Wickard for Wallace

Men with the big, hard hands of farmers used to be rare around the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Henry Wallace, whose hands are more used to boomerangs than to ploughs, brought many a theorist into the Department after he became Secretary of Agriculture in 1933. But he also brought many more with honestly calloused palms.

One of Henry Wallace's hornyhanded men was sandy-haired, chunky Claude Raymond Wickard, who grows wheat, corn, alfalfa, Aberdeen Angus cattle, Hampshire hogs on his farm in Carroll County, Ind. Mr. Wickard started in a minor administrative job, moved up until last year he became Under Secretary of Agriculture. Although he seldom got public credit, his was the mind behind many of the New Deal's agricultural programs. If any man did, he understood the mystic mathematics of agriculture. Few weeks ago he impressed his associates by forecasting the 1940 corn yield, hitting remarkably close to the later official estimate (2,415,988,000 bu.). This week Claude Wickard got another promotion. Henry Wallace resigned to campaign for the Vice-Presidency; Claude Wickard was nominated to be Mr. Roosevelt's second Secretary of Agriculture. Said Claude Wickard, with expected modesty: "I intend to carry out the policies of Henry A. Wallace."

The President's letter accepting Henry Wallace's resignation warmly commended his "deliberation, true wisdom, and statesmanship," got in some good licks for the New Deal farm record. But the letter was more than a political instrument. It was Mr. Roosevelt's honest estimation of the man who more than any other was responsible for the U. S. agricultural program of the last seven years.

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