Plague of Plenty
(See Cover]
Across the fertile countenance of the nation, the farmer bent his back in the June sun and worked the land. He labored wherever the earth lay open, the rain fell and the sun shone--from the lumpy flats of Aroostook County, Me., where the summer potatoes germinated in their dirt hills, to California's Imperial Valley, polka-dotted by the gold of new oranges and ripening honeydews.
In the undulating dairylands from Wisconsin eastward, the world's healthiest cows placidly ruminated the rich grass which magically replenished their udders faster than the nation could consume the flow of milk and cream. It was corn-cultivating and hog-fattening time in the black-soiled heartland fed by the Mississippi and her tributaries. In Iowa, the corn already stretched six inches toward the Midwestern sky, was building toward another big crop.
In the flatlands of Kansas, deep-tanned men, with wheat dust pasted to their faces, pushed the clattering combines northward in the annual harvest of winter wheat. The Shorthorns and Herefords lumbered lazily across the Great Plains; 13 million new beef calves bellowed at the smoky bite of the branding iron. Down South, in the weeks before the cotton bloomed white, stretching like a giant snowdrift from North Carolina through Texas, there were watermelons and peaches to be picked, small grain crops to be brought in, tobacco to be topped and suckered, beef and dairy cattle to be tended.
Beyond Moses' Dreams. In this mechanized land of milk and honey, there was abundance Moses never dreamed of. There was, in fact, too much of it. America's blessing of plenty had been transformed, by perverse economics and expedient politics, into a plague of plenty.
The result was a contagion of contradictions. Food prices were too high, yet the U.S. Government was spending or lending more than $11 million a day to keep them that way. There was more food than people would eat, yet at least 15 million Americans (plus 600 to 700 million in foreign lands) could not get enough of the right kind. One arm of the massive Department of Agriculture was feverishly shuffling schemes for limiting farm production; another arm was busily showing farmers how, to grow more, and paying some of them hundreds of dollars for doing it. Every conceivable advantage had been given to the farmer--tax-financed subsidies, crop insurance, cheap and plentiful power, the world's best farm machinery, the latest in agricultural science--yet the farmer was only uneasily satisfied with the present, and fearful of the future.
Doing its full share to keep up the eccentric cycle, the Government's Commodity Credit Corporation was spending and lending heavily to buy up the nation's overabundance and store it in grain elevators, underground caves, giant refrigerators, empty hangars and vacated warehouses. To keep the CCC going, the U.S. Congress last week agreed to add another $2 billion to its $4.7 billion bankroll.
Already CCC had stored up enough wheat and corn (516,242,531 bushels) to fill a freight train stretching 11,679 miles --almost halfway around the world at the equator, enough cotton (3,600,000 bales) to loom 90 million bedsheets. In storage it had all the dried eggs (88 million lbs.) that U.S. bakers would need for the next eight years, enough butter (99 million lbs.) for the baking of 495 million cakes, and enough powdered milk (316 million lbs.) to irrigate the Wheaties of all New York City's schoolchildren for several years to come. There were also small mountains of cheese, soybeans, tobacco, dried fruit and peas, rosin, cottonseed meal and other products which no one would buy and the Government could hardly give away--more than $2 billion worth in all, and more coming in every day.
The Chair-Warmer. Here, in the concrete, was the glowering, complex malady known as "The Farm Problem." Seated last week in the middle of it, buried to the top of his egg-bald dome in crop surpluses, statistical mousetraps and political pitchforks, was Charles Franklin Brannan, a plain, earnest, city lawyer from Denver, who is the 14th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.* A sturdy (185 lbs.) six-footer with inquisitive brown eyes, a hard-to-ruffle temperament and a scrubbed look, Charlie Brannan had neither farming experience, pocketfuls of votes nor campaign dollars to commend him when Harry Truman plucked him from a career post as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the spring of 1948 and raised him to the Cabinet. Destined as Harry Truman seemed to be at that time for political retirement, the President apparently could not find anyone else to take the job. "Charles Brannan," said Brannan recently with subdued sarcasm, "was just a guy keeping a chair warm ... for four or five months until a good Republican could move in." Believing, like his boss, that Gallup could be wrong, Charlie Brannan had campaigned tirelessly across the Farm Belt, helping to save his boss's job--and his own.
Charles Brannan, 46, is one of those Cabinet rarities, a career public servant who worked to the top of his department (another: Postmaster General Jesse M. Donaldson). After two years in the job, Brannan still seems to Washington more the hardworking, second-level Washington bureaucrat than the traditional Cabinet member. His relations with the White House are efficiently firm--he confers with the President a couple of times a week, usually lunches with him on Mondays. But the Secretary of Agriculture has never plunged into the panoply of Cabinet rank, nor has he been taken into the circle of cronies surrounding Harry Truman--"I don't play in the poker club," he says.
His idea of a good lunch is not a Salade Alfred nibbled to the music of violins in the velvety Carlton Hotel, but a rosy apple gnawed at his desk, or a delicatessen lunch thrown together in his office with fruits, home-canned goods and cheeses sent to him by friendly farmers. His idea of relaxation is reading law books. A Mormon,* he never smokes, sips a Scotch highball only when it seems to be the necessary social gesture. Yet, while maintaining the appearance of the man who gets lost behind a potted fern at cocktail parties, the Secretary of Agriculture has become one of the most controversial figures in U.S. public life.
Part of the controversy came with the job--running the fantastically costly, jerry-built farm-support machinery imposed on the nation by a generation of vote-conscious Congresses. The rest he brought on himself--by proposing to replace the whole shuddering shebang with a new and equally fantastic contraption known as the Brannan Plan.
Planned Scarcity. Devising plans to bail out the farmer has been a national pastime for nearly 30 years, ever since the Great Depression began for the farmer--not in 1929, but in 1921. It was then that farmers began crying in earnest for "equality for agriculture" (parity), demanding that Government guarantee farm prices to keep the farmers' purchasing power on a par with the rest of the U.S. They argued, and correctly, that if farm markets were sick, then the U.S. was unhealthy at its core. They did not get parity written into law until after the New Deal moved in with its valise full of devices to repeal the law of supply & demand. That was the day of Henry Agard Wallace's "planned scarcity," which killed little pigs and plowed under cotton, and the "ever-normal granary," which made loans on surplus grains and stored them for possible years of paucity.
By that time, poverty had spread its chill hand across the U.S. farmlands. Corn had dropped to 19-c- a bushel, hogs to 2 1/2-c- a lb. and cotton to a demoralizing 5-c- and 6-c- a lb.; dairy farmers were forced to sell their milk for 2-c- and 3-c- a quart. Foreclosures had deprived thousands of farmers of their farms; in Iowa alone, one out of seven farmers lost his land between 1926 and 1931. Godfearing, usually law-abiding men banded together and picketed highways, overturning milk into creeks. That was one way to get rid of surpluses.
Another way was supplied by Nature. The dust bowl of 1934-35 and the great drought of 1936 cut farm surpluses. But a fresh wave of poverty swept families westward from their deadlands to enact the saga of the Okies and tread the Grapes of Wrath.
About that time Charles Brannan got a job as regional attorney (Montana, Wyoming and Colorado) for the Resettlement Administration. Brannan, the city boy, knew little or nothing about farming; he had only milked some cows and gathered a few eggs in summertime on a cousin's farm. But he traveled the droughtlands by day, traveled the textbook maze of farm economics by night, learning to talk the farmer's language, and the bureaucrat's.
His bright and eager wife, Eda V. Seltzer (who supplies much of the push in the family), kept her schoolteaching job in Denver right up until her husband was transferred to Washington in 1944 (as associate administrator of the Farm Security Administration). Life among the high officials, diplomats and cocktail-sippers of the capital has not damaged the Brannans' pronounced, almost frugal, simplicity. Brannan's conversation is still punctuated by "Lordy" and "gosh," and an occasional ungrammatical "he don't." He and Eda Brannan live in a plain, two-room Washington apartment, with no children and no servant. He bought his first white tie & tails for Truman's Inaugural, complains that he has had no use for them since.
North & South Ag. The domain that plain Charles Brannan presides over is one of the largest duchies in the peacetime federal bureaucracy. With 72,000 employees sprinkled across the nation, Agriculture eats through a $734 million budget for operations alone--a long jump from the days when Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin sent home seeds and plant cuttings from abroad and George Washington vainly urged Congress to spend money to promote agriculture.
Today the department's Commodity Credit Corp. has an independent bankroll larger than the assets of General Motors, with which to plunge in the commodity markets and manipulate food prices. In two massive buildings astride the Washington Mall--North Ag and South Ag--are eight miles of corridors and 4,844 rooms. In rooms stocked with calculating machines and tabulators, scores of statisticians concoct crop and market reports so potent that they could, if mishandled, send prices gyrating and throw the U.S. economy into galloping confusion.
Only Nature herself works more insistently with the fate & fortunes of U.S. farmers. Agriculture's crop experts tell them how much they may grow (if they want Government supports) and economists decide how much they can collect for their crops. Its hydrologists help them outwit the weather; its Federal Crop Insurance Corp. protects them from loss if the weather wins. The Department's Rural Electrification Administration has brought electricity to more than 3,000,000 rural consumers; the Farmers Home Administration's 8,000,000 loans have helped 2,000,000 farm families. On a 12,000-acre research center at Beltsville, Md., department scientists tamper with Nature herself. They produce apples that won't crack, bananas that won't spot; they talk of corn that will yield 200 bushels to the acre (present average: 39), grain seed that can be planted in the spring and left untended until harvest time.
The Department of Agriculture sprawled and swelled partly because there was a real need for its services--spreading the knowledge and skills that have made the U.S. farmer the most efficient and richest in the world, and strengthening his vital position in the U.S. economy. It grew, too, because of bureaucracy's inborn knack for propagating itself. And it grew because farmers had come to realize that when they stood together, a cohesive one-fifth of the nation's voters, they could manipulate the U.S. Congress and plunge both arms elbow-deep in the vaults under Fort Knox. Lumped together, the representatives of the predominantly agricultural states filled more than 218 seats of the House of Representatives, a cold majority. Many a Senator probably could stay in office a lifetime if he only succeeded in getting the votes of all his farm constituents. Congressmen developed the high art of bartering support for their local crops by voting for someone else's; farm bills weren't designed, they were tacked and baled together.
Crazy Profusion. Congress cranked out farm bills like sausages. In 1938, with the enactment of the new AAA, parity at last came into full bloom. It was restricted at first to a few basic crops (wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, rice), and prices were pegged at a modest percentage of the value those crops brought in the nostalgic golden days of 1909-14. But it was not long before the law covered almost everything that springs from the earth and a goodly share of the products that are raised above it (e.g., eggs, butter, cheese, hogs, etc.). Such operators as tung-nut raisers, linseed growers and peanut producers got their products into the parity money, although nobody knew why in Ceres' name they were basic to the U.S. economy. The big engine spewed subsidies in crazy profusion. Worst of all, programs intended to lessen the farmer's losses from surpluses ended in increasing the surpluses themselves: it became profitable to "grow for the Government." There were times when a corn-and-hog farmer could sell his own corn to the U.S. for $1.35 a bushel, then turn around and buy corn for his hogs in the open market at $1.
In World War II the U.S. farmers did themselves proud: less than 1% of the world's population, they produced food for nearly half of the world. But there was a bill attached. As the farmer's production went up, so did his profits--and his prices. As the quid pro quo for his vote for vitally needed wartime price controls, the Farm Bloc Congressmen got even higher parity prices and a law decreeing that they would be extended without letup for two years after hostilities ended.
The U.S. consumer helplessly dug down deep to keep the parity machine revolving --he made up the bulk of the population, yet by some strange unbalance in Washington, he had almost nothing to say about how the contraption should run. For most of what he bought in the grocery store, and much of his clothing, he paid twice--once in high prices over the counter, again in taxes to finance the farm-support program to keep the price up. From his taxes came the money for such subsidy payments as the $3,759,000 paid to Russell Giffen of Fresno, Calif, for his 1948 grain, cotton and flax; $426,000 to the Reeds of Fort Fairfield, Me., and $216,000 to Rudolph Blier of Van Buren, Me. for his 1948 potatoes.
The Big Dream. The Republican 80th Congress sensed the obvious consequences of such ruinous economic nonsense. It passed the Hope-Aiken law of 1948, a step in the right direction. Money would have kept pouring out to the farmers in support prices ranging from a rigid 90% of parity on some products to as low as 60% on others. But Hope-Aiken never got into operation. Along came November 1948, and, with it, the Democratic Party's Big Dream. Although the Democrats had tacitly endorsed the 80th's switch to flexible price supports, the party turned on it in the campaign and yelled that the Republicans were trying to slice the farmer's income. Thus did Harry Truman accomplish the near-impossible, the blending of the labor vote with the farm vote. The triumphant Democrats thought giddily of the future: Why not make the farmer-labor marriage permanent?
At that moment, Charles Franklin Brannan stepped from behind his potted fern. Those who know Brannan as a sincere and honest man, comparatively unsullied by the politician's instinct, swear that it was coincidence; those who know politics call it fine timing. Anyway, in Charlie's hand was the Brannan Plan. It was rigged with something for the consumer as well as the farmer. The plan would guarantee farmers a tremendous, slightly varying total income each year (about $26 billion-or its equivalent in purchasing power). Brannan's Plan had a lot of hooks in it, so he had to outpromise everybody else to get the farmers' backing.
Present-style loan supports would continue for such storable crops as corn and wheat, but at even higher parity levels. Perishable crops--which account for 75% of U.S. farmers' annual cash income--would also be brought under a permanent price support, many of them for the first time. Here came Charlie's big trick. Prices of perishables (meat, vegetables, poultry, etc.) would be allowed to rise & fall in the market with supply & demand--and thus presumably give the consumer cheaper food. But the farmer would still get high prices because the Government would make up any differences. If, for example, the price of eggs were pegged at 45-c- and the farmer could sell his for only 35-c- a dozen in the market, the Government would give him the extra 10-c-. Instead of paying twice for farm support, in taxes and high prices, said Brannan smoothly, the taxpayer would pay only once, in taxes.
No Tests. By last week, the U.S. had had 14 months to examine Charlie Brannan's machine and study its insides. The two major farmers' organizations, the 1,400,000-member American Farm Bureau Federation and the 820,000-member National Grange had taken one look and gone to war against it; only the 500,000-member National Farmers Union was for it. The Congress had sniffed in horror, refused to make even a small test of the Brannan Plan, reverted instead to another year of rigidly high parity supports to be followed next year--maybe--by a halfhearted experiment in flexible supports. The Democrats themselves had haggled over the Plan; Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas, fighting desperately for reelection, had flatly declared against it.
But it was still a live political issue. Politician Harry Truman had recognized the potential magic of a gadget that promised something for everybody. He was also cagily capitalizing on the farmers' new worry. In the past two years, farm income--despite high prices and high supports--had bounced downward about 20%. This was mostly a natural decline from artificial alltime price highs in wartime, but, citing the price drops in a direful voice, the President implied that it wouldn't happen again--provided the farmers voted for the Brannan Plan and, incidentally, the Democrats.
The Plan, nevertheless, had to survive the criticisms of most farm economists and many farm legislators. To critics the Brannan proposals looked as dangerous as the malady they were supposed to cure. Nobody could make an honest prediction of what it would cost, including Charlie Brannan himself (he thought it might be no more than the present program); other guesses ranged as high as $9.5 billion a year.
While it might impose no new controls, the Brannan Plan would extend them to many more farmers. A lot of the controls were designed for the farmer's own good (soil conservation, sensible crop limitations, etc.), but any independent-minded farmer would have a harder time escaping them unless he wanted to sell all his produce at low, unprotected market prices. A wrong guess on a major crop could cost the Treasury millions more in subsidy checks; in this hazardous field, the Department of Agriculture's forecasting system had not distinguished itself in predicting the 1950 winter-wheat crop.
The Unimal. But what was the U.S. to do about its plague of plenty? If the present farm program was profligate and the Brannan Plan was apt to be even more so, what solution was there? If there were no politicians around to outpromise each other for the farmer's vote, could a sensible program be designed? Could the $25 billion-a-year farm business ever stand on its own feet? The answer, from most experts, was a guarded "maybe"; they could see a possible way out, though they argued about how to achieve it.
If the emphasis of U.S. agriculture were shifted from grain to livestock, and if Americans would increase their annual meat consumption (now about 145 lbs. per capita) by only 10 lbs. and drink 20 quarts more milk apiece a year, the experts believed the farm surpluses would fade away and the country would be a lot healthier. There was certainly a high demand for meat: cattle raisers get no subsidy and want none, and yet porterhouse was selling last week in Manhattan at a record $1.20 a lb. Cornell Farm Economist H. E. Babcock, one of the foremost exponents of "the livestock economy," had developed a symbol to tell the story. Bab-cock's "Unimal" is a queer creature with the face of a calf, the crest of a rooster, the forequarters of a sheep, the udder of a cow, the wings of a turkey and the hindquarters of a pig (see cut). The critter represents a composite of the kind of products farmers should raise more of and consumers should eat more of.
But for a farmer to change over to livestock required new equipment, new habits, new knowledges and plenty of capital. Brannan insisted that his farm plan was precisely the machine to convert the farmer--by bribing him with higher support prices for meats than for grains. But his critics pointed to an inconsistency: the Brannan Plan, mindful of the votes of the grain farmers, still promises high enough supports for grain products to keep wheat and corn growers satisfied with just what they are doing.
Getting His. The farmer himself, aware of all the complaints about farm subsidies and wasteful gluts, had begun to be touchily defensive about the whole subject. Neither the parasite that many a city dweller considered him nor the unfettered, rugged individualist he liked to fancy himself, he felt entitled to help from his Government. Industry, after all, had its tariffs and its Government contracts; the airlines and the shipping lines had their subsidies; the working man had social security, a guaranteed minimum wage. Why shouldn't he get his?
Actually the average good farmer was still riding the crest of the most prosperous wave in farming history. His farmhouse was fresh-painted and stocked with all the comforts a city dweller could ask, his home freezer overflowed with the best to eat, he owned one or two cars, his barn now held a collection of the best and most valuable farm machinery in the world. His mortgage was paid up or well on the way to amortization, his children could look ahead to four years in a good college.
There were some who talked like Corn &Hog Raiser Carroll Brown of Oskaloosa, Iowa. "When the farmer asks too much," he reasoned, "the rest of the guys may gang up on us some of these days and we'll get nothing." There were those who felt like C. B. Skipper of Georgia: "The Brannan Plan? I'm against it. I don't like to feel that anybody is giving me anything. The way things work now, I don't feel like anybody is giving me a handout." And there were, above all, farmers who spoke out like B. F. Vinson on his 150 Georgia acres. "I might not like some of the Government control," said he, "but I'd ruther have it than be turned wild aloose."
Brannan Plan or not, as long as there were farmers' votes and politicians to covet them, nobody in the foreseeable future was going to turn the farmer wild aloose.
* Since 1889, the first Cleveland Administration, when the Commissioner of Agriculture became Secretary and a member of the Cabinet. * Of a splinter sect, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter, Day Saints, which broke off from Brigham Young, refused to follow him to his promised land in Utah and ultimately settled down in Independence, Mo.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.