wanted away from it, from all of it. But you know, I could look everybody in the eye, Byrnes or anybody else right straight down through it and say to myself, By golly, they know I didn't fail, despite what the newspapers say.24 Between them, Claude and Louise reached the decision that, dependent upon Chester Davis's attitude, Wickard would remain as Secretary of Agriculture. Chester Davis came to Washington on a Sunday. At Wickard's invitation he drove out to the Westchester for a strained three-hour conversation. Although unplanned by the tactically oblivious Hoosier farmer, their talk developed into a twohanded game of administrative showdown. On one side of the room sat the deposed Secretary, clutching his one blue chip; neither the President nor Byrnes had suggested that he resign. On the other side, suspiciously mindful of the episode which had ended the life of the Advisory Commission in 1941, sat Davis, apparently backed by all the resources which complete White House prestige could give him. Unknown to themselves, each of them held an ace in the hole. Wickard did not know that, despite Davis's tacit urging of the Secretary's dismissal, the President had refused to do it. Davis was unaware that Wickard had not the slightest intention of competing to regain his lost domain. The stakes of the game were not the Department of Agriculture, but there was only one way to find it out. Claude Wickard spread out his hand. "Do you want to be Secretary of Agriculture?" "No," answered Chester Davis. On Tuesday, March 30, the President held a farm policy conference in the Oval Room. Wickard, Davis, and the farm organization leaders were there. For an hour and a half Roosevelt regaled them with his plans for additional production of farm machinery and the creation of a woman's land army. As 21

Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3 1 8 3 - 8 4 , 3190.

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Wickard and Davis walked out of the White House afterward, they were immediately surrounded by newspapermen clamoring to know if Wickard had submitted his resignation, or if he intended to do so. "No to both questions," answered Secretary Wickard. "I am in whatever position I am assigned for the duration." 25 " Wickard, Diary, April 1-7, 1943.

18: The Instincts and Objectives of a Liberal I had resolved to get along if I stayed in the Department of Agriculture. I had talked this thing through. I had fully determined that if I stayed, I would have to recognize that I had to get along with Davis, and that 1 would have to be always aware that Davis was taking my authority away from me and I couldn't go around complaining to anybody about it. "He never complained," said one intimate, "but Jesus, it was awful! How he stuck around here and went on with the REA business, I never knew. People, when they would see him walk down the halls of the Department, would say, 'Poor Claude. Why doesn't he quit?' The place was like a morgue." Except for Catherine Loose and Carl Hamilton, few realized it cost the Secretary far more to be "Poor Claude" than it would to have fled the mortification. Wickard was left with the research bureaus, the Forest Service, the Farm Credit Administration, and the Rural Electrification Administration. He remained also as a member of the War Production Board and co-Chairman of the Combined Food Board. His were now the glamourless tasks of running Agriculture's soup kitchens and keeping the books while Chester Davis mounted the ramparts of the farm war with, if anything, less authority than his predecessor. 1 Within three months of the date he took office, Chester Davis was in difficulty. "Let me make it clear," he said, "that the troubles I had anticipated with the Secretary of Agriculture did not materialize. On the contrary, Secretary Wickard was as helpful and as cooperative as anyone could possibly have been." Davis's food administration was foundering for 1

Wickard, Interviews, p. 3195.

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precisely the same reasons as Wickard's—a labor-minded President, an antagonistic Congress, and split authority. Davis was astonished at the enormous power-without-responsibility of the bright young men surrounding the "assistant Presidents." Without consulting Davis or anyone else in the War Food Administration, the President suddenly announced a roll-back of food prices and a subsidy program on coffee, butter, and meat. Davis rushed to Price Administrator Prentiss Brown and Byrnes, demanding to know where such a program originated. "My men and Jimmy's men made it up," was Brown's blithe answer. On June 28, exactly ninety-two days after taking over the job which Wickard supposedly had bumbled, Davis resigned and returned to St. Louis. 2 The appointment of Marvin Jones as the third Food Administrator meant little to Wickard. The two men had a harmonious Departmental relationship, but the amalgamation of the USDA continued to be hopeless. Jones ran his show and Wickard ran what was left. It continued to be a most difficult period for Wickard. He could not see that what had happened to him was by no means unique. The President's intimate personal friend and Secretary of Labor, Miss Frances Perkins, was confronted with a situation comparable in many details. Henry Morgenthau and Cordell Hull held their portfolios while Byrnes and the President carried out most of their governmental functions. In July, the feud between Jesse Jones and Henry Wallace burst into public view and both were summarily relieved of further top-level participation in the war. Roosevelt heeded the advice of his Joint Chiefs of Staff as much or more than he did the words of Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox. The Cabinet, once Roosevelt's action arm in the fight against poverty and injustice, had become a body wholly secondary in effectiveness to that of the warlords of Washington and the "assistant Presidents." Wickard's badlv shaken self-confidence had not visiblv rea

Davis to Myers, October 12, 1943, USDA History Unit Files.

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paired by October. He still peered eagerly through crop reports and Food Administration data in search of vindication. It was easy to find, but hard to convince another living soul that it was there. Despite bad spring weather and midwestern floods, there had been no material drop in production. Indeed, most crops showed an increase. The public outcry stilled as rationing went into operation. Continuing food shortages were disguised by a slowly rising ration point cost of butter and meat. But not even Marvin Jones's splendid rapport with the Hill was enough to beat Congressional antipathy to the President's subsidy program. For the third consecutive time the farm bloc voted for "parity in the marketplace." Jones was, however, able to make one change in the USDA which Wickard might not have made. He fired Beanie Baldwin. T h e irony never occurred to Jackson, Baldwin, or Hudgens, that they had done everything they could in January to ruin the only man who stood between them and the Farm Bureau. Neither Marvin Jones nor Senator John Bankhead wanted to disband the F S A entirely, but with the puissant forces of the organization out of the way, nothing could stop its dismemberment. T h e most aggressively liberal part of agriculture's New Deal was gone. 3 T h e dual administration of the USDA continued to operate effectively throughout 1943, a credit to the unselfish devotion of both Jones and Wickard to the requirements of public office. Jones was asked by Director Byrnes only once to cross the forbidden line. T h e War Food Administrator backed the over-zealous attempt of one of his subordinates to have Wickard removed from the Combined Food Board. T h e Secretary, with resignation in hand, fought back and won. Roosevelt could push him aside, but he served notice that no one else could do it. Shortly afterward, when Democratic Party chief3 Bankhead to Jones, August 23, 1943, and Jones to Bankhead, August 30, 1943, General Records of the Department of Agriculture, Correspondence of the War Food Administrator, Record Group 16, Farm Security 1, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Objectives

of a Liberal

387

tains tried to force the appointment of two political worthies to the Omaha Land Bank, Wickard again refused to submit to pressure. What he may have lost in Washington prestige the Secretary had gained in personal strength. The non-action part of the Department was his, and he intended to manage it as he saw fit. Paul Appleby finally resigned in February, 1944, to take a position in the Budget Bureau and Grover Hill became Under Secretary. On the advice of Farmers' Union president Jim Patton, Wickard chose a liberal Union man from Colorado to be Assistant Secretary—Charles F. Brannan. The Forest Service, the Farm Credit Administration, and the research agencies were running smoothly. The Rural Electrification Administration was not. Harry Slattery's management of REA left much to be desired. His Deputy Administrator was Robert Craig, an enterprising man who appeared overly alert to the possibility of using REA in conjunction with an organization of REA cooperatives to create a field for insurance exploitation. Craig was most surprised when the Secretary accepted his resignation. Next on the list was Slattery, but that proved to be no easy task. Wickard and Jonathan Daniels, one of the President's advisors, tried for over a year to get Slattery to resign, but he would not. In the meantime, Wickard had placed William J. Neal in the REA as Deputy Administrator with a consequent improvement of administration. Slattery believed that he was being persecuted and took his troubles to the Hill. His agitation caused a full-scale Congressional investigation of REA in February and March of 1944. Both Daniels and Wickard, as members of the President's official family, refused to testify and revived the delicate question of whether or not Congress could force them to answer a subpoena. Since 1944 was an election year, the President apparently felt it was no time to test the issue and retreated. The probe failed to unearth any malfeasance on Wickard's part. It likewise failed to remove Slattery. As the Democratic National Convention opened in July,

388

Objectives of a Liberal

1944, Claude Wickard was there to take part in the proceedings. The participants, the issues, and the sentiments of the delegates were about the same as they had been four years earlier—with one notable exception. Replacing the sure hand of Jim Farley was the heavy one of party chairman Robert Hannegan. Wickard, like everyone else at the convention, wanted to carry out the President's wishes. The only reasonably authentic expression of White House desire was a letter from Roosevelt to the effect that he wanted the Convention to pick its own nominees; but, said the President if he were a delegate, he would vote for Henry Wallace. The Vice President was, if anything, more indolent about his nomination this time than last. As far as Wickard could see, Wallace was a lone man. No one was on hand to help him. "There's no use doing anything about it," he told Claude. "It's whatever the President says." Wallace, nevertheless, held a press conference to spike all rumors that he was not a candidate. He said he was in the fight to the finish. When I heard this 1 felt that it was necessary to state my position, which I had refused to do before. I decided that I should support Wallace, even though he had not asked me and even though he had never thanked me for my efforts on his behalf in 1940. It seemed to me that he came nearer believing in and advocating the same views that 1 favor than any other candidate. Also, his friends are my friends, and they would never understand why I would prefer any other candidate.* It was hopeless from the outset. Wickard saw most of those who had helped Wallace in 1940 standing around in 1944 with their hands in their pockets. Claude met Ickes in a hallway. "Harold, look," he said, "what's going on here? Don't you think we ought to be getting busy? I think we may have a good chance yet to get our candidate in." 4

Wickard, Diary, July 25-26, 1944.

Objectives of a Liberal

389

Ickes shrugged. "Too many Hannegan-shenanigans." Senator Harry S. Truman was nominated for Vice President on the second ballot and Wickard prepared to stump the country for the Democratic ticket. On the theory that good programs were good politics, Wickard abandoned his purely partisan electioneering in favor of speeches which proposed plans to make a more decent life for American soldiers and their families when the war ended. He preached full employment and expanded foreign trade. He inveighed against speculation and warned farmers not to become entrapped in a land boom. Above all, he planned and explained how the Rural Electrification Administration could bring prosperity and a good life to rural America. Rural electrification contained every element of Wickard's matured liberalism. It was private enterprise conducted on a non-profit level by local citizens who formed their own cooperatives. As he envisioned REA, the emoluments of electric power could provide a greater impetus toward "social parity" than could any other part of the farm program. The one concept which contributed most heavily to his dream was "area coverage." "Make electricity available to everyone within a given area," Wickard said. "It is unfair and un-American to let anything occur which will deprive rural people of anything as vital as electric service." 5 On the first Tuesday in November, Americans again voted to sustain the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. On Friday the Cabinet met him at Washington Union Station for his third triumphant re-election parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. It was raining when his aide lowered him in his wheel chair on a special device to the street level and he was lifted into his car. He immediately requested that the top of his car be * Wickard address before the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative, Neillsville, Wisconsin, September 20, 1944, in Wickard Papers.

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Objectives of a Liberal

lowered. Harry Truman climbed in next to him and the Vice President Wallace climbed in the same seat. I could not help admire the buoyant spirit of Wallace. Wickard was startled at the President's appearance during Cabinet that afternoon.

What concerned me more than his appearance was the fact that he did not seem as relaxed as I might have expected him to be. He also had more difficulty in getting the point of the various members of the Cabinet. . . . I noticed a little tendency for him to show irritation. . . . I heard him say twice that he had been mad for a couple of weeks hut was all right now. He said it was the dirtiest campaign that he had ever been in and he was pleased when Dewey's electoral vote fell below a hundred. It occurs to me that the President needs a good rest. . . . Also he seems a little less keen mentally than he was a few years ago, although I still marvel at his ability to keep so many things on his mind and to quickly analyze a tough problem.8 Henry Wallace shortly would be out of a job. The general supposition was that he would return to Agriculture. This time Wickard had no hesitation about submitting his resignation. If the President wanted to reorganize the Cabinet, he could do so without embarrassment. Another consideration, too, had entered Wickard's thinking. He had become deeply involved in postwar agricultural planning. The end of the conflict was not far off and Wickard had no desire to return to the complete secretaryship. As he reflected on those happier days when he was managing the North Central Division, he considered the possibility that he might be able to take over one of the USDA action agencies after the war. But which one? He was not enough of an economist for BAE. Forestry was too technical. That left AAA, Farm Credit, Farm Security, and REA.

REA was a place where I thought I would be happy, could ' Wickard, Diary, November 1 3 - 1 6 , 1944.

Objectives of a Liberal

391

be positive of my tenure, and could feel that I was big enough to get the job done. There was another element in this too: I wanted to work with rural people pretty much. A Secretary didn't really get to do that. He was too far up—couldn't get down. This interest in REA was no accident. Not at all.1 In mid-December, at the height of Wickard's speculations about his own future, Harry Slattery suddenly resigned. Caught completely by surprise, Wickard was in a miserable position. The President had said nothing about his resignation and he did not feel that he could ask Roosevelt for RE A. William J. Neal had been doing an excellent job as Deputy REA Administrator, and was fully deserving of being moved up. Swallowing his disappointment, Claude Wickard did the honorable thing—he gave the President his unqualified endorsement of Neal. Slattery, in an effort to justify his own mismanagement and to discredit Wickard, went to the Hill with evidence falsely involving Neal in embezzlement in the REA co-op where the Deputy had formerly worked. Under such circumstances, the President suggested that Aubrey Williams might make a better choice and sent his name to the Senate for confirmation. I did not want to put into this job a man who did not believe in the principles of REA or who did not have the courage to resist the tactics and the efforts of REA enemies, namely, the power companies. Aubrey Williams passed muster on that score. I also said that this man should be of the liberal group. That meant not only that he would think of resisting the utilities, but also would think of the REA program as a great program, a great opportunity to help a lot of people who needed help but could not get it without the government's activity in the rural electrification field. In other words, you could run an REA program for the good of the well-to-do people, or you 7 Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3 4 5 3 - 5 4 ; Wickard to Roosevelt, November 10, 1944, in Roosevelt Correspondence.

392

Objectives

of a

Liberal

could run an REA program for the good of everybody. . . . There was, then, more to this than just being classified as a liberal. You had to have the instincts and objectives of a liberal. Williams had been associated for the past ten years with the vanguard of New Dealism. Wickard did not know him personally, but he suspected that he might be a Beanie Baldwin kind of liberal who would be instantly anathema to the growing ranks of ultraconservatives in Congress—and REA, after all, depended upon Congressional appropriations just like the rest of the executive branch. No, what Wickard meant was more his own brand of liberalism. I don't want to be thought of as a liberal who just has a zeal to get out and help certain underprivileged people regardless of the consequences so far as the rest of the country is concerned. I just want to help the great masses of the people, which includes all people, not just the people who have to live in the slums of America,8 By the time the President returned from the Yalta Conference, Henry Wallace had been confirmed as Secretary of Commerce, but Aubrey Williams's name was still being debated. At Cabinet meeting on March 23, Vice President Truman arrived late with the news that the Senate had refused Williams by a vote of 52 to 36. Roosevelt was angry and a little suspicious that Wickard had not done all he could. The Secretary said nothing. After Cabinet meeting he and Harry Truman approached the President on making an address at the Jefferson Day Dinner. The President seemed hesitant about the matter and put off his decision until later. Within a few days he left for Warm Springs and a much needed rest. On Thursday, April 12, Wickard had finished work early and was walking toward the door of his apartment in the 8 Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3481-82, 3990; Wickard to Neal, December 18, 1944, Secretary's Files, REA, S.C.; Wickard to Roosevelt, December 22, 1944, in Wickard Papers; Roosevelt to Wickard, December 28, 1944, ibid.; Wickard to Roosevelt, January 3, 1945, ibid.

Objectives of a Liberal

393

Westchester when he saw Louise waving frantically for him to hurry. She told me that the White House had been trying to get me to come there immediately because President Roosevelt had died. Within ten minutes I entered the Executive Wing of the White House. There were no people at the gate and as I walked in the door I noticed two or three people walking toward Steve Early's office. Since there was no one else present I asked them if they knew where I was to report. They apparently either didn't know who I was or didn't know the answer to my question, so I walked on toward the Cabinet Room. As I entered the Cabinet Room I noticed that Vice President Truman was sitting in the President's chair. About two-thirds of the Cabinet people were present and two or three people whom I did not recognize. The Vice President had started to talk when I entered the room and I think as I entered he started again to tell the Cabinet what he had called it together for. He indicated that the President had died at Warm Springs a little over an hour previously and that he had been called to the White House by Steve Early and that he was now awaiting the Chief Justice's arrival to swear him in as President of the United States. He then said that he had a very difficult task ahead of him and that he wanted all of the Cabinet people to stay at their posts. One or two of the Cabinet members who sat to the right of the Vice President indicated that they would be willing to do as he had requested. Secretary Morgenthau indicated that he was willing to do whatever would be helpful but that he felt that the President should be free to choose his own assistants and cabinet members. I immediately said that I thought the Secretary of the Treasury was correct and although we all wanted to help the President we only wanted to help him in the way which he chose for tts. After these remarks there was considerable confusion in the room and Steve Early and Jonathan Daniels appeared to

394

Objectives of a Liberal

transmit messages from Mrs. Roosevelt or to make some announcements. Attorney General Biddle apparently was having difficulty in getting the Chief Justice to come to the Cabinet Room. Secretary Morgenthau announced that he had left the President late the evening before and that the President was in a cheerful mood and seemed to be enjoying himself. Early announced that Mrs. Roosevelt had decided the funeral would be held at four o'clock on Saturday in the East Room of the White House and that burial would take place at Hyde Park on Sunday, and that the Cabinet people would be expected to attend these services. Vice President Truman remarked that he was expecting to hold a press conference in a very few minutes after he was sworn in. Secretary Wallace and I both said that we thought this was not a proper time for a press conference. Vice President Truman said it was Steve Early's plan and not his. I said it surely was too soon to have a press conference. Secretary Wallace said, "Why not issue a statement?" Apparently what Early had in mind was that the President should hold a press conference to state that he intended to carry on the policies of the deceased President, and Wallace and I argued that it would be much better to issue this announcement in the form of a statement rather than have a press conference to discuss it. Chief Justice Stone arrived about seven o'clock. We were asked to step to the north end of the Cabinet Room and the moving picture machines and photographers were brought into the south end. Mrs. Truman and their daughter came in a few minutes before the swearing-in ceremonies started. When everything was about ready the Chief Justice asked for the Bible but there was none in the room. However, in a minute or so someone produced a Bible and the Chief Justice repeated the oath from memory. The Vice President read his response from the typed slip which someone had handed him. Immediately afterward members of the Cabinet and close

Objectives of a Liberal

395

friends gathered around the new President to offer their felicitations. I had resolved that I would be very careful when I addressed the new President to call him "Mr. President". . . . So I had in mind when the President was sworn in that I would be sure to call him "Mr. President" whenever I addressed him, but much to my surprise and somewhat to my disgust I shook hands with him, and said, "Harry, we want to help you all we can." The room had pretty well filled with photographers, newspaper people and friends by the time the President had been sworn in. The cabinet members and assistants to the President all showed signs of the great shock which had come to them. It was difficult to believe that the President would never be with us again in this room. As I looked around the cabinet table it seemed that Henry Wallace, although dry-eyed, showed the shock more than anyone else with the possible exception of Miss Perkins. I later learned that Mr. Wallace was assisted by Secretary of State Stettinius as the two left the White House.9 Harry S. Truman presided over the first meeting of President Roosevelt's Cabinet six days after the funeral. It was a different kind of meeting than we had ever before experienced. The President did very little talking. Stettinius started by saying that everyone was going to San Francisco with full confidence but the Russian situation was the big question. Truman interrupted to say that he wanted everyone to know that [he] had confidence in the members of the Cabinet. He said that he was going to give them full opportunity to discharge their responsibilities and if they, did a good job they would get the credit but if they didn't they [would] catch hell and he the President would get the credit.10 ' Wickard's separate diary account of April 12-14, 1945, in Wickard Papers. 10 Wickard, Diary, April 23-24, 1945.

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Objectives of a Liberal

There was little doubt that Truman would want to choose his own Cabinet as quickly as possible and Wickard, like most other Cabinet members, submitted his resignation "effective at the President's pleasure." It was most disconcerting to the Secretary to be reminded constantly by press and radio that his head would be one of the first to roll. However, he had no illusions about the extent of public gratitude and he thought it would be wise to make some provision for his own future. He and Robert Hannegan were discussing plans for the Jefferson Day Dinner when Wickard brought up the matter closest to his heart. "I don't know what the President may have in mind for me," he told Hannegan. "If he doesn't want me to continue my present job here, there is one job which I would like to try though. That is the administration of REA. You know, I guess, something of the great trouble Roosevelt had with that. It has been a source of disappointment to me. I feel that I could do a good job in it if I had a chance, and I just want you to know about it." Hannegan nodded. Nothing further was said.11 A few minutes before 11:00 A.M. on April 27, Wickard walked into the White House for his first conference with the new President. It was, for the Secretary, a surprising experience. He was admitted to Truman's office five minutes early instead of the usual fifteen minutes late. The second surprise was to see the President of the United States rise smartly to his feet and shake hands. And where Roosevelt had always led easily into his conferences with a pleasantry or a few moments of reminiscing, the new man was all business. Well, let's get it over with—what is it you have to sayP he seemed to say. Wickard started with some USDA organizational matters. Truman said he would study them. I then discussed the appointment of an REA administrator and said I had no candidate whom I was backing exclusively. He said that he wanted a liberal democrat who was a public u Wickard, Interviews, p. 3533; Wickard to Truman, April 17, 1945, Personnel 10-9, S.C.

Objectives of a Liberal

397

power man. I said that I would like to select such a man and he asked that I send him a list of names. I asked if I should talk to Hannegan about them and he said no. I replied that Hannegan and I had discussed the matter. He said I will take the matter up with Hannegan after I have made up my mind. . . . All in all it was a most satisfactory conference and I was astonished at the amount of items that we covered in our fifteen minutes. He spoke directly but on the other hand he very wisely indicated that he was not going to make hasty decisions on matters on which he wanted more information. I left him very favorably impressed with his executive ability.12 For a month the Secretary's work continued much as it had been. The war ended in Europe and Wickard went out to Indiana to tend his corn. On May 22 he was in a Logansport garage having one of the farm trucks lubricated when he was called to the telephone. It was Truman's press secretary, Steve Early, calling from Washington. He said the President was accepting the resignations of three members of the Cabinet; Attorney General Francis Biddle, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and Wickard. "The President would like for you to take the job of REA Administrator." He wanted to know immediately if Wickard would accept it. Wickard's instantaneous reply was "Yes." In a way I felt some sense of disappointment, and in another way I felt some sense of relief. A person gets to thinking what the entire country will say when it finds out that your resignation as a member of the President's Cabinet has been accepted. You know it's going to happen sometime, of course, but you sort of dread it just the same. On the other hand, it was a relief to know that the uncertainty would be over with, and that I would be getting into something which I liked, and which I thought I could make a success of.13 Despite every obstacle the power companies and Harry 11 Wickard, Diary, May 5-9, 1945. "Wickard, Interviews, pp. 3539-40; Truman to Wickard, May 23, 1945, in Wickard Papers; Wickard, Diary, May 24-25, 1945; Memoirs by Harry S. Truman (Garden City: Doubleday, 1955), I, 326.

398

Objectives of a Liberal

Slattery could throw in the way, the Senate confirmed Wickard on June 28 by the one-sided vote of 56 to 6. On the following day, the man more responsible than any other for the food without which the war would have been lost, stepped down from the chair of the Secretary of Agriculture. The rural electrification program came into existence to provide an essential service which was not being provided and which individual farmers working alone could not provide for themselves. Widespread rural electric service was needed to expand the horizon of opportunity for rural people, to raise their level of living, and to increase the efficiency of farm production. Thus, the establishment of the program reflected the widely, accepted basic principle that it is the responsibility and function of democratic government to provide protection and opportunity for its people and to assist them in doing things which they cannot do for themselves.1* Here was the core of Wickard's entire social and economic philosophy. And as Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration he had greater opportunity to put it to practical application than lie had had as Secretary of Agriculture. The REA had been set up in 1936 as a relief measure—its fluids came from Harold Ickes's Public Works Administration. The theory was that if sewers and roads could be built from public money, so could power lines. With only 10 percent of the farms in America having electricity, the need was apparent. The first REA Administrators, Morris L. Cooke and John M. Carmody, had run the program on the premise that it was farm relief. Their success was startling. By the time Wickard became Secretary and Harry Slattery had taken over REA, 30 percent of the nation's farms were electrified. Critical metal shortages slowed the march of the power poles during the war. Despite his troubles with Slattery, however, the 14 Report of the Administrator of the Rural Electrification tion, 1952, pp. 4-5.

Administra-

Objectives

of a Liberal

399

Secretary had backed the REA program. By the end of the war, 46 percent of all farms could have electric lights, winter hog and chicken brooders, milkers, and water pumps, as well as the conveniences of running water, indoor plumbing, and modem heating. Wickard entered the administrator's office with the concept that times had changed and new principles must guide old programs. The first casualty was the relief idea. "The relationship between REA and an REA borrower is basically that of lender and borrower," he said. The REA would conduct the survey for which Congress had provided the funds. It would ascertain the feasibility of loans to the small groups of farmers who had organized to build their electric systems on REA credit. If there was likelihood that the money could be repaid, and the fanners appeared to have a responsible manager, a loan would be certified and construction could begin. REA would provide technical assistance from office management to wire-stringing. But once the project was in operation, it was to become "an entirely independent corporate body, locally owned and controlled, and existing pursuant to applicable state laws, and each borrower is itself responsible for the management of its own affairs, proper and successful construction and operation of its system, and the repayment of the REA loan." 15 The next thing upon which Wickard insisted was "area coverage." No systems would be certified that were predicated on anything but the transmission of electricity to every farm and home in the area. "Cream skimming" was, for REA, a thing of the past. For the private power companies, it was a thing of the present, and Wickard began to feel their hostility to REA as soon as he took office. It was similar to the prewar days of "too much or too little"—some damned him for coddling the power monopolies, while others called him a socialist. Congress, nevertheless, believed in his policy and willingly "Ibid.

400

Objectives of a Liberal

gave him appropriations without his asking. Generation and transmission plants were built, and telephone cooperatives were added to the steady advance of rural electrification. After eight years of unblemished, top-rank administration of the REA, Wickard's monumental achievement was simply stated in his final report to the Secretary in 1952 : 88.1 percent of all American farms now had electricity. In November, 1952, General Dwight D. Eisenhower carried the Republicans to their first national victory in twenty-four years. Under the aegis of "The Great Crusade," the GOP started political house cleaning on January 20, 1953. The new Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra T. Benson, was reported to be a devout elder in the Mormon Church and an ardent Farm Bureau-Extension Service man. Although Wickard's appointment as REA Administrator was made by Congress on a nonpartisan basis for a period of ten years, it was unlikely that Mormon morality could withstand the political necessity to root out the few remaining New Dealers, particularly onetime Cabinet members. On March 5, Benson called Wickard into the Secretary's office and asked for his resignation. Three weeks later, Claude and Louise climbed into their overloaded car and started for Fairacre Farms. My heart was heavy for many reasons. On the other hand I had a feeling of relief. I had not left Washington under a cloud or in the midst of a bitter controversy. I had never compromised in twenty years of government experience with what I thought was right and in the best interests of the people. True, I had found that I had made mistakes, but I did not knowingly make them. My conscience was clear. I was proud of what I had done for rural people. 1 know that I can look into the eyes of every American and say that I did the best I could to further the welfare of all and that the mistakes were of the head and not of the heart.16 "Wickard, Diary, April 15-16, 1953; Wickard to Eisenhower, March 16, 1953; Eisenhower to Wickard, March 16, 1953, in Wickard Papers.

Index Acheson, Dean, 347 Adams, John, 213 Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense, 138, 194-98, 254 Agricultural Adjustment Act: (1933), 58-59, 100-2; (1938), 113-17 Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA): and parity, 59, 85-86; Corn-Hog Section of, 6164, 93-95; establishment of, 7475; Consumers Counsel of, 7677, 93, 121; attitude of farmers toward, 96-97; invalidation of by Supreme Court, 100-2; and food administration, 208, 349-50; and control of field forces of Department of Agriculture, 228; and Department of Agriculture Defense Board, 229-30; dependence of Wickard on staff of, 277; as sore spot of Department of Agriculture, 291 Agricultural Advisory Council, 206"l Agricultural Appropriation Bill (1943), 271 Agricultural Conservation Payments, 103, 109-11, 114 Agricultural experiment stations, 27 Agricultural Labor Administration, 367 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 47 Agricultural Marketing Administration, 251, 335 "Agricultural Preparedness" (Wickard), 182-83 Agricultural Reform in the United States (Black), 50

Agricultural War Board, 251 Agriculture: changes in, 13-14; during First World War, 20-24; prosperity of, after First World War, 28; depression in, after First World War, 29-39, 46, 279-80; mechanization of, 46; program for, during Roosevelt's first and second terms, 58-109, 217, 219, 233-34, 280; beginning of scarcity economy in, 67; mobilization of, 193-98; program for, during third term, 199-388; and Lend Lease, 266-67; and food production authority, 26870; Wickard's 1943 program of "full production" in, 277-87; labor shortage in, 287-88, 312-16, 365-67; Roosevelt's attitude toward, 293; scarcities in, 330-31, 333, 358; see also Department of Agriculture; Farmers; Parity; Prices, farm "Agriculture and the Defense Program" (Davis), 174 "Agriculture and the Nation" (Wickard), 174 Albany, N.Y., 50 Albertson, Dean, 10n-lln Algiers, 320 American Boy, The, 12 American Farm Bureau Federation, see Farm Bureau American Federation of Labor, 123 America First movement, 208, 217 American Institute of Meat Packers, 71 American Society of Equity in Wisconsin, 26 Ames, Iowa, 27, 100 Anglo-American Food Committee, 226, 266-88

402 Appeasement, 123, 176; of Japan, 226, 231-32, 242, 267 Appleby, Paul: as administrator, 119-21, 344; and Wickard, 120, 132-33, 150-52, 169-71, 177; and Wallace, 126, 135, 136, 18284, 292; Wickard on, 132-33; at 1940 Democratic Convention, 142, 145; on position of Under Secretary of Agriculture, 154-55; as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 158-59, 161-62, 165, 16768, 227-28, 291; Wallace on, 183-84; replacement of staff of, 192; mission of, to London, 230; departure cf, from Department of Agriculture, 252, 387; as Acting Secretary of Agriculture, 285; on parity, 286 Archangel, 295 Arizona, 315-17 Army, and food supplies, 376 Arao, Peter, 123 Atlantic Charter, 233 Atlantic Ocean, German raiding in, 214-16 Attu, 295 Auchter, Eugene, 161, 170, 25152, 291 Austin, Warren, 247 Austria, 123 Balancing the Farm Output ( Spillman), 50 Baldwin, Calvin Benham (Beanie): in FSA, 121, 366; and Wickard, 161, 187-88, 339; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251; as liberal, 274, 327; and Mexican labor, 287-88; and labor shortage, 316; and food administration, 335-46, 349, 352; and communism, 353n; firing of, by Jones, 386 Baltimore, Md., 178 Barikhead, John: at 1940 Democratic Convention, 145-47; and parity, 281; criticism of Wickard by, 362-63; agricultural production survey of, 365, 372, 374; and FSA, 386

Index Bankhead, William B., 163 Bankhead Amendment, 257, 259, 262 Barker, Perry, 01, 62, 64 Barkley, Alben, 247, 257, 308 Barton, Bruce, 166 Baruch, Bernard M., 74, 302, 369, 370 Batt, William L., 304 Bean, Louis H., 50, 74, 344 Belgium, 137 Bennett, Hugh H., 122, 161 Benson, Ezra T., 400 Biddle, Francis: at Cabinet meetings, 172, 373, 394; and mine strike, 243; and price control, 302, 304; resignation of, 397 Biermann, Fred, 136 Biloxi, Miss., 157 Black, A. C.: as Chief of Corn-Hog Section of AAA, 61-64, 75, 7778, 85; welcoming of Wickard to Washington by, 69-70; and commodity loans, 86-87; as Chief of Division of Livestock and Feed Grains, 94; and election of 1940, 167; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251; as head of FCA, 273; loyalty of, 291 Black, John D., 50 Black, Olga, 125 Black markets, 83 Bledsoe, Samuel B.: and temporary appointment of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 163n; political position of, 192-93; and food administration, 202, 320, 333-35, 350, 361, 370; as speech writer for Wickard, 211, 213, 216; and Appleby, 227; as Wickard's assistant, 228, 240-41, 25961, 275, 290, 292, 303, 330, 344, 356; and 1941 reorganization of Department of Agriculture, 250; and FSA, 276; on Roosevelt, 305; on his disillusionment, 348; firing of Jackson by, 354-55; trip to Chicago of, 375; and appointment of Davis as Food Administrator, 378-79

Index Bliss, R. K., 100, 101, 179 Bloom, Sol, 247 Board of Economic Warfare ( B E W ) , 273, 325, 328 Board of Economic Welfare, 224 Bonus marchers, 275 Boston, Mass., 297, 302 Boston Court of Appeals, 96 Brand, Charles J., 75, 81 Brand, Robert H., 226, 266 Brannan, Charles F., 387 British Food Mission, 215, 226 Brown, Harry, 119, 126 Brown, Prentiss, 261, 308, 336, 385 Bryant, Elizabeth Wickard: Wickard on, 1; birth of, 29; and 1932 State Senatorial campaign, 53; effect of life in Washington on, 95-96; on trip to midwest, 157; engagement of, 289; marriage of, 302; visit of, to Washington, 338; illness of, 353; at sister's wedding, 364; Wickard's visit with, 374 Bryant, Harry Robert, 289, 302, 364, 374 Budd, Ralph, 138 Buena Vista Hotel, 157 Bureau of Agricultural Economics ( B A E ) , 50, 74, 117, 178 Bureau of Budget, 273 Butler, William M., 96 Byrnes, James F.: and 1940 Democratic Convention, 141, 146, 147; and price control, 299; appointment as head of Office of Economic Stabilization, 308-9; Wickard on, 309; and farm labor shortage, 317; and food administration, 318-19, 321-22, 324, 326, 330, 332, 334, 336, 343, 347-50, 352, 362, 370-71, 375, 378; and agricultural production, 359, 367; as "assistant President," 368, 377; and farm policy, 368-69 Cabinet: meetings of, reported by Wickard, 165, 171-73, 209-10, 212-16, 226, 231-33, 239, 242,

403 243, 245-48, 252-54, 261, 263, 267-68, 292-94, 310, 325, 337, 345-46, 356, 365, 372-79, 395; resignations in, 169, 177, 397; encroachment on responsibility of, 385; after death of Roosevelt, 393-95 California, 313 Camacho, Avila, 168 Camden, Ind., 5n, 6n Canal Zone Biological Survey, 165 Canning, John B., 234n Cannon, Clarence: as Farm Bloc representative, 189, 190-91, 235; on fanner's position, 258-59; and Farm Bureau, 278; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 282-84; and agricultural production, 360-61 Capone, Al, 123 Carmody, John M., 398 Carroll County, Ind.: Wickard's farm in, 2; Wickard as prominent citizen of, 5; settlement of, 6; Wickard's boyhood in, 9; introduction of automobile in, 13; attitude toward education in, 16, 20, 30; expansion of Wickard's horizon beyond, 21; and First World War, 23; and Farmers' Institute, 24; Farm Bureau in, 32, 35-36, 40; and Farm Problem, 33; and 1932 election, 5154; farm labor shortage in, 288 Carrollton Township, Ind.: Wickard's grandfather Trustee of, 7; early world of Wickard, 9, 15; and Farmers' Institute, 24, 25, 27; Farm Bureau in, 28-29; and Farm Problem, 33 Casablanca, 320, 356 Chamberlain, Neville, 123 Charlotte, N. C., 216 Charleston, S. C., 213 Chicago, 111.: and Farm Problem, 33; meeting of National Board on Swine Production Policy in, 44; meeting of farm economists in, 50; 1932 Democratic Convention in, 53; meeting about AAA in, 63; meetings of Na-

404 Chicago, 111. (Continued) donai Com-Hog Committee of Twenty-five in, 67-68, 81; and slaughter of hogs, 79; 1940 Democratic convention in, 13947; meeting of Farm Bureau and Department of Agriculture representatives in, 221-22; Wickard's 1942 trip to, 330-32 China, 123, 173, 356 Churchill, Winston: appointment of, as Prime Minister, 137; Hopkins on, 215; and Atlantic meeting, 233, 242; on Japan, 243; and Russians, 267 Civil War, 25 Civil Works Administration (CWA), 73 Clapp, Earl, 251 Claypool Hotel, 47, 48, 60 Cleveland, Grover, 40 Clinton County, Ind., 54 Cochran, Robert LeRoy, 108 Cohen, Benjamin, 326 Cologne, 295 Columbia University, 50 Columbus, Ohio, 100 Combined Food Board, 268, 304, 311 Commodity Credit Corporation ( CCC ) : establishment of, 87; growth of, 115; and Farm Bureau, 137; and 1940 campaign, 166; and England, 197; and food production, 204; and parity, 212, 258-59, 300; Hutson as head of, 221, 335; Wickard on, 272; and consumer subsidies, 280; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 285-86; functioning of, 291 Commodity loans, 86-87, 115; see also Commodity Credit Corporation Commons, John R., 14 Congress, see House of Representatives, Senate Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.), 123, 142, 275, 317 Connally, Tom, 247, 248

Index Consumers Counsel of AAA, 76-77, 93, 121 Cooke, Morris L., 398 Coolidge, Calvin, 35, 36, 41-42 Cooper, Jere, 247 Cooperatives, 47 Coral Sea, 295 Corn: prices of, 29, 32, 49, 112-13; production of, after First World War, 31; mechanization in picking of, 46; beginning of controlled production of, 60-61; development of com-hog program, 68-92, 96-99; payments to farmer for controlled production of, 87; corn loans, 92-93; and cotton, 110; on eve of Second World War, 180; Roosevelt's attitude toward com-hog ratio, 293 Cornell University, 27 Com-Hog Section of AAA, 61-64, 93-95 Cost of living, and price control, 302-9 Cotton: beginning of improved farming methods in, 27; prices of, during depression, 65; AAA program for, 75; and commodity loans, 86; processing tax on, 92; and com, 110; production control in, 110; concern of Wickard and Roosevelt about, 167-68; Wickard's policy on, 177, 18182, 188, 203; on eve of Second World War, 180; surpluses in, 181-82; marketing quotas for, 234; controversy about, in Arizona, 315-17 Cotton Producers' Pool, 114 Council of National Defense, 138 County agents, 27, 28, 365 Coy, Wayne: as country editor, 51-52, 54; meeting with Wickard in Washington, 204; as liberal, 326; and food administration, 334; and Currie, 346 Craig, Robert, 387 Credit, to farmers, see Commodity Crédit Corporation, Farm credit,

Index Farm Credit Administration, Farm Security Administration Crete, 226 Currie, Lauchlin, 346 Czechoslovakia, 123 Daladier, Edouard, 123 Daniels, Josephus, 153, 155n, 387, 393 Danrow, Wayne: in AAA, 121, 136, 290; as head of Agricultural Labor Administration, 367, 369, 370; on treatment of Wickard by presidential assistants, 369-70 Davis, Chester C.: as lieutenant of Peek, 42, 47; as Assistant Administrator of AAA, 69-70, 75; at second meeting of National Corn-Hog Committee of Twenty-five, 81; as Administrator of AAA, 83, 85, 93-95; on constitutionality of AAA, 100; and soil conservation, 102; departure of, from AAA, 103; at White House affair, 105; and 1935 reorganization of Department of Agriculture, 121; as member of Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense, 138, 165; on Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 168; and England, 173; address of, at Baltimore convention of Farm Bureau, 173-74; Farm Bureau support of, for Secretary of Agriculture, 184; and Lend Lease, 184, 200; and mobilization of agriculture, 193-98; and food administration, 323-24, 326, 328, 330, 335, 358, 371-72, 375-78; on relations; with Wickard, 375, 384; as Food Administrator, 37885; Wickard on, 384; resignation of, as Food Administrator, 385 Declaration of the United Nations, 253 Deer Creek Township, Ind., 6, 9, 13 Delphi, Ind., 51, 54 Delphi High School, 16

405 Democratic Party: espousal of by Wickard's family, 9; and farmers, 40, 116-17; and 1928 election, 41-44; and 1932 election, 51-54; and 1936 election, 106-9; 1940 Convention of, 139-47; and 1940 election, 165-67; and 1944 election, 387-89; and 1952 election, 400 Denmark, 206 Denver, Colo., 330 Department of Agriculture: Wickard on, 2; regional farming basis of, 2, 4, 103; establishment of, 26-27; 1933 parity formula of, 59; and Farm Problem, 65-66; description of, 73-74; 1938 reorganization of, 117-19; 1935 reorganization of, 121; Farm Bureau decentralization program for, 175, 176, 189-92, 228; control of prices and production by, 203; Wickard's plan for reorganization of, 228-30; Roosevelt on work of, 230; 1941 reorganization of, 250-52; agricultural production survey of, 372-74; dual administration in, 379-87; see also Agricultural Adjustment Administration; Agriculture: Commodity Credit Corporation; Farm Credit Administration; Farm Security Administration; Food administration; Liberals; Wallace, Henry Agard; Wickard, Claude Raymond Department of Army, 325; see also Stimson, Henry L. Department of State, 325; see also Hull, Cordell L. Department of Interior, 321; see also Ickes, Harold L. Des Moines, Iowa, 13, 60, 61-64 Des Moines Register and Tribune, 20 Dewey, Thomas E., 321, 390 Dieppe, 301 Dimock, Marshall, 155n Division of Crop and LivestockEstimates, 89

406 Dodd, Norris E., 124, 335 Domestic Allotment Plan, of M. L. Wilson, 50-51 Doxey, Wall, 247 Douglas, William O., 215 Dunkirk, 137, 301 Dust storms, 92 Dutch East Indies, 231-32, 242, 255, 262 Early, Steve, 393-94 Eau Claire, Wis., 166 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 121, 320, 400 Eisenhower, Milton S., 121, 126, 161, 228, 252 Elections: of 1928, 41-44; of 1932. 51-54; of 1936, 106-9; of 1940, 165-67; of 1944, 387-89; of 1952, 400 Electrification, 188; Wickard's attitude toward, 390-92, 396-99; see also Rural Electrification Administration Elliott, Harriet, 138 Emanon Club, 19 Emergency Price Control Bill, passage of, 262; see also Prices, farm England: in First World War, 21; Wickard on, 134, 165, 173, 188, 221; and Dunkirk, 137; civil service in, 155-56, 171, 345; German bombing of, 175, 17778, 226; and Lend Lease, 185, 197, 200, 266-68, 362; and mobilization of agriculture, 195, 197, 315; Roosevelt on help for, 201, 202; turning over of ships to, 206; Wickard's attitude toward, 211-18; defense of, against Germany, 212-13; American sentiment for, 214-16; and India, 253; meat rationing in, 310; and food administration, 345-46; and food production, 358-59 "Equality for Agriculture" (Peek), 34 Equalization Fee, 43, 47 Estonia, 267 Ethiopia, 123

Index Evans, R. M. (Spike): at Iowa State, 100; and 1936 campaign, 106-9; as assistant to Secretary of Agriculture, 109; and new farm bill, 113; as Administrator of AAA, 117, 118, 126; as possible successor to Wallace, 148-49, 152, 160-61; and 1940 election, 167; and hog production, 178; and Wickard, 180-81, 187-89; and British food needs, 203; and Defense Board, 229-30; mission in London of, 230; and fertilizer requirements, 238; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251-52; departure of, from Department of Agriculture 252 Evans, Thurma, 125 Evansville, Ind., 57 Ever-Normal Granary: Wickard on, 99; Wallace on, 110, 111, 112; and 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, 116; and 1940 election, 166; on eve of Second World War, 178, 180; in thirdterm farm policy, 199; and Wickard's food production program, 212; and surpluses, 358 Extension Services, 126, 175, 228, 229 Ezekiel, Mordecai, 50, 71, 74, 211, 344 Fairacre Farms, 6n, 10n-lln; establishment of, 21; after First World War, 29-32; mechanization on, 46; soil rebuilding on, 88; profitable farming at, 125; Wickard familv Thanksgiving at, in 1940, 169;'1941 visit to, by Wickard and wife, 243, 244; disrepair of, during Second World War. 288; Wickard's 1942 visit to, 331 Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr., 164 Farley, James A.: as party boss, 70, 389; and 1936 election, 106, 109; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 139, 141, 143. 144, 145, 147

Index Farm and Home Hour, 213-14, 237 Farm Bloc: in Congress, 189, 19091, 233; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 282-84; and agricultural production, 359-61; and parity, 386; see also Farm Bureau Farm Board, see Federal Farm Board Farm Bureau: in Indiana, 25, 2829, 36-37, 40-42; development of, 27; establishment of Federation, 28; and Farm Problem, after First World War, 35, 40; and Hoover, 47; leaders of, 110, 112; and Farmers' Union, 112; and 1937 recession, 113; and 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, 116; and politics, 122; and Wallace campaign for vice-presidency, 136; and FSA, 137, 27173, 276, 278, 327, 342, 366-67, 386; 1940 Baltimore convention of, 173-74, 178; and social security, 175; and Roosevelt, 17576; and Wickard, 184, 208, 210, 221-22, 278-87, 345; and parity, 218, 224; and Department of Agriculture, 228; and price control, 257; power of, 271; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 285-86; and farm labor shortage, 316, 366-67; and food administration, 322, 328; conservative attitude of, 338; and liberals, 352; agricultural production survey of, 372 Farm credit, 136-37; see also Commodity Credit Corporation; Farm Credit Administration; Farm Security Administration Farm Credit Administration ( FCA ) : and Wallace, 137; and Defense Board, 229; and farm loans, 273; and Wickard, 384, 387; and food administration, 349 Farmers: political movements of, 25-27; and soil, 30-32; attitudes of, toward farming, 38; and Re-

407 publican and Democratic parties, 40, 116-17; variety of, 46; and 1932 campaign, 51-54; attitudes of, toward production control, 66-67, 80, 110-12; Wickard on, 83, 86, 97-99, 111, 182-83, 219, 265, 307; and AAA, 96-97; and New Deal, 116-17; credit to, 136-37; Wickard's attitude toward, 200-2, 359; Roosevelt's attitude toward, 200-2, 225, 293, 314-15; isolationism of, 213, 221; attitude among, toward Wickard, 219, 364; parity as goal of, 221, 224-25; Wickard as representative of, 224-25; and military service, 239, 346, 363-64; discrimination against, in price control, 265; position of, after First World War, 279-80; Wallace's attitude toward, 314-15; labor problems of, 314-16; wartime mood of, 330-31; and full production, 359, 363; see also Agriculture; Department of Agriculture Farmers' Alliances, 26 Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work, 27 Farmers' Guide, 12 Fanners' Institute, 24, 27 Farmers* Union: purpose of, quoted, 26; and Farm Bureau, 112; and FSA, 122; for Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 14950; convention of, 243-44; and Roosevelt, 261; and C.I.O., 317; and food administration, 322, 324 "Farm Front, The" (Wickard), 244 Farm Organization Committee, 236 Farm prices, see Prices, farm Farm Security, principle of 175, 188 Farm Security Administration (FSA): establishment of, 12122; and Farm Bureau, 137, 27173, 276, 278, 327, 342, 366-67, 386; and field force of Depart-

408 FSA (Continued)

ment of Agriculture, 228; and Defense Board, 229; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 271-73, 279, 281-82; and Wickard, 271-72, 278; Wickard on, 272; functions and officers of, 272-76; and liberals, 273; and farm labor shortage, 313, 316-17; and agrarian liberalism, 327; and food administration, 328, 333, 335, 338-39, 341-42, 348-49; migratory worker program of, 366 Farm surpluses: and New Deal, 65-66; and AAA, 59-60; disposal of, 92; in cotton, 181-82; Wickard on, 188; Wallace's program for, 233-34 Fats and oils, 238, 245, 255-56 Federal Farm Board: establishment of, 47; Wickard and, 48; and controlled production, 50; and farm surpluses, 59, 66; and AAA, 75; and Farm Bureau, 175 Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, 114, 180 Fertilization, 30-32, 238 First World War, 20-24, 138, 311, 320; Roosevelt on food production during, 230 Fish, Hamilton, 166 Fitzgerald, Dennis A., 291 Flora, Ind., 15-16, 45 Florida Keys, 202, 205 Flynn, Edward J., 165 Food administration, 310-86; Davis as Food Administrator, 378-85; Jones as Food Administrator, 385-86 Food Distribution Administration, 334-35 Food Production Administration, 334-35 Foods Requirements Committee, 268-69, 297, 303, 310-12 Food Stamp Plan, 92 Forest Service, 229, 334, 384, 387 Fort Morgan, Colo., 166 Fort Wayne, Ind., 57 France, 21, 137, 138

Index Frank, Jerome N„ 76, 81, 93-94 Frankfort Chamber of Commerce, 56 Frankfurter, Felix, 275 Friant, Julien, 70 Fulmer, Hampton P., 237-38 Carman, Cameron, 335-36, 344-45 Gamer, John Nance, 143 Garst, Roswell, 60-61 General Maximum Price Regulations ( 1 9 4 2 ) , 269 General Motors, 200 Georgia, 46 Germany: appeasement of, 123, 176; and England, 134, 175, 177, 212-13, 226; and France, 138; and Russia, 168, 231-32; raiding in Atlantic by, 214-16; and Japan, 246; and U.S., 252; meat rationing in, 310 Gibraltar, 320 Gilbert, Ben, 348-49 Gillette, Guy, 142 Ginsburg, David, 304 Gleaners of Michigan, 26 Grange, 25-26, 112, 322 Great Britain, see England Guadalcanal, 295 Guam, 246 Gregory, Cliff, 136 Greece^ 201, 212, 226 Greenland, 215 Halloran Hospital, 124 Hamilton, Carl: papers of, 102n; as Wickard's assistant, 158, 162, 186, 193, 227, 276, 290, 377, 384; and temporary appointment of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 163n; as speech writer for Wickard, 166; and FSA, 226; and food administration, 351, 352 Hannegan, Robert, 388, 396, 397 Hansen, Del, 124n Harding, Warren G., 33, 35, 73 Harper, Fowler, 144 Harr, Luther, 140, 141, 142 Hatch Act, 3, 154

Index Hawaii, 246 Hedge, Porter, on Wickard, 363 Henderson, Leon: as member of Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense, 138; and Wickard, 204-6, 25556, 259-61, 264-65, 336; and British Food Mission, 215; and price control, 236, 238, 252, 255-57, 264, 268, 270, 299, 302-9, 322; and subsidies, 281; and Roosevelt, 294; and pork panic, 296-98; and rationing, 311, 323; and food administration, 318-20, 334, 336; resignation of, from OPA, 336 Hendrickson, Roy F.: and Wickard, 130, 161, 163n; as head of Surplus Marketing, 240, 291; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251; ana food administration, 334, 339, 347, 355, 377 Hepburn, Katherine, 164 Herring, Clyde, 108, 142 Hershey, Lewis B., 239, 270, 313, 366 Hibbard, Benjamin, 14 Hill, Grover Bennett: as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, 126, 132, 181-82; at 1940 Democratic Convention, 140-143; and Marvin Jones, 330n; as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 387 Hill, Lister, 322 Hillman, Sidney, 138, 142, 194 Hider, Adolf, 117, 123, 210, 241; Hopkins on, 215 Hogs: Prices of, 29, 49, 92-93, 368; production of, after First World War, 31; beginning of controlled production of, 60-6) ; development of program for, 68-92, 96-99; slaughter of, 7980; payments to fanners for controlled production of, 87; Wickard's call for increase in production of, 178-79; and inflation, 295-98 Holden, P. G., 13 Holland, 137

409 Hoosac Mills case, 96, 100 Hoover, Herbert: as Food Administrator, 22-23, 31, 320; as Secretary of Commerce, 35, 36; and 1928 election, 43-44; and Farm Problem, 47-49, 65, 175; and AAA, 59 Hopkins, Harry: and CWA, 88; as Secretary of Commerce, 13738; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 140-44, 147; at Hyde Park, 164; and mobilization of agriculture, 191, 194, 197; and Lend Lease, 178, 200; and British Food Mission, 215; on German threat, 215; at Cabinet meeting, 246; and food production, 268, 311, 312, 327, 36970; and war effort, 273; and price control, 302, 307; as shield of Roosevelt, 368 Hornet, 295 House of Representatives: and Lend Lease, 185, 235; and parity, 218; and price control, 23637, 256-59; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 278, 279; ana farm labor shortage, 313, 366-67; and agricultural production, 359-61 Houston, Texas, 42 Howe, Fred, 76-77 Hudgens, Robert W.: as liberal, 161, 327, 328; and food administration, 341, 352 Hull, Cordell: and 1940 Democratic Convention, 141, 143; at Cabinet meetings, 165, 172, 212, 214, 216, 226, 246-47, 25253, 345-46, 373; on aid to England, 214; and Japanese representatives, 243, 246; and food administration, 320-21; encroachment on responsibility of, 385 Hutchinson, Kan., 219-21 Hutson, John B.: and farm legislation, 113; and Wickard, 130, 163n; as head of CCC, 221-22, 291; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251, 252; and food

410 Hutson, John B. (Continued) administration, 335, 351, 355, 368-69, 371; on Byrnes, 369 Hutton, Maurice I., 226 Hyde, Arthur M., on aid to agriculture, 49 Hyde Park, N.Y., 164-65, 293, 394 Iceland, 215, 231 Ickes, Harold L.: resignation of, in 1940, 169; at Cabinet meetings, 172, 261, 365, 373; on Wickard and parity, 213n; on Wickard rebellion, 261; and food administration, 321; and 1944 campaign, 388-89; as head of PWA, 398 Illinois, 2, 63-64, 91 Illinois Agricultural Association (Farm Bureau), 63-64 Incentive Payments, 361 Independence, Mo., 166 India, 253 Indiana: Wickard's farms in, 2; in North Central Region of AAA, 2; Two Percent Club in, 3, 12627; Farm Bureau in, 25, 28-29, 149; farm groups in, 26; limestone quarries in, 31; reputation of Wickard's farm in, 36-37, state Extension Service of, 41, and election of 1932, 51-54; and AAA, 60-62; attitude toward com-hog program in, 90-91 Indianapolis, Ind., 33, 41, 47, 48, 147-49 Indianapolis Athletic Club, 55 Indianapolis Star, 12 Indian Ocean, 226 Indochina, 231, 245 Inflation: Roosevelt's fear of, 201, 206, 236, 257, 294-95, 299; Wickard's attitude toward, 203, 213n, 217-25, 280-81. 29495, 300; Henderson's struggle against, 205; Ickes's note on Wickard's statement on, 2l3n; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 286; pork and,

Index 295-98; and Lend Lease, 296, 298; Wickard on, 300; and price control, 302-9; and farm prices, 361; see also Parity; Prices, farm Iowa, 2, 60, 91; Wickard on, 61; campaigning by Wickard for Wallace in, 135-36; delegation from, at 1940 Democratic convention, 142, 144 Iowa State College, 27, 179 Isolationism: among farmers, 213, 221; in nation, 209, 217 Italy, 206, 252 Ithaca, N.Y., 28 Izaak Walton League, 56 Jackson, Andrew, 9 Jackson, Gardner ( P a t ) : as member of Consumers Counsel of AAA, 77, 93, 94; Wickard on, 274; as liberal, 274-75, 326-28, 333, 335, 346; as Wickard's assistant, 290; and farm labor shortage, 317; and food administration, 322, 336-38, 341, 343, 349, 353; on Parisius's resignation, 351; firing of, 354-55; Roosevelt's intercession for, 35657 Jackson, Robert, 172 Jackson, Minn., 124 Jacobs, Emory E., 193 James, William, 14 Japan: invasion of China by, 123; and Germany, 165, 246; appeasement of, 226, 231-32, 242, 267; American conversations with, before Pearl Harbor, 24346; Pearl Harbor attack of, 24648; and Russia, 253; strategy against, 356 Japanese-Americans, 313 Jardine, James T., 36, 121 Jarrett, Henry, 130 Jasper, Ala., 163-64 Jasper Methodist Church, 163 Johnson, Francis, 189n Johnson, Lyndon, 247 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 377, 385 Jones, Jesse: at Cabinet meetings,

Index 172, 233; at 1940 Democratic Convention, 143, 145; and fats and oils production, 245; feud of, with Wallace, 385 Jones, Marvin: in Congress, 92, 113; as possible successor to Wallace, 148-49; and food administration, 326, 328-31, 350, 352, 369, 370-71, 375; on Wickard, 330; and agricultural production, 359; as Food Administrator, 385-86; firing of Baldwin by, 386 Jump, William A.: as career government employee, 121, 126; administrative plan of, 155-56, 345; and Wickard, 161, 171 Kansas, 92 Kansas City, Mo., 42, 297 Keepers, W. Floyd, 39n Kentucky, 313 Kiplinger Agricultural Letter, 169 Knapp, Seaman A., 27 Knox, Frank: appointment of, as Secretary of Navy, 137; absence of, from Bankhead's funeral, 163; on shipping in Atlantic, 214; at Cabinet meetings, 165, 172, 214, 216, 231-32, 247, 373; and food administration, 370; encroachment on responsibility of, 385 Knudsen, William S., 138, 194 Labor: Roosevelt's attitude toward, 266; and wage control, 299301; unionization of, 314; and food administration, 324; see also American Federation of Labor, CongTess of Industrial Organizations Lae, 295 Lafayette, Ind., 22, 39 LaGuardia, Fiorello, 169 Land-grant agricultural colleges, 14, 21, 27 Landon, Alfred, 106, 109 Latin America, 255

411 Latvia, 267 League of Nations, 123 League of Women Voters, 142 Leahy, William D., 369 Lease, Mary, 26 LeCron, Tames D., 121, 149, 150, 167; departure of, from Department of Agriculture, 162, 192 Lee, Frederic P., 113, 116n Legal Division of AAA, 76, 93, 121 Legge, Alexander, 47, 48 Lehman, Herbert, 319-23, 325, 353n Lend Lease: legislation for, 178, 200, 235, 266; and England, 197, 200, 362; and parity, 22122; and United Nations, 260-68; and inflation, 296, 298; and food administration, 345, 347-48, 362; and Russia, 362; and agricultural production, 358-59 Leningrad, 295 Lewis, John L.: and A.F. of L., 123; Cabinet's attitude toward, 209; and coal strike, 234; and Roosevelt, 266, 283; support of Willkie by, 275 Liberals: in Department of Agriculture, 76, 77, 93-94, 121, 27476, 326-28, 333, 335, 344, 346, 348, 386; bureaucratic havens of, 273-74 Libyan Desert, 226 Lidice, 295 Lindbergh, Charles A., 211, 217 Literary Digest, 106 Lithuania, 267 Litvinoff, Maxim, 253 Livestock production, 373 Logansport, Ind., 13, 21, 45; as market, 46; failure of bank in, 58; move of Wickard's wife and children to, 81 London, 230 Loose, Catherine, 162, 170, 290, 384 Lux, Peter, 61, 62 Luxembourg, 137 Lyttleton, Oliver, 268

412 MacArthur, Douglas, 263, 295 McCamy, James L., 121, 154, 161, 192 McDonough, James A., 96 McHale, Frank, 54, 57-58, 144 MclntyTe, Marvin, 257, 326, 368 McKinley, Charles T., 156n McNary, Charles, 139, 141, 169, 281-82 McNaiy-Haugen Bills, 34-36, 4142, 74-75, 279-80 McNutt, Paul V.: election of, as governor of Indiana, 52-53; state machine of, 54, 57, 58, 70; and vacating of VVickard's seat in Indiana Senate, 95; and Two Percent Club, 126-27, 141; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 139, 141, 143-47; as Chairman of VVMC, 287, 315, 317, 36566 Maddox, James, 327, 328 Maine, 106 Maine, 9 Manchuria, 123 Marion County Barbers' Association, 56 Marketing control: and AAA, 59, 77, 82; Peek's advocacy of, 75; and 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, 115; and Wickard's production goals, 234 Martin, John C., 166, 247 Maumee River, 6 Meat: AAA program for, 75, and hog slaughter, 79-80; see also Hogs Mediterranean Sea, 212, 226 Meeker, David, 193 Memphis, Tenn., 330 Mexican Treaty, on migratory farm workers, 287-88, 312-13, 31516, 366 Mexico, Wickard's trips to, 168, 285, 287-88, 292-93, 299 Miami River, 6 Michigan, 2 Midway Island, 283, 295 Milk, AAA program for, 75 Minnesota, 2, 123-24

Index Minton, Mrs. Sherman, 130 Mississippi River, 30, 79 Missouri, 2, 28, 322 Moline, 111., 34 Molotov, V. M., 268 Montana, 50, 51 Montgomery, Bernard Law, 226, 295 Morgenthau, Henry: at Cabinet meetings, 165, 172-73, 373; and mobilization of agriculture, 19697; and inflation, 219; on Wickard, 301; encroachment on responsibility of, 385; after death of Roosevelt, 393-94 Morrill Act (1862), 27 Moscow. 263 Munich Conference, 123 Murphy, Donald R., 136, 154, 155n Murphy, Louis, 105, 106 Murray, Philip, 275 Mussolini, Benito, 123 Myer, Dillon S., 335 National Board on Swine Production Policy, 44, 45 National Corn-Hog Committee of Twenty-five, 62-63, 67-68, 81 National Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, 26 National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, 25, 26, 112, 322 National Labor Relations Board, 273 National Recovery Administration (NRA), 73, 100 Neal, William J., 387, 391 Nebraska, 2 Nelson, Donald M.: and food administration, 255, 268-70, 31722, 326, 370; and Roosevelt, 294; and Wickard, 297; and price control, 299, 303-5; Wickard on, 304-5 New Deal: and farmers, 65, 11617; change in agricultural policy of, 203-4; see also Liberals New Dealers, see Liberals New England, 46

Index New Jersey, 46, 313 New York, 313 New York, N.Y., 214, 269 New York Evening Post, 142 New York Flanning Commission, 140 New York PU, 156 New York Times, 172 Nickel Plate Railroad, 56 Niles, David, 326 Nomura, Kichisaburo, 243 North Africa, 212-13, 226, 295; American invasion of, 320-21; civilian control in, 325; Roosevelt's trip to, 356 North Central Region of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 2, 4 North Carolina, 6, 46 Norway, 137 O'Connor, Frank, 142, 144, 145 Office of Agricultural Defense Relations, 198 Office of Agricultural War Relations, 251, 290 Office of Economic Stabilization, 308 Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, 325 Office of Land-Use Coordination, 228 Office of Price and Civilian Supply, 204 Office of Production Management, 194 Office of Price Administration (OPA): and food production, 268; and food scarcities, 333; and food administration, 334, 336; and rationing, 363; see also Henderson, Leon Ohio, 2, 6, 156-57 Oklahoma, 92 Olmstead, Ralph W„ 162, 193 Olsen, Nils, 94 Olson, Culbert L., 145 Omaha, Neb., 79 Omaha Land Bank, 387

413 O'Neal, Edward A.: as leader of Tarm Bureau, 110, 112; and Department of Agriculture, 113, 175-76, 366-67; and Wickard, 184, 189-91, 207, 260, 270-71, 178-81, 301; and price control, 257-58; and farm labor probfem, 316, 317; and parity, 27981; see also Farm Bureau Orin, 320 Ottumwa, Iowa, 166 Paiic of 1893, 8, 32, 40 Paiel, Donald, 162 Parisius, Herbert W.: as Wickard's issistant, 162, 163n, 275-76, 330; resignations of, 193, 35152; as head of Office of Agricultural War Relations, 290; and food administration, 327-28, 335-43, 346, 349-51; exhortation of, to fanners, 331; as member of War Board, 333; overseas service of, 353n Parity: and AAA definition, 59, 85-86; and 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, 114; Wickard's attitude toward, 187, 207-12, 213n, 217-25, 235-40, 279-87, 299-301; Roosevelt's attitude toward, 210-11, 220, 224-25, 244-55, 305-8; and 85 percent loan law, 218-21; as goal of fanners, 221; and Lend Lease, 221-22; and price control, 25666, 305-8; Farm Bureau attitude toward, 279-97; and 90 percent standard, 308; Farm Bloc on, 386; see also Inflation; Prices, farm; Subsidies Parran, Thomas, 202-4, 211 Patton, James, 261, 275, 322, 387 Pearl Harbor, 246-48 Pearson, Drew, 317, 356 Peek, George N.: and McNaryHaugen Bills, 34-35, 42, 47; and farm prices, 38; as Administrator of AAA, 71, 73-76, 93; and Wallace, 75, 77, 82-83; resignation of, from AAA, 83;

414 Peek, George N. (Continued) and parity, 85; and farm surpluses, 92 Pennsylvania, 6, 141, 142 Pentagon, 209 Perkins, Frances: and 1940 Democratic Convention, 140, 143, 146-47; at Cabinet meetings, 172-73; and price control, 299; on Roosevelt's view of Wickard, 329n; encroachment on responsibility of, 385; resignation of, 397 Perkins, Milo: and Wallace, 181; and Wickard, 180-81, 187, 188; and British food needs, 203; as head of BEW, 220, 325; and Lend Lease, 222-23; resignation from Department of Agriculture, 223-24, 252; and foreign purchasing, 255; as friend of Jackson, 275; and New Dealism, 326 Philadelphia, Penna., 106, 166, 374, 376 Philippines, 252, 263 Phillips, Six Frederick, 171 Pickart, Ann Wickard: Wickard on, 1; birth of, 32; and 1932 State Senatorial campaign, 53; in Washington, 84, 95-96, 125; attendance at Purdue of, 156; on 1940 trip to midwest, 157; at sister's wedding, 302; marriage of, 338, 343-44, 364-65; on college education, 343; Wickard's letter on himself to, 380 Pickart, Jean V., 289, 302, 338, 343-44 Pierce, Dante, 136 Poe, Clarence, 153 Poland, 267 Populism, 9, 26, 27 Pork, see Hogs Potato Act, 92 Prairie Farmer, 37, 136, 210 Preparedness, debate about, in nation, 241-42

Index Pressman, Lee, 94 Prices, farm: after Civil War, 25; after 1929 crash, 49; in 1932, 65; and parity formula in 1933, 59; arguments about in AAA, 7677; of hogs, after pig slaughter, 80; in 1937, 112-13; Department of Agriculture control of, 203; in 1941, 204; in food production program, 212; Wickard's attitude toward, 217-25; control of, 235-37, 255-66, 296-309; effect on, of Second World War, 280; in wartime, 300; Farm Bloc and, 361; Roosevelt on, 385; see also Inflation, Parity Prichard, Edward, 326, 333, 352 Processing tax: in AAA, 59; on com and hog products, 87; on cotton, 92; and Supreme Court, 96, 102 Production control: some attitudes toward, after 1929 crash, 49-51; and AAA, 59-60, 77, 82; attitude of farmers toward, 66-67, 80, 109-11; of corn and hogs, 88-89; and Supreme Court, 102, 111; and 1938 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 114-17; Wickard's attitude toward, 200; Department of Agriculture control of, 203; change of policy in, by Wickard. 203-4; and Wickard's production "goals," 233-34; and change to full production, 358-83 Production Incentive payments, 359-60 Prohibition, 42, 43, 123 Public Law No. 674 (1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill), 277-87 Public Works Administration ( PWA ), 73, 398 Purdue Agricultural Alumni Association, 32 Purdue University: Betty Wickard student at, 1, 125, 137; Wickard student at, 17, 19; and Fanners' Institute, 24, 27; and Farm Bu-

Index

415

reau, 28; Ann Wickard student at, 156, 344; Wickard's talk at, in 1941, 182-83 Quotas, see Marketing Production control

control,

Raleigh, N. C„ 216-17 Rationing: Wickard and, 239, 31011, 323; and food administration, 334, 336, 340, 362; OPA and, 363; operation of, 386 Raybum, Sam, 247, 282-83 Reciprocal trade agreements, 66 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 87, 115 Red Cross, 68 Reed, J. Joe, 331 Reid, T. Roy, 192, 226-27, 240, 335 Republican Party: and farmers, 40; and 1928 election, 41-44; and 1932 election, 51-54; and 1936 election, 106; and 1940 election, 139, 141, 167; criticism of New Deal by, 166; and 1944 election, 389; and 1952 election, 400 Resetdement Administration, 121 Reuben James, 241 Rice, AAA program for, 75 Richards, Preston, 130-31, 178, 344 Riley, Will, 136 Robinson, Edward G., 131 Roman Catholicism, and 1928 election, 42-44 Rommel, Erwin, 226, 295 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 130, 145, 275, 302, 315, 394 Roosevelt, Elliot, 145, 164 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano: approval of Wickard as Under Secretary of Agriculture by, 3; nomination of Smith by, 42; and M. L. Wilson's Domestic Allotment Plan, 50-51; and Wickard, 53, 175, 200, 206, 293-94, 36768; election of, in 1932, 54; on Farm Problem, 65; and AAA,

75; and com-hog policy, 85; Wickard on, 105-6, 201, 248, 329n, 390; election of, in 1936, 106-9; and Supreme Court, 113; desire of, for new farm law, 113; and Second World War, before American involvement, 117, 137-38, 210, 214; and Wickard's appointment as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 126-27; for Wallace as Vice President, 136; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 139-47; and Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 150-54; at swearing in of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 159; and funeral for Bankhead, 163-64; at Cabinet meetings, 165, 17172, 209-10, 212-16, 226, 231-33, 243, 245-48, 252-54, 261, 263, 267-68, 292-94, 310, 325, 337, 345-46, 356, 365, 372-74; election of, in 1940, 166-67; concern of, about cotton, 168; and Farm Bureau, 175-76; and Wallace, 175, 293, 294, 325; on bombing of England, 177; conversation of, with Wickard on Lend-Lease Bill, 184-85; opposition of, to decentralization of Department of Agriculture, 189; ana mobilization of agriculture, 194-98; attitude of, toward farmers, 2002, 225, 293, 314-15; on help for England and Greece, 201; on help for England, 202; on Wickard's food production plan, 205; attitude of, toward inflation, 206, 219, 236, 257, 29495, 299; attitude of, toward parity, 210-11, 220, 224-25, 244-45, 305-8; Hopkins on, 215; and American economy, 218; on work of Department of Agriculture, 230; attitude of, toward Russia, 232-33, 267-68; and Atlantic meeting, 233, 242; conversation of, with Nomura, 243; and Declaration of United Na-

416 Roosevelt, Franklin D. ( Continued ) tions, 253; and price control, 257-58, 260-62, 299-309, 361; attitude of, toward labor, 260; approval of subsidy mechanism by, 281; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 281-84; on fieht with John L. Lewis, 283; Bledsoe on, 305; and food administration, 318-32, 345-47, 370-72, 376-78; Wallace on, 325; attitude of, toward VVickard, 329n; and agricultural production, 353, 365-66; intercession for Jackson by, 356-57; on Cabinet criticism of administrators, 367-68; election of, in 1944, 388-89; death of, 393 Rosenman, Samuel I.: and inflation control, 299, 302, 304; and food administration, 321-28, 369; and agricultural production, 367; as shield of Roosevelt, 368 Rural Electrification Administration ( R E A ) : and Department of Agriculture Defense Board, 229; and Wickard, 334, 384, 387, 389; Congressional investigation of, 387; Wickard as Administrator of, 397-400 Rural Free Delivery system, 12 Rural Human Welfare Committee, 134 Russell, Donald, 369 Russell, Richard, 202, 281-82, 284-85 Russia: as neutral, 168; outbreak of war with Germany, 231-32; shipments of goods to, 232; and Japan, 253; early reverses of, in war, 295; and agricultural production, 358-59; and Lend Lease, 261-68, 362; and United Nations, 395 Sacco-Vanzetti case, 275 Salisbury, Morse, 163n, 344 St. John's Church, 183

Index St. Paul, Minn., 136-37 San Francisco, Calif., 234, 395 Scarcity economy, 67 Schenck, Hassil, 149 Schechter case, 100 Schindler, Alfred, 324 Schooler, Harry, 335 Second World War: prior to American involvement, 123, 137-38, 199-201, 206; Wickard on, 134; American entrance in, 212-13, 245-48; effect of, on agriculture, 280; end of, in Europe, 397 Selective Service, 231, 239 Senate: confirmation of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture by, 3; and Lend Lease, 185, 200; and parity, 218; and price control, 256-59; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 278, 282, 285-86; and food administration, 362-63; and farm labor shortage, 366-67 Sette, Frank, 162 Settle, William, 40-42 Shea, Frank, 94 Sheehy, Monsignor Maurice, 140, 141n, 142 Shelby County, Ind., 90 Shepard, Guy C., 73 Shields, Robert H.: and farm legislation, 113; and temporary ap pointment of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture, 163n; as Wickard's assistant, 221-22, 228, 256-57, 290; and Appleby, 227; efficiency of, 240; and 1941 reorganization of Department of Agriculture, 250, 252; and FSA, 276; and food administration, 330-31, 333-35, 337-38, 371, 378-80; illness of, 344 Shortages, 310-11, 330, 358 Shricker, Henry, 183 Sifton, Paul, 351 Singapore, 242, 263 Sioux Falls, Minnesota, 123 Skinner, J. H.: as Wickard's teacher, 19, 21; and Farmers'

Index Institute, 24; and Indiana State Extension Service, 41; and AAA, 61, 62; recommendation of Wickard by, 64 Slattery, HarTy, 161, 251, 387, 391, 397-98 Smith, Alfred E., 42-44 Smith, Earl C.: and com-hog program, 63-64; as Farm Bureau leader, 110, 112; and Department of Agriculture, 113, 175, 176; and Wickard, 183, 189, 207, 271, 278-81, 362; and 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 285 Smith, Ellison D., 113 Smith, Harold, 219, 319, 322, 330, 368 Smith-Lever Act (1914), 27 Smithsonian Institute, 134 Social security, 175 Social Washington (Squire), 130 Soil conservation: Wiclcard's attitude toward, 81, 98-100, 188; Wallace's attitude toward, 97; Wickard on, 98; as basis of farm policy, 102-3, 109-11 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (1936), 102-3, 109 Soil Conservation Service, 122, 228, 229 South Carolina, 6 South Dakota, 2 Southern Regional Conference of Farm Bureau, 151 Spanish-American War, 9, 275 Spillman, William J., 50 Squire, Ann, 130 Stalingrad, 295 Stamp Plan programs, 187-38, 222 State Extension Services, and Farm Bureau, 190, 366-67 Steagall, Henry B., 237, 308 Steagall Amendment, 235, 308 Steere, Lloyd, 203 Stettinius, Edward S., 138, 347, 395 Stevens Hotel, 139, 140, 143

417 Stimson, Henry L.: appointment of, as Secretary of War, 137; absence of, from Bankhead funeral, 163; at Cabinet meetings, 172, 212, 231-32, 247, 263; and prewar planning, 199; and British Food Mission, 215; and mine strike, 243; and food administration, 320, 370; encroachment on responsibility of, 385 Stine, O. C., 74, 178 Stockpiling, 137 Stone, Harlan F., 394 Storm Lake, Iowa, 166 Submarginal lands, retirement of, 49-50 Subsidies: as anti-inflation measure, 280-81; as production incentives, 298; as price control measures, 305; and Production Incentive payments, 359-60; see also Parity Taber, Louis J., 236 Tadpole School House, 12, 14-15, 26 Taft, Robert A., 185 Tammany Hall, 43 Tapp, Jesse, 335 Tarver, Malcolm, 259, 282-85 Taylor, Henry C., 14, 74 Tenant purchase programs, 188 Texas, 27, 46, 92 Thatcher, M. W. (Bill), 136, 244, 261 Thompson, Dorothy, 315 Thome, Gerald B., 78, 94, 103. 109, 196 Thurston, John, 355 Tobacco: AAA program for, 75; marketing quotas for, 234 Tolley, Howard R.: as economist in Department of Agriculture, 50, 74; as Administrator of AAA, 103; as Chief of BAE, 117-18; qualifications of, 126; and Wickard, 130, 161, 163n, 187-88, 252; and fertilizer requirements, 238; as member of Agricultural

418 Tolley, Howard R. ( Continued) War Board, 251; departures of, from Department of Agriculture, 252, 291; and farm production, 323; and food administration, 341, 345 Topeka, Kan., 243 Townsend, M. Clifford, 251, 291, 335, 350-52 Trent, Isaac, on Wickard, 58 Triple-A, see Agricultural Adjustment Administration Troyer, Alva, 124 Truman, Harry: as Senator, 322, 323; criticism of Wickard by, 353; nomination of, as Vice President, 389; as Vice President, 392-93; at meeting after death of Roosevelt, 393-95; as President, 395-96; appointment of Wickard as REA Administrator by, 397 Truman, Mrs. Harry, 395 Truman, Margaret, 394 Tugwell, Rexford G.: in original Brain Trust, 50; as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, 76, 82; and arguments in Com-Hog Section of AAA, 93; as Governor of Puerto Rico, IIS; and 1935 reorganization of Department of Agriculture, 121; as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 131; at 1940 Democratic Convention, 140, 143 Tulagi, 295 Turkey, 356 Two Percent Club, in Indiana, 3, 126-27 Tydings, Millard, 143 Ukraine, 267 Unemployment, 67 Union League Club, 67-68, 81, 123 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), see Russia United Brethren Church, 10 United Kingdom, see England United Mine Workers, 243 United Nations, 253, 263, 395

Index United States Court of Claims, 329-30 United States Employment Service, 316, 366 University of Illinois, 27, 84 University of Wisconsin, 27 Valentine, John, 144 Vandenburg, Arthur H., 185 Van Nuys, Frederick, 70 Van Wert, Ohio, 166 Vermont, 106 Versailles Treaty, 123 Vichy Government, 263 Vinson, Frederick M., 326, 333 Virginia, 6, 313 Vogler, Marshall, 61, 62 Wabash River, 6 Wages, 299-301, 314, 316-17, 358 Wagner, Robert F., 308 Wake Island, 246 Walker, Frank, 163, 172, 273 Walker, J. O., 366 Wallace, Fred, 251, 291, 335 Wallace, Ilo, 125 Wallace, Henry Agard: offer of position of Under Secretary of Agriculture to Wickard by, 3; as candidate for President, 4; early agricultural woric of, 13; Wickard on, 44-45, 103-4, 108, 135, 151, 160, 293-94; on Wickard, 45, 106; at Chicago meeting of farm economists, 50; and AAA, 59, 60, 63, 93-94; and Farm Problem, 66; and Wickard, 69, 99-100, 125-26, 134-35, 151, 170-71, 181-84; as Secretary of Agriculture, 73-75; and Peek, 75, 82-83; and Tugwell, 76; at second meeting of National Corn-Hog Committee of Twenty-five, 81; and parity, 8586; and corn-hog program, 85, 96-97; and commodity loans, 86-87; and farm surpluses, 92; attitude of, toward soil conservation, 93; at White House affair, 105-6; 1936 campaigning for

Index Roosevelt, 106-8; and EverNormal Granary, 110-12; attitude of, toward production control, 111; and 1938 reorganization of department, 117-18; tour of south by, 121; political position of, 122; nomination of Wickard as Under Secretary of Agriculture by, 126-27; on position of Under Secretary of Agriculture, 129-30; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 139-47; espousal of Wickard for Secretary of Agriculture, 150-53; resignation as Secretary of Agriculture of, 157-59; Wickard's attitude toward, 157, 170-77, 18182, 293-94; attitude of members of Department of Agriculture toward, 160-62, 291; at Bankhead's funeral, 164; and campaign of 1940, 166-67; trip to Mexico City, 168; and production for England, 173; and mobilization of agriculture, 196, 198; on Wickard's food production program, 204; ana price control, 217, 256, 299; meeting of, with Wickard and Perkins on Lend Lease, 222-23; Wickard's conversation with, at Pearl Harbor Cabinet meeting, 248; and foreign purchasing, 255; and BEW, 273; firing of Jackson by, 275; qualities of, 292-94; and Roosevelt, 293, 294, 325; attitude of, toward farmers, 31415; and food administration, 320-23, 328, 337, 345-48, 353; criticism of Roosevelt by, 325; at cabinet meetings, 345; and agricultural production, 358-59; and Department of Agriculture production report, 374; feud of, with Jesse Jones, 385; and 1944 campaign, 388-89; in 1944 reelection parade, 390; as Secretary of Commerce, 392; at meeting after death of Roosevelt, 394-95

419 Wallace, Henry Cantwell, 34, 73, 74, 171 Wallace's Farmer, 12, 44, 110, 136, 154, 155n, 210 Wall Street, 47-48 War Council, of Allied nations, 252-53 War Finance Corporation, 33-34 War Labor Board, 313 War Manpower Commission, 287, 313, 315-17, 364-66 Warm Springs, Ga., 135, 293, 392 War Powers Act, 303 War Production Board (WPB): and Food administration, 255, 317-22, 334, 349-52; and food production, 268-70; and shutdowns and shortages, 303; and Foods Requirements Committee, 311-12; and farm machinery, 313; and food scarcities, 333; Wickard a member of, 384 Washington, D.C., 2, 26; move of Wickard's family to, 84; intensification of attitudes on, 20910; wartime executives in, 26364 Washington Post, 348 Washington Star, 262, 284, 312, 352 Watson, Edwin M., 176, 177, 37172 Webster, Lyle, 290-91, 356, 366, 370; on Wickard, 378, 384 Welles, Sumner, 232 Wells, Oris V., 178, 252, 291 "We Must Unite for Victory" (Wickard), 301 Westchester Apartments, 183, 228, 240, 302 Wesiervelt, William I., 75 West Virginia, 313 Wheat: beginning of controlled production of, 60; AAA program for, 75; on eve of Second World War, 180; Wickard policies on, 203; marketing quotas for, 234 Wheeler, Leslie A., 203 Wheeb'ng Church, 25

420 White House: Wickard's visit to, 105-6; Louise Wickard to tea at, 130; swearing in of Wickard as Secretary of Agriculture at, 159; meetings at, on 1943 Agricultural Appropriation Bill, 28182, 283-84; meetings about price control at, 304, 307-8; meeting on food administration at, 326; tenth anniversary of Roosevelt's first inauguration at, 367-68; meetings on farm policy at, 36871, 382-83; Wickard's conversation with Roosevelt at, on food administration, 376-77; meeting at, after death of Roosevelt, 39395 Wickard, Andrew Jackson (grandfather), 6-9, 15, 17, 29 Wickard, Andrew Jackson (Jack) (father); 4, during Wickard's boyhood, 7-9, 11-18; purchase of his first automobile by, 13; and Wickard's education, 16-17; giving of farm to Wickard by, 20; after Wickard's marriage, 23, 24; Wickard's indebtedness to, 29, 37; old age of, 45; attitudes, toward Wickard's political activities, 53; supervision of Fairacre Fan™ by, 68-69, 125; failing health of, 288 Wickard, Ann (daughter), see Pickart, Ann Wickard Wickard, Claude R.: on his family, 1; farms of, 2; as director of North Central Division of AAA, 2, 109-29, 227; appointment as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 3; birth of, 8; and grandfather, 9, 12, 15, 17; political heritage of, 9, 63; on his parents, 10, 288-89; religious heritage of, 10-11; early education of, 12-18; on his bovhood, 14; on his father, 14; /arm chores of, 14; on high-school classmates, 15; on college education, 16-17; on farm chores, 17-18; at Purdue University, 17, 19; on being a

Index farmer, 20; as farmer during First World War, 20-24; marriage to Louise Eckert, 21, 22, 23; on his failure to enlist, 22; and Farmers' Institute, 24-25, 27-28; early efforts as a speaker, 25; and Indiana Farm Bureau, 28-29, 32, 35-37; birth of children, 29, 32; indebtedness of, to his father, 29, 37; fertilization efforts of, 30-32, 45; farm income of, after First World War, 32-33; model farm of, 36-37; on precariousness of farming, 37; on Farm Problem, 37-38; Master Farmer award given to, 38-39; on success in family, 39; on himself in Farm Bureau politics, 40; on organization of farmers, 41; and 1928 election, 42-44; on Wallace, 44-45, 103-4, 108, 135, 151, 160, 293-94; Wallace on, 45, 106; on Federal Farm Board, 47; on meeting with Legge, 48; attitude of, toward retirement of submarginal lands, 49-50; election as State Senator (1932), 51-54; on politics, 52; on campaigning in 1932, 53-54; and Roosevelt, 53, 175, 200, 203, 293-94, 367-38; as Indiana State Senator, 54-58; on social affairs of pressure groups, 55; on his Veterinary Bill in Indiana legislature, 57; attitude of, toward McNutt machine, 58; Isaac Trent on, 58; on Iowa, 61; as member of Corn-Hog Section of AAA, 61-93; on a hog policy, 68; on leaving home for Washington, 69; and Wallace, 69, 99100, 125-26, 134-35, 151, 17071, 181-84; on special interest groups, 71; on Washington work, 72; on his ability, 79; and soil conservation, 81, 98-100, 188; on farmers, 83, 86, 97-99, 111, 182-83, 219, 265, 307; and com-hog policy, 85, 88, 96-97; on interdependence of economy,

Index 86; and soil rebuilding, 88; 1934 trip to Indiana, 90-91; as chief of Com-Hog Section of AAA, 94-102; vacating of his seat in Indiana Senate, 95; on soil conservation, 98; on farm program, 98-99, 271; on Ever-Normal Granary, 99; soil bank memorandum of, 99-100; at Columbus in 1935, 100; at Ames in 1936, 100-2; on news of invalidation of AAA, 101, 102; and Thome, 103, 196; as assistant director of North Central Region of AAA, 103-8; on visit to White House, 105-6; on Roosevelt, 105-6, 201, 248, 329n, 390; on politics, 106-7; 1936 campaigning for Roosevelt, 107-9; on new farm bill, 112; and new farm bill, 113; on politics and Department of Agriculture, 119; and Appleby, 120, 132-33, 150-52, 169-71, 177; at AAA meeting in Sioux Falls, 123-24; injuries from automobile accident, 12425; consideration of, as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 12627; as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 129-56; on appointment as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 127-29; swearing in as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 131; on world situation in 1940, 134; and 1940 Democratic Convention, 139-47; on his working for Wallace, 148; support for, as Secretary of Agriculture, 14857; on qualifications to be Secretary of Agriculture, 150; question of temporary appointment of, as Secretary of Agriculture, 150-56, 162-63, 163n; on honor of being Secretary of Agriculture, 152; on appointment of Appleby as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 154; on news of appointment as Secretary of Agriculture, 157; appointment of, as Secretary of Agriculture, 157-

421 59; as Secretary of Agriculture, 157-397; on reaction of others to his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture, 158; on Willkie, 158; attitude of Department of Agriculture staff members toward, 160-63, 167-71, 180, 29192; on Roosevelt at Bankhead's funeral, 164; on his visit to Hyde Park in 1940, 164-65; on approval of Second World War, 165; at Cabinet meetings, 165, 171-73, 209-10, 212-16, 226, 231-33, 239, 242, 243, 245-48, 252-54, 261, 263, 267-68, 29294, 310, 325, 337, 345-46, 356, 365, 372-74, 395; in 1940 campaign, 165-67; on change of fortunes of family, 167; and rumors of his replacement, 169-70; attitude of, toward Jump, 171; on administrative assistants, 171; on goods to England, 173; address at Baltimore Convention of American Farm Bureau Federation, 173-75, 178; attitude of, toward Farm Security, 175; attitude of, toward social security, 175; and Farm Bureau, 175-77, 178-79, 184, 189-92, 271, 27679, 345; assurance of position of Secretary of Agriculture, 177; and cotton, 177, 181-82, 188, 203; on food for Europe, 178; call of, for increase in nog production, 178-79; and 1941 inauguration, 183; on conversation with Wallace after 1941 inauguration, 183-84; on Lend-Lease Bill, 184-85; memo of decisions of7 186; assumption of leadership by, as Secretary of Agriculture, 186-98; on nation's health, 187; and parity, 187, 207-12, 213n, 217-25, 235-40, 279-87, 299-301; on disposal of farm surpluses, 188; on Evans, 189; on Farm Bureau, 191-92; and mobilization of agriculture, 19498; on conversation with Davis

422 Wickard, Claude R. ( Continued) about Food Administration, 195; on Food production, 199, 203-4, 212, 310; on period before Pearl Harbor, 199; on Roosevelt's attitude toward farmers, 200; and England, 200-4, 211-18; and Lend Lease, 200, 286-68; on controls of Department of Agriculture, 203; change in policy of production control by, 203-8; attitude of, toward inflation, 203, 213rt, 217-25, 280-81, 294-95, 300; on Roosevelt's reaction to his food production proposal, 206; on his announcement of his food production proposal, 207-8; on Roosevelt's attitude toward Hitler, 210; on preparedness of agriculture, 211; 1941 Midwest trip for food production program, 211-12; Ickes's note on parity statement of, 213n; on action of great nation, 214; on Roosevelt's attitude toward aid to Britain, 214; on aid to England, 216-17; attitude of farmers toward, 219, 384; on conversation with Roosevelt about parity, 220; speech at Hutchinson on Roosevelt's parity, and aid to England, 220-21; on meeting with Wallace and Perkins on Lend Lease, 222-23; as representative of farmers, 224-25; and Roosevelt's attitude toward farmers, 225, 315; on Roosevelt's strategy before Pearl Harbor, 228; as member of AngloAmerican Food Committee, 226; administrative qualifications of, 227-28; plan for reorganization of Department of Agriculture of, 228-30; as member of the Department of Agriculture Defense Board, 229; production "goals" of, 233-34; testimony of, for second Lend-Lease Appropriation Bill, 235; on his middle position in parity pressure groups, 237;

Index on repairing of farm equipment, 238-39; fats and oils, 238, 245, 255; opposition of, to drafting of farmers, 239; and rationing, 239, 310-11, 323; on Bledsoe, 24041; on sinking of Reuben James, 241; address before Farmers' Union Convention, 243-44; postwar program of, 244, 300, 301; on Roosevelt's briefing after Pearl Harbor, 246-48; on Roosevelt's request for declaration of war, 249; on his anxiety about war effort of Department of Agriculture, 250; and 1941 reorganization of Department of Agriculture, 250-52; and Tolley, 251-52; and price control, 25566, 299-309; and Henderson, 255-56, 259-60, 264-65, 336; on price control, 256, 264-65; on Roosevelt's attitude toward his work, 258; on publication of offthe-record criticism of Henderson, 260, 261; cartoons on, from Washington Star, 262, 284, 312; on discrimination against farmers, 265; on Roosevelt's labor policy, 268; on Russian negotiations, 267; on newspaper description of him as fooa "boss," 265; and food production, 26869, 358-83; and FSA, 271-72, 278; on CCC, 272; on Jackson, 274; dependence of, on staff, 277; on White House meetings on 1943 Agricultural Appropriations Bill, 281-82, 283-84; and farm labor, 287-88, 312-16, 36567; 1943 trip to Mexico, 285, 287-88, 292-93, 299, 312-13, 315-16; on Public Law No. 674, 286-87; 1943 visit to Fairacre Farms, 288-89; on home work, 290; qualities of, 292-94; on checking with Wallace, 293; on Roosevelt's inflation control proposals, 294-95; and hog panic, 295-98; as Chairman of Foods Requirements Committee, 293,

Index 303; and Nelson, 297; and subsidies, 298; on inflation, 300; Morgenthau on, 301; on Betty's marriage, 302; on Roosevelt's attitude toward price control, 304-5, 307-8; on Nelson, 304-5; on Byrnes, 309; and shortages, 310-12; on food administration, 311, 312, 318, 324-25; on farm labor shortage, 313; on farm wages responsibility, 317; and food administration, 317-57; on meeting with Byrnes on food administration, 318-19; on argument with Nelson, 319; on conversation with Roosevelt about food administration, 320; on conversation with Roosevelt about Lehman, 322-23; talk to fanners, 330-31; on his appointment as food czar, 332-33; illness of, 337-38, 340; on talk with Baldwin, 339-40; and marriage of Ann, 343-44; attitude of, toward Farm Bureau, 345; on Wallace's criticism of food administration, 347; on appointment of Parisius, 350; on nervous condition, 353-54; conversation of, with Roosevelt about Jackson, 356-57; on scarcities of food, 359; on farm prices, 361; criticism of, by Congress, 36263; at Ann's wedding, 364-65; at White House meeting on food administration, 368-70; criticism of, as food administrator, 368-72; and Department of Agricultural farm production report, 372-74; on reading of Department farm production report, 273-74; Davis on, 375, 384; visit of, to Philadelphia, 374, 376; on meeting with Roosevelt on food administration, 376-77; Webster on, 378; and appointment of Davis as Food Administrator, 378-83; on his feelings, after appointment of Davis as Food Administrator,

423 380-82; on relationship with Davis, 384; responsibilities of, after Davis appointment, 384; after appointment of Jones as Food Administrator, 385-87; and 1944 campaign, 388-89; on Wallace for Vice President, 388; on 1944 re-election parade, 389-90; on REA, 390-92, 396-97, 398, 399; on liberalism, 392; on meeting at White House after death of Roosevelt, 393-95; meeting of, with Truman, 396-97; on Truman's acceptance of resignation, 397; appointment of, as REA Administrator, 397-98; on his service, 400; relief of, as REA Administrator, 400 Wickard, Elizabeth (daughter), see Bryant, Elizabeth Wickard Wickard, Iva Lenora Kirkpatrick (Nora) (mother): during Wickard's boyhood, 4, 7-10, 1218; and Wickard's education, 15-16; opposition of, to Wickard's enlistment, 21-22; as mother-in-law, 23, 24; as grandmother, 45; during Second World War, 288 Wickard, Louise Eckert (wife): Wickard on, 1; marriage of, to Wickard, 21-23; and Wickard's parents, 23-24, 45-46; on Wickard as speaker, 25; birth of daughters to, 29, 32; and 1932 state senatorial campaign, 53; on move to Washington, 68-69; visit of, to Washington, 80-81; effect of Washington life on, 9596, 125; at meetings with Wickard, 123-24, 156-57, 243-44, 289; injuries from automobile accident, 124-25; and Wickard as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 127-28, 130; on Eleanor Roosevelt, 130; at 1940 Democratic Convention, 140, 143, 147; and 1940 campaign, 16667; as Wickard's confidant, 186, 325, 354, 364, 379, 380-81; and

424 Wickard, Louise E. (Continued) marriage of daughters, 343-44, 289, 302, 343-44 Williams, Aubrey, 391-92 Williams, Stanley P., 162, 163n, 193, 344-45, 355 Willkie, Wendell L.: and 1940 campaign, 139, 141, 148, 16566; Farm Bureau sentiment for, 175, 176; Roosevelt's criticism of, 263 Wilson John, 68 Wilson & Company, 71 Wilson, M. L.: attitude of, toward Wallace, 4; and professional training for agricultural administration, 13; Domestic Allotment Plan of, 50-51; and AAA, 59, 75, 82; as Under Secretary of Agriculture, 119; as Director of Extension Service, 126; as possible

Index successor to Wallace, 148-49, 151; as member of Agricultural War Board, 251 Wilson, Richard, 207 Wilson, Thomas, 71 Wilson, Woodrow, on Allies, 22 Wisconsin, 2, 46 Wolcott, Leon, 162, 193 Women's Democratic Committee, 125 Wood, William R., 51 Woods, W. W., 71 Woolton, Lord, 226 World War, see First World War; Second World War

Yalta Conference, 392 Yankton, S. D., 1C6 Yugoslavia, 226